Websites decided not to load anymore...

LoLth

Got a weird internet explorer (well, windows) problem

Websites that have been used quite happily like
www.hotmail.com
www.hok.ie

are suddenly refusing to load
error: website cannot be found

System is windows XP SP2 (not limited to a single PC though).
IE is IE6 , 128 encryption, all updates installed
Windows is fully updated.

Other websites, like google etc will load fine.

what I've tried:
1. turned off xp firewall
2. turned off pop up blocker
3. made sure content filter was disabled
4. In security: set all settings to the lowest setting on all zones
5. privacy set to lowest setting
6. reset all cryptography settings in accordance with MS KB article below:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=822798
7. tried firebird instead of IE
8. Bypassed the company firewall (straight out through router)

This only started on Friday evening. I cannot however, replicate the problem on my own SP2 machine, also fully updated, identical settings. In fact, with everything switched on and all settings on the highest levels www.hok.ie still loads fine.

Any ideas what this could be?

the two sample sites above both use
HTML
CSS
Javascript
Tables

apart from that there's nothing too weird or wonderful. (it wont even load the login page of hotmail).

hshortt

Cache?

Try deleting the cache and force a refresh with CTRL+F5. Check the settings in Tools | Internet Options | Settings for how often a page is reloaded.

Rights?

Check that you have write rights to the temporary folder.

Proxy Settings?

When you go straight out via the router, ensure that all proxy settings are disabled.

DNS.
Can you run a NSLOOKUP from the command prompt? Type in hotmail.com and see if it gets resolved.

Also try to go to the site via a dial-up connection to rule out anything to do with your windows tcp/ip settings.

Gateway?
Have you got the correct gateway configured?

Policy?
Is a Domain or other policy preventing you from getting out. You can run GPResult to see the results of all policies loaded on your client.

After that I dunno really. I'd say it's not a good idea to reduce the security settings but I expect you did this temporarily to try to resolve the issue.

Good Luck,
cheers

LoLth

thanks for the reply (and the ideas)

Cache: all temporary files , web cache etc were completely cleared when I ran a spyware scan (used spybot, adaware and pest patrol just for that overkill feel)

User has Admin privileges to his pc.

no proxy settings, NAT or firewall/router rules that would affect it (besides the normal openign of outgoing ports etc. Win 2000 PCs on the network can access these sites fine by the way so that's a further proof of the firewall/router/lan not misbehaving)

Didnt think of NSlookup but yes the site resolves fine. which confuses things a little more

Switched over to a 56k modem , reconfigured dial up and tested. same result.

gateway: they can access other sites fine so there's no gateway issues (ipconfig just in case, all checks out fine)

Policies: No local policies set. Global policies dont affect web traffic or content in any way (and would affect the win2k machines as well if they did).

kenmc

another option is that something as set those sites up in your hosts file to point to your own machine (although hok.ie?? - I've seen a virus change the locations of all the antivirus websites to the local machine so that it can't download antivirus..)
check your hosts file anyway and make sure. sounds odd. can you ping the sites???

hshortt

Last ditch.... Try to reinstall SP2, something surely has messed up the registry or meta database. A refresh of SP2 will most likely clear that up, but you'll have to patch it back up again afterwards. Might be worthwhile doing this staged, to try and identify if one of the patches might be screwing it.

Good luck
Cheerio
Howard

hshortt

Ran a google and found this, it might be worth a go before reinstalling SP2.

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/IEFIX.htm

Cheerio
Howard

Gosh

Have you tried a System Restore to the point before you noticed this happening?

LoLth

started friday, did system restore to wednesday. no joy.

That IE fix thing looks interesting but SP already does that when you go
start>>run>>iexplore.exe /rereg (only works on SP2 machines)

tried a winsock fix for the hell of it.
netsh winsock reset catalog

off to download th eplugin for adaware and see if I can get more info that the netsh winsock show catalog command.....

Hosts file is grand. No entries (at all) beyond the home IP.

head is beginning to melt at this point.....

LoLth

ok, now it gets weirder...

one of the clients with this problem just mysteriously fixed itself. No reason. nothing done to it. no changes (I've been experimenting on one client). It just started working again.

aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

LoLth

mutter mutter..... As a last resort I got eircom to dro pthe dsl connection and let the router reconnect. all sites are working fine now.

I have no idea why that worked but it did.