Problem with Ryanair Website in Internet Explorer

carlovian

Hi,

We're having trouble with the Ryanair website today. As soon as we get as far as confirming a flight, Internet Explorer pops up a window with the usual error:

"Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Also, it gives the option to Send/Don't Send an error report to Microsoft. When we do send, it just gives some information about having the latest Microsoft Updates.

There's also a message in the Event Viewer about an error with kernel32.dll.

Almost all the affected machines are running Windows XP with IE 7 and all the latest updates and Service Packs, but it has also occurred on our few Vista machines. We've tried disabling Windows Firewall and our Anti-Virus software (AVG Network Edition), but the same thing happens. We tried Ryanair Internet Support, their only suggestion was to switch off the Firewall.

We have a large number of machines with this configuration, and switching to another browser isn't an option.

Anyone encounter this problem over the past few days? Or anyone have any suggestions about what else we can try?

carlovian

Hi, anyone else run into this problem? We're still seeing it on a regular basis.

John Small

The easy way to solve this problem is to use another web browser like Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer is famous for being riddled with bugs. Ordinary web users don't realise it, but web developers spend their days tearing their hair out and shouting obscenities at Bill Gates for unleashing this pile of poo on the world. If Internet Explorer (IE) had to compete on a level playing field no one would use it because it's so bad in comparison to other browsers.

The problem seems to be that other web browsers are developed to be just that, web browsers. But IE seems to have been developed as part of a plan for world domination and to keep users tied to Microsoft Windows. It's full of all kinds of fancy stuff that only works in Windows and Windows requires IE to be present in order to work properly. The result is that it doesn't do a single job, displaying web pages, but all kinds of extra things. But hardly any web developers ever use these things except to exploit the security holes they bring to IE.

Because IE has to fit in with other plans that Microsoft has, and because it's the default browser on Windows, the actual business of displaying web pages properly isn't given a high importance. The result is that it's garbage when compared with other browsers. Because it can't do the basic stuff of displaying web pages properly there are loads of web sites where web designers swap tips and tricks required to get IE to do a job other browsers can do without a problem. Some bugs and fixes are so famous they have names "the box model bug" or "the holly fix"

See this report for example and note the comment

Obviously, with IE7 Microsoft made great strides in correcting the most glaring and painful issues that plagued developers in IE6. But the unavoidable truth revealed by this reference is that Internet Explorer is still miles behind the competition.

I had to learn the awful details of getting around IE's multitude of bugs when I developed our website and I got so fed up with it I added a web page to explain and encourage users to switch to something else. It's here

Don't spend hours trying to get IE to work properly, save yourself some time, a headache, and make web developers everywhere happy, switch to something else

EvilMonkey

John Small wrote: »

The easy way to solve this problem is to use another web browser like Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer is famous for being riddled with bugs. Ordinary web users don't realise it, but web developers spend their days tearing their hair out and shouting obscenities at Bill Gates for unleashing this pile of poo on the world. If Internet Explorer (IE) had to compete on a level playing field no one would use it because it's so bad in comparison to other browsers.

The problem seems to be that other web browsers are developed to be just that, web browsers. But IE seems to have been developed as part of a plan for world domination and to keep users tied to Microsoft Windows. It's full of all kinds of fancy stuff that only works in Windows and Windows requires IE to be present in order to work properly. The result is that it doesn't do a single job, displaying web pages, but all kinds of extra things. But hardly any web developers ever use these things except to exploit the security holes they bring to IE.

Because IE has to fit in with other plans that Microsoft has, and because it's the default browser on Windows, the actual business of displaying web pages properly isn't given a high importance. The result is that it's garbage when compared with other browsers. Because it can't do the basic stuff of displaying web pages properly there are loads of web sites where web designers swap tips and tricks required to get IE to do a job other browsers can do without a problem. Some bugs and fixes are so famous they have names "the box model bug" or "the holly fix"

See this report for example and note the comment
I had to learn the awful details of getting around IE's multitude of bugs when I developed our website and I got so fed up with it I added a web page to explain and encourage users to switch to something else. It's here

Don't spend hours trying to get IE to work properly, save yourself some time, a headache, and make web developers everywhere happy, switch to something else

That doesn't solve the problem it avoids it. Its a good suggestion but the OP said

We have a large number of machines with this configuration, and switching to another browser isn't an option.

By the way none of the browsers you listed are fully compliant with web standards and they all have bugs. :eek:
OP try Start->All programs->Accessories->System Tools->Internet Explorer(no add-ons)

Ghost Train

I've had some sort of problem with the Ryanair site too the last week or so with my parents PC. Definitely seems to be the ryanair site... might be something to do with adobe software plugins too as these seemed to have an effect on a second machine

I read one or two other posts where people are having problems

The machine is vista 32bit, with IE7, avgfree av... upgrading to IE8 seems to help a bit but explorer still seems to crash after using the ryanair site

Alzar

I had a similar problem with IE7.
Fixed it by resetting back to default settings.
Perhaps worth trying on one PC & see if that fixes it?

Open IE, click Tools -> Internet Options, then click on the Advanced tab & lastly click on "Reset" down in the bottom right hand corner.

Be aware that this resets IE back to default settings & disables all browser add-ons etc.

Since I've done this I have no google toolbar etc, but neither do I have slow page loads or IE crashing.

HTH.
Al.

John Small

EvilMonkey wrote: »

That doesn't solve the problem it avoids it. Its a good suggestion but the OP said
By the way none of the browsers you listed are fully compliant with web standards and they all have bugs. :eek:
OP try Start->All programs->Accessories->System Tools->Internet Explorer(no add-ons)

Yes all browsers have bugs, it's just that IE has a lot more than the others. No browser supports all the standards but IE's support for the web standards is a long way less than every other browser. Here's a review

As for replacing IE not being an option. It's always an option and it takes only a few minutes. It's always faster and cheaper to switch out of IE than it is to trying fixing or work around its bugs.

It depends who's paying for the time taken to solve the various problems with IE. You or someone else. If it's someone else then IE is just an irritant to the users and a nice little earner for the IT department to stay looking busy, as they rush out the latest fix for a new security hole someone has exploited, and that's fine as long as someone else is paying. In my case I'm paying for the time it wastes so I never use it. As a web developer I'd agree with the sentiments in the article here If IE6 were a person, I'd punch that person in the face.

Why spend ages tricking about trying to get IE to work when you can just install Firefox and be done with it? Then when the next IE security scare report comes out you can rest in peace knowing that these scares stories always end with the words "... other browsers are not affected"

Noxegon

I'm seeing exactly the same issue this morning - just having this page open on Ryanair.com will reliably crash IE within about sixty seconds.

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=09&month=feb&story=gen-en-050209

John Small

Noxegon wrote: »

I'm seeing exactly the same issue this morning - just having this page open on Ryanair.com will reliably crash IE within about sixty seconds.

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=09&month=feb&story=gen-en-050209

Well it runs just fine in Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome. My IE 7, which I run without add-ons also works just fine. So as a previous respondent mentioned, turn off add-ons and you might get it to work.

Alzar

John Small wrote: »

Well it runs just fine in Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome. My IE 7, which I run without add-ons also works just fine. So as a previous respondent mentioned, turn off add-ons and you might get it to work.

+1

Just clicked on that link using IE7 with no add on's - sweet as a nut

Al.

EvilMonkey

John Small wrote: »

Well it runs just fine in Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome. My IE 7, which I run without add-ons also works just fine. So as a previous respondent mentioned, turn off add-ons and you might get it to work.

So its probably not an IE bug? :eek:

carlovian

Thanks to all for your contributions, sorry about the delay in getting back to you. We thought we'd made some progress, but the problem seems to have arisen again:

- We followed the suggestion about the Adobe Add-On and seems to have solved the problem in Windows XP.
- We still see problems occurring intermittently on Windows Vista systems. While it's not crashing the same as before, it takes up to several minutes to load pages sometimes. In particular when you get as far as actually booking the flight, doing on-line checkin or managing a booking. We've tried (1) starting with a brand new Vista installation with no other applications and (2) Internet Explorer in "No Add-ons" mode, but it still happens.

As I said before, changing from IE isn't an option.

Any other suggestions?

Griffen262

Hey, i have this problem too, but with bebo.I get an error report and get logged out and IE is shut down. But only when i browse through photos or click the 'back' button in the toolbar.I tried reseting IE but still have the same problem and i dont really want to change to firefox or any other browser. So could someone please help me.


Cheers!!

carlovian

After a lot of searching, we have now found a solution to this problem also on our Vista Machines. We found the source of the problem to be with Real Player, and in particular the DLL file "C:\Windows\System32\rmoc3260.dll". The specific version of this file that we had installed on Vista was 6.0.10.72. We've solved the problem by unregistering this DLL - it means that we can't load RealPlayer directly from IE. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has the same version, or needs help with unregistering it.