Telstra last night was dealing with a new crisis with some of its broadband users unable to access hundreds of websites most of yesterday. Businesses were among those hit, in some cases unable to access mail and with their hosted websites inaccessible to customers.

Not all websites were affected. But users were complaining that websites hosted by Bluehost, HostGator and Hostmonster would not load in the browsers of some Telstra broadband users.

The outage appeared to have gone on all day yesterday in what was a separate incident to Tuesday’s massive mobile outage.

“I am losing business, can’t access my site, emails or cpanel (hosted website panel), said one Hostgator user. “Same for us and ours (is) hosted with HostGator too, said another.

“Australian friends! #Telstra have killed my website all day (along with thousands of other Bluehost customers.)., tweeted acclaimed soprano and opera singer Natalie Peluso.

“Several other people are having this problem today also, accessing Bluehost.com servers, said another. “Do we have any updates on when this may be resolved? said another.

One user wrote they had experienced the same problem with two sites they hosted — ozbathroom.com.au and letour.com. Camdenshow.com was another site listed as affected.

Affected users trying to access these website typically received a message that their browser could not find the server. Author Bronwyn Parry on Facebook said the problem appeared to be a routing or domain name server issue.

WA branding agency Brandicoot last night said that it alone had more than 200 websites on HostGator servers with more than 700 email users.

“We’ve been fielding complaints non stop all day. Stress levels v high. NRL WA, Greyhounds WA, local shires, et al, it said on Twitter.

“Every one of our clients with issues is with @Telstra I’ve confirmed iinet, Westnet, Exetel et al have no issues, the agency said.

Telstra this morning said it had fixed the problem at 2.12am and said offshore sections of the internet were to blame. It “was an issue upstream that needed to be fixed, Telstra said in a tweet to one customer.

Last night one of the US-based host providers told its customers that the problem was at Telstra’s end. “This is an issue on Telstra’s end, so we do not have an ETA unfortunately.

The columnist Professor Ross Fitzgerald was another affected. He could not access his own website from his Telstra broadband account from around 9am yesterday although it remained accessible through other ISPs during the day. It is hosted by Hostmonster in the US. It came back online through Telstra overnight.

And this journalist received reports that his personal website could not be accessed by some Telstra broadband customers. It too is hosted by hostmonster.com. But it was accessible through other ISPs such as Internode.

Telstra has been left reeling after human error on Tuesday caused a massive outage which disrupted 3G and 4G services accessed by 16.7 million mobile users.

Mike Wright, managing director, Telstra networks said 15 to 20 per cent of mobile customers were affected.

“We’re trying to understand exactly what happened minute by minute. We have thousands of elements in the network, we make thousands of changes a night, all under control procedures.

Chris Griffith, The Australian, February 11, 2016