Why Does This Happen?
China has a firm hold on its internet service. The Chinese government may, from time to time, decide to block websites or DNS traffic. Based on what we usually see the main issue appears largely to be DNS resolution; for whatever reason, our websites (both US and EU) do not always resolve to the correct IP addresses in China. This may change from request to request, depending on where the user is located in China.
Is There a Workaround?
At this time, no…likely, it will just start working again at some point.
Help Us Help You!
It seems that reports of this issue are on the rise so we'd like to recruit you to help us help you with this issue.
If you are experiencing this issue personally some additional information would be really helpful. Run one of the following on a command or terminal line and paste the result in a support ticket to us. This will help us better understand how often this is happening and why.
Windows
tracert www.surveygizmo.com
Mac or Linux (This option will only work if trace route is installed)
Traceroute www.surveygizmo.com
Here are some additional sites for more information:
http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=www.surveygizmo.com
http://www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html
What should I avoid in surveys that will be shared with respondents in China?
Many of the fonts available for your survey are provided using Google Fonts which is blocked in China. If you are using one of these fonts it will take awhile for the request to time out.
As such, if you are deploying a survey that you expect folks in China to respond to it is best to use a web-safe font. To do so, go to the Style tab of your survey. For both the Header Text and the Body Text select one of the following:
- Arial
- Courier New
- Georgia
- Tahoma
- Times New Roman
- Trebuchet MS
- Verdana
