This is really crazy, but maybe someone can help: Windows XP Pro, AVG Antivirus free, no firewall other than windows firewall. Behind a router, but other computers behind router have no issues. All of the sudden, I'm experiencing the following symptoms: In all web browsers, links do not load in general. For example, I'll click a link, a bookmark, the refresh button, form submit button, etc. Firefox will display the "busy" icon for about 2 milliseconds, then act like nothing happened (like I hit the stop button or something). IE6 displays the EXACT same issue (so that throws out FX extensions, which I tried disabling anyway to see what was up). If you click the button enough, it will sometimes go through normally, and sometimes it will load about half the page (images/flash won't load, CSS sometimes won't load, etc). All pages work *eventually* but sometimes I have to click the refresh button ~20 times to see the page. This seems to apply to all HTTP communication on the system. Sometimes AIM has trouble connecting, HTTP downloads have issues completing, etc. FTP, Bittorrent, and other protocols seem to be ENTIRELY UNAFFECTED. Does anyone have ANY experience with something like this happening? I'm really confused and getting quite upset Let me know if any more info would be helpful.
Also - restarting the computer doesn't change anything. I still need to try safe mode, but any suggestions while/before I do that? I am also running Ethereal just for kicks, and I notice that when I click the buttons and nothing happens, no outgoing HTTP request is registered, but when it decides to go through, they show up in the packet sniffer.
how long has it been going on? did you install anything that may have prompted it? i'm completely stumped.
Do you have the internet fully functional with you IM program? Try this: 1- make sure that you have only 1 anti-virus installed, and do a full system scan. 2- Uninstall anything you don't need. 3- try your best in getting Ad-aware and/or AVG Anti-Spyware free edition, and perform a full system deep scan. 4- Get CCleaner (freeware), and do a file clean and registry clean. [http://www.ccleaner.com/] NOTE: setup comes with Yahoo toolbar, just uncheck the box so that you don't install it. 5- Reboot your computer properly (Start>Shutdown, don't force a shut-down>Turn it back on) 6- If you can, try to do a Windows update on IE, try to get IE7, for one it's better then the 6, and MIGHT fix windows issue. If that doesn't help, try a direct link to the internet Modem>PC (you will need to unplug power of your modem, wait 30sec, and put it back to start a new connection). You will also need to restart your computer. If that still doesn't help, then look at your services to make sure you don't have anything odd in it (usually something with no comments is a program or malware installed on your machine, so check that out. Also make sure that the proper services are running, and that nothing disabled or stop a service. You may need to reboot to see results. If that still doesn't help, then a Windows repair would be the solution. If you have all your files in a different drive or partition or have a current backup of your system files, do a windows re-installation. If you had Vista, I would say backup only your files (if they are in the same partition as Windows), and do a "go-back-in-time" action with windows DVD, and you would be back on track in less then 2min. (As it would restore your computer back to that day)
IM program works fine. 1. I only have AVG installed. Full scan turns up nothing unexpected. 2. I'm not a dumbass about computers, I need everything I have installed. Besides, installing something didn't prompt this, to my knowledge. 3. I ran Counter-spy and ad-aware, they turned up nothing 4. CCleaner cleaned up a bunch of junk, as it always does, but didn't fix anything. 5. Reboots don't help, unfortunately. 6. I will try this later, but I doubt that this is the issue because I never use IE, be it 6 or 7. My internet connection / router is not the problem. I'm on an intranet with fast DHCP and no DNS issues, my other computers work fine. Besides, the computer seems to have no problem connecting to the internet, it's just web browser stuff that's not working. No services that I don't know about. Any other clues before I do windows repair and/or reinstall?
If your IM works fine, then something is definitely weired... you probably tried that already, but FULLY uninstall Firefox, delete it's folder, pass Ccleaner just in case it left out stuff in the registry, and re-install it, or try Firefox 3 Beta 1 (Well... maybe not as it's beta... hehe) Once I had a Firefox problem, where web surfing was EXTREMELY slow, heck even Firefox keeps freezing now and there. When I look at the add-on/extension manager in Firefox I saw something... something NEW, an add-on that search for keyboards and TRIED to pop-up with Firefox commercials. As you know, Firefox has a pop-up blocker... that might explain the issues with the this spamware. At the time I had 2 users on my computer, me and my parents account... I'm sure it comes from them. I was sure their account was set on Limited, but I guess I forgot to do that, as I saw they were set on Admin. But that's an other story, and I don't think it even close to your issue... but try to uninstall all add-ons.
I am already running 3.0b2, but the same thing happens when I downgrade (wiped) to 2.0 latest. I tried ditching the extensions but that had no effect on the link issue :-/ I guess i'll run some more scans and see if anything clears up.
could be the router. reboot it and see what happens(unplug it for about 20sec then plug it back in...the power that is) we have a bad router, and when it craps out, it doesn't like to send any internet info, but messengers will still work. just a thought
As it happens with both browsers, and there are not HTTP requests being sent, have you tried uninstalling all networking windows components, rebooting and then re-installing them (Add/Remove windows features)? You might need your Windows disk (unless the install directory is on your drive) Also, I'd do like Doug said and install IE7. I actually prefer it to FF now.
Set the ip address of the network adapter to static. I.e. in Vista, go to ipv4 settings and if your router is 192.168.1.1, try setting the laptop to 192.168.1.10, set the subnet to 255.255.255.0, set the default gateway to 192.168.1.1 and set the primary dns to 192.168.1.1 - leave the secondary dns blank. See if that does anythng for you.
Could be a DNS issue as above I had a similar thing on my router where it didn't like assigning dynamic DNS address information (something that happened overnight for no reason)
What he said. Whenever I've had anything resembling what you're experiencing it's been the DNS handling in Windows that has crapped out. Try doing the ipconfig dance in a command prompt: ipconfig /flushdns ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew And as Kenco said, try setting your IP and DNS manually and see if it solves it.
