Web application doesn't work with server name and windows authentication but does with IP Address

Question

I have an application that was working on a II 6 development server that uses Windows Authentication. It is a Iron Speed application and I updated a few items and deployed it to the test server where it was previously tested. After deployment, the application doesn't work with Windows Authentication, doesn't even get the credentials login, when I used the full name devweb.etc. It displays a 403 error. However, if I use the IPaddress for it, everything works fine. If take away the windows authentication, the app shows up but of course doesn't work saying it needs a login but it does resolve the web address correctly. I have other applications on the devweb server without window authentication that work without a problem.

Does anyone have any idea of what could cause an application to act in this way?

Answer 1

This ended up being a firewall related issue. More specifically, the firewall switched various websites with the server name devweb to another server which worked fine. Thus, when it appeared like the server was working because devweb sites were working but my particular site on devweb wasn't working except when using the ipaddress. In fact the server was not working correctly and their was a DNS entry problem. Overall, a very frustrating comedy of errors that took too many hours of my life.