All socket connections fail
Before you claim that all socket connections fail, be sure to test:
Connections to your local site.
Connections to the web site of your web hosting provider (which is probably on a separate server but the same local network as your site).
Connections to major web sites like http://www.yahoo.com/
Connections using an IP address instead of hostname, i.e. http://131.107.93.65/
If some classes of sites can be accessed, review Only some socket connections fail.
Otherwise, when all socket connections fail, most likely:
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Your web hosting provider has disabled sockets privileges as a matter of policy.
This is the standard policy for free hosting providers. Hosting providers that offer both free and paid accounts also tend to disable sockets.
Most other providers allow sockets.
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Or, the network architecture at your web hosting provider prevents outbound sockets from being made.
In these cases, your options are very limited. Here are some ideas:
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Contact your web hosting company and ask whether they have a policy against scripts which open sockets. Ask whether they have a special network configuration, reverse proxy, or firewall that prevents socket connections on port 80.
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If your web hosting company says that sockets should work, then you should go to xav.com and acquire the Testpak set of applications. It includes a script called "sockets test" which contains the most basic possible set of tests of sockets connectivity. Install that and confirm that sockets still fail. Then contact your web hosting company and show them this as a demonstration of the problems you're having.
If you use FDSE as an example of sockets not working, then the web host may become overwhelmed due to the size and complexity of FDSE, and they may choose to blame the script rather than their configuration.
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If your web hosting company doesn't respond, or responds in the negative, here are some ideas.
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You can choose to run FDSE anyway, using the file-system crawler instead of the web crawler. Instructions for setting this up can be found at Administration: Creating a "file system" realm.
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You may build your index files on a remote system where sockets work normally (such as your local computer) and then simply FTP the completed index files up to your main search server. See Building index files remotely.
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You can use a remotely-hosted solution like freefind.com, atomz.com, or google.com.
You could also obtain a separate sockets-enabled hosting account, install FDSE there, and use that as a remotely-hosted search solution for your main site.
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You might move to a different hosting provider altogether.
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"All socket connections fail"
http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/help/1152.html