I have been trying to access the website Distrowatch and I get an "unavailable due to account issues' message in every attempt I made. What does it mean? It's as if the website does not exist at all. I tried another browser and it gave me the same message. Is it a problem with my computer?
Hello Coshaun
This error is displayed when the site is down due to domain name issues. There is nothing wrong with your computer. The domain name of Distrowatch was temporarily suspended. Thus the problem of unavailability. The best way to check this, is to try other sites. If you are able to browse one, you should be able to browse others too!
If that’s what you see whenever you access the website, it could mean a problem with the site’s hosting service. One possible cause is abuse. The hosting service can restrict access to the website when it violates any of the items mentioned in the hosting provider’s TOS or Terms of service. All websites you access on the internet are strictly following the policies governed by their respective hosting providers.
If a website violates its hosting provider’s terms, the site’s account may be suspended or worst terminate its contract. On the other hand, if you cannot access the website, check the URL you are trying to access. If you are accessing “https://distrowatch.com” but you cannot open it, try adding “www” to the URL, “https://www.distrowatch.com”.
When I first tried to access the site without the “www” prefix, I was unable to load the site. But when I added the “www” prefix, the site loaded immediately. “DistroWatch” is a website that provides popularity rankings, news, and other general information about different Linux distros including other free, open-source Unix-like platforms like BSD, MINIX, and OpenSolaris.
The site now has information on more than a few hundred distros.
