so. The fact that you can connect from the server but not from a client tells us that the server's dns is using /etc/hosts but the network's dns is something different. The fact of the matter is you changed the hostname. Now you can't connect because the host can not be found. It's pretty common sense.

i beg to differ. I didnt change the hostname. I only changed the ip address. And when i changed back to the original ip, i still get the same error messages. Whether its new or original ip address

1) i can still do a ping, telnet of hostname and ip
2) nslookup is resolving to the same hostname and ip.