Issue with the MSC Direct website

clarnibass · Jul 9, 2018

Hi

I wasn't sure what is the right sub-forum for this, please move if this is the wrong one.

If I go to the MSC website I get a message: "MSCdirect.com is currently not available for your use."
It says that "If you feel you've received this message in error" to contact them by phone or email and they will be happy to assist.

Well I emailed and got a reply that I should call for help. I'm in a far away country and prefer email, which they suggest, plus it's a toll free number which is problematic to call from abroad.

I was able to have one person in the USA check and the website worked fine.
I've ordered from them several time before.
Maybe I'm crazy but it seems like they blocked the website to outside the USA (or North America maybe)...

I couldn't find anything by Googling that "error" message or anything about their website being down or blocked to anyone.

Does anyone know anything?

Thank you!

mc3608 · Jul 9, 2018

Works for me in Texas

Colt45 · Jul 9, 2018

They shut down their website regularly, usually at night time, to do updates on it.

red beard · Jul 9, 2018

I would assume that they don't ship to your country and that they have their website set up to block anyone trying to access it from a country that they don't ship to.

Did you try the UK version? MSC Industrial Supply Co.

clarnibass · Jul 9, 2018

Thanks. I'm checking elsewhere too, and it seems that no one in the US is having this issue and it works fine. So far I found one person in Europe who could check and they have the same problem. So it seems that they are blocking it, possibly what red beard suggested. I've always had my orders shipped to a US address, but can't access the website now. The UK version is working, which doesn't matter since my orders are to a US address.

Oldwrench · Jul 9, 2018

Just phoned MSC and they said since you're half a day away you probably tried while the site was shut down for updating, which they do just about every night.

steve-l · Jul 9, 2018

I just accessed MSCDIRECT.com Worked OK for me, but I didn't buy anything either. I'm in Germany.

dalmatiangirl61 · Jul 9, 2018

Have you considered that maybe it is your own government blocking you?

fmari --MariTool- · Jul 9, 2018

In this day and age shutting down a website for maintenance is laughable. Absolutely not needed. Create mutiple databases, mutiple " instances". Ramp up new site, shut down the old site. Little more involved than that but any programmer making six figures can do it.

Guest · Jul 9, 2018

MSC sucks to no end, you need to find other vendors to buy from. They are on my "buy from at last resort" list along with Graingers. My sentiments are shared by many others here. What are you buying? Let us help you find better sources.

true temper · Jul 9, 2018

Bobw where are you? Tell them how well you like MSC.

clarnibass · Jul 9, 2018

OK so I did get another more informative reply from them. According to them, they did some security updates and as a result some IP address are blocked in error. In those cases the error is the same as what I get so it's possible this is the problem.

dalmatiangirl61 said:
Have you considered that maybe it is your own government blocking you?

Yes, and they are not... yet.

Dualkit said:
What are you buying? Let us help you find better sources.

In this case I was planning on browsing their dies page and see. I was looking at a couple of non-standard sizes that I remember only seeing there. I don't remember what they are right now, maybe M2x0.35mm and M2x0.45mm.

Also MSC is one of the only sources I found for good quality (Japanese) adjustable dies. All the dies available locally are either very good closed dies, or cheap Chinese adjustable dies.

Oldwrench · Jul 9, 2018

fmari --MariTool- said:
In this day and age shutting down a website for maintenance is laughable. Absolutely not needed. Create mutiple databases, mutiple " instances". Ramp up new site, shut down the old site. Little more involved than that but any programmer making six figures can do it.

Sure. WTF, it's only digitizing a 4,454 page catalog incorporating products from a large number of suppliers. Piece of cake to keep that updated.

As an aside, it is not out of the question that his government might block his access. Until a couple years ago motorsport was actually illegal in Israel...and for all the import obstacles it still might as well be.

clarnibass · Jul 10, 2018

Oldwrench said:
As an aside, it is not out of the question that his government might block his access. Until a couple years ago motorsport was actually illegal in Israel...and for all the import obstacles it still might as well be.

Murder is also illegal... more hard evidence. Sorry but it's obvious you don't understand what's going on here (in Israel). MSC didn't even ship to Israel (as far as I remember) and you can get any similar product from so many other websites that are not blocked. I guess it's different if you are not here, but it's very easy to tell that in this case it wasn't the government blocking it. If you are talking about things like Chinese government blocking Facebook, etc. this doesn't happen here... yet. MSC would be way low on the list (so low it wouldn't even be on it).

Re motor sports, I have no idea about that, but there was a huge Formula event here a few years ago organized by... the government.
I just searched a bit more and found the Israel Motor Sports Association which started in 1990. There is actually a motor sports academy where you can take courses.
I have no idea where you came up with this. The government here is one of the worst, just horrible, but in this case it's not it. BTW MSC is not known here, probably next to no one in Israel even heard of it, let alone order from them.

Anyway, back to reality, two people from two different countries got the exact same error message and MSC pretty much confirmed this is exactly what happens because of the glitch in their update.

fmari --MariTool- · Jul 10, 2018

Oldwrench,

4454 pages is nothing. It could be 1 million pages. Its just data. A good website should already have his site on several servers. Mine is on the East coast, West coast, Europe, etc. It makes your website more responsive. If for some reason the East coast server is down the West coast server takes over instantly.

If your website has a lot of photos its not uncommon to have a seperate server just for that. When you are on some websites the text may be comming from one server and the photos may be comming from a different server several hundred miles away. Pages load much faster since the load is shared.

Oldwrench · Jul 11, 2018

clarnibass said:
Re motor sports, I have no idea about that, but there was a huge Formula event here a few years ago organized by... the government...I have no idea where you came up with this.

I came up with it because I have manufactured race car parts, shipping them internationally for the last 30 years, and there was a time when auto racing was prohibited in Israel. Maybe longer ago than a couple years (time seems to compress as one gets older) but it really was. Since you admit you don't know about it, why argue? Are you Gordon in another life?

Oldwrench · Jul 11, 2018

fmari --MariTool- said:
If your website has a lot of photos its not uncommon to have a seperate server just for that. When you are on some websites the text may be comming from one server and the photos may be comming from a different server several hundred miles away. Pages load much faster since the load is shared.

They also load quicker if you use the same photo 500 times. The time and effort spent on website updating I was referring to is that required to accurately present the product for sale, individually and grammatically. But, hey, whatever works.

Guest · Jul 12, 2018

clarnibass said:
OK so I did get another more informative reply from them. According to them, they did some security updates and as a result some IP address are blocked in error. In those cases the error is the same as what I get so it's possible this is the problem.

Yes, and they are not... yet.

In this case I was planning on browsing their dies page and see. I was looking at a couple of non-standard sizes that I remember only seeing there. I don't remember what they are right now, maybe M2x0.35mm and M2x0.45mm.

Also MSC is one of the only sources I found for good quality (Japanese) adjustable dies. All the dies available locally are either very good closed dies, or cheap Chinese adjustable dies.

McMaster-Carr has those sizes I just checked, also even though they don't list brands pretty much everything they carry is of good quality. They are very weak in the insert tooling category unfortunately. Also their website and customer service is the gold standard.

NAST555 · Jul 12, 2018

I think the only time I have gone to the site is when someone on here links to it to help someone out.
I just tried to go to it, I this pic,

Newman109 · Jul 12, 2018

It's too bad that they ignore international business. On the other hand, I would never buy anything from MSC. They bought ENCO and killed it and then raised their prices. Their prices are simply ridiculous even if you are in the US and could buy from them.

Issue with the MSC Direct website

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