IE/Firefox does not load some web pages

Gurus, I have been having this issue for quite some time now. I am unable to load some websites in either IE or FireFox. I have two systems one with Windows XP and the other with Windows Vista. The problem is identical on both machines. What is even more surprising is the fact that I had completely formatted the C drive on my windows vista machine, reinstalled the OS and I still have the same issue. I also have a windows XP machine from my office. From my home network, I am able to connect to all these sites using my office machine without any problems. I have the following installed on my box: 1. AVG AntiVirus software 2. SpywareBlaster 3. Spyware Guard 4. AdAware 5. McAfee Site Advisor. Some of the sites that I am having difficulty in loading: 1. www.msn.com 2. www.microsoft.com 3. www.citicards.com (www.citibank.com works but unable to get to citicards) 4. www.delta.com Any help will be most appreciated. I am posting my HJT logs along with this post. Thanks, Navin

Hi navin, welcome to WTT.

First, try booting to Safe Mode with Networking then see if you can connect to these sites. You get to Safe Mode with Networking by pressing F8 (or F5) during boot when you see the computer manufacturers logo. Press it once a second until you get the Windows Advanced Option Menu, then select Safe Mode with Networking.

If you can then something is starting at boot time that is causing the problem.

Use msconfig to determine what is causing the problem.

These are good tutorials on using msconfig in XP or Vista:
How to use msconfig in Windows XP
How to use msconfig in Windows Vista

First, open Control Panel and click on Windows Firewall. If it's Off, turn it on because you will be disabling any other Firewall and Anti-virus in the following steps.

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab then the Disable All button.
Reboot and see how your browser works now.
If okay then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no different, start msconfig and click on the Services tab.
Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box then click the Disable All button.
Reboot and see if how your browser works now.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system. Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best. Enable everything else you disabled.

Disable Windows Firewall if you enabled it at the start of this process.

Post back with your results please.

Hi Rich, Thanks for the quick response. I booted into the safe mode with networking like you suggested and disabled all apps. The startup did not have too many things to begin with. Just had the following: 1. 3 utilities for the Intel chipset. 2. 2 Microsoft components (sidebar and welcome centre) 3. Adobe Acrobat - I installed this earlier this morning and so it should not have any impact. 4. AVG Antivirus components (avgtray.exe) 5. SpywareGuard (installed yesterday based on some reports read yesterday on whatthetech.com) I rebooted windows into normal mode and I still have the same issues. I have been able to visit the usual websites like cnn, foxnews etc but not msn or microsoft. I also ran malware bytes program, adaware, kaspersky online virus scan and none of them have reported any issues with the system. Thanks, Navin

Navin, did you also try disabling all the non-Microsoft services via msconfig as I suggested? From what you said it looks like you did only the Startup items.

Also, please take a look at your hosts file, see if any of those sites are in there:

Click on Start then Run, type notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and press Enter

That will open it in notepad.

Hi Rich, I tried all that you mentioned in your posts to no avail. As i had mentioned earlier, my vista box is clean and the only utilities I have are AVG, Google Updater and Spyware guard. I disabled all three, rebooted and tested. Still the same results. I checked the hosts file and the only 2 entries I found were as follows: 127.0.0.1 localhost ::1 localhost I guess the second line is vista specific. Either ways, I tried to delete the line and see if it would make an impact but no luck there either. Will await further guidance. Thanks, Navin

Hi navin. I'm stumped at the moment. I'll ask for help from the other techs, see if they have any suggestions.

See if running FireFox in Safe Mode clears up the situation.
If it does, then you know that some one of your add-ons is the culprit.

To open FireFox in Safe Mode:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

There probably more, but I'm running out the door at the moment.

Best Regards

Check your Internet Explorer - Restricted Zone to see if any of these sites have been mistakenly added. If so, remove them, but keep "default settings" in Restricted Zone. Gotta Run.

Got this from one of our other techs (thanks Tallin)!, give it a try if Doug's suggestions don't help (thanks Doug!)

I had the same problem with one site on the net a few months ago and had to enable a Proxy

• Start
• Settings
• Control Panel
• Internet Options
• Connections
• LAN Settings
• Enable a proxy server

I found mine by clicking 'settings' after I enabled proxy server. I had no more problems after I did the above.

Navin, could you please tell me more detail about what is happening when you "cant access msn.com or microsoft.com?" What is the specific browser error when you try to get to this site?

Secondly, if you are unable to access the web site, please go to the command prompt (click start -> run -> type 'cmd' and press ENTER (on XP) Or, start -> programs -> accessories -> command prompt (on Vista)). At the command prompt type ping www.msn.com and press ENTER. See what the results are. One of three things will occur when you type this ping command. It will either say "Ping request could not find host…", or you will get a series of 5 "request timed out" responsed, or you will get a series of 5 "reply" responses with a round trip time in milliseconds. I need to know which result you get.

EDIT: all the websites you listed block ping requests, so you will only get one of two responses from PING. It will say "could not find host." or it will give you 5 request timed out responses. Let me know.

Now, at the command prompt, type 'telnet www.microsoft.com 80' and press ENTER. (Use XP to do this, I think Vista axed the telnet command). you will get a blank flashing cursor. Type 'get' and press ENTER twice. You should get a response about a bad request and your connection should get terminated. What are you results?

EDIT again: You will only get 4 responses not 5 with the PING command. As often as I use this command you'd think I'd remember that.

Hi, The ping command returns "Request timed out" while the telnet, as you suggested, returns a bad response as follows: HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Server: Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0 Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:26:57 GMT Connection: close Content-Length: 326 Bad Request

Bad Request - Invalid Verb

---

HTTP Error 400. The request verb is invalid.

Connection to host lost. When I try to connect to the websites, the browser displays a "Waiting for www.msn.com…" and the page is blank. Same with www.microsoft.com. And the browser just stays there. I had tried to reinstall IE based of some steps listed in some forums. Now IE tries to go to "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=74005" and gets stuck trying to connect to the site. Status bar at the bottom says "Connecting to 207.46.250.101…". I also realised that the Vista is able to get the updates but I was not able to activate my windows. I had to use the automated phone support to register and activate my vista. I checked my restricted sites and msn/microsoft are not part of the list. Thanks, Navin

Hi,

The ping command returns "Request timed out" while the telnet, as you suggested, returns a bad response as follows:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Server: Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:26:57 GMT
Connection: close
Content-Length: 326

" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
Bad Request

Bad Request - Invalid Verb

---

HTTP Error 400. The request verb is invalid.

Connection to host lost.

This signifies that your computer does connect to the website successfully.
Nothing fundamental is blocking your connection.

When I try to connect to the websites, the browser displays a "Waiting for www.msn.com…" and the page is blank. Same with www.microsoft.com. And the browser just stays there. I had tried to reinstall IE based of some steps listed in some forums. Now IE tries to go to "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=74005" and gets stuck trying to connect to the site. Status bar at the bottom says "Connecting to 207.46.250.101…". I also realised that the Vista is able to get the updates but I was not able to activate my windows. I had to use the automated phone support to register and activate my vista.

I checked my restricted sites and msn/microsoft are not part of the list.

Thanks,
Navin

The IP address you listed is a microsoft website. So that appears that DNS is functioning properly and there are no hosts file problems.

Please try the telnet command again using: telnet 207.46.250.101 80 type 'get' and press ENTER twice. You should get a similar connection response as previously. This will ensure that you are able to connect to the website that internet explorer is trying to connect to.

The tests you have run show that the connection is working properly. Although it is odd that the problem persists on two machines, one that was recently reformatted, it is likely that one of the programs you listed or another one is the culprit. This program is causing the same problem on both machines. What firewall software, if any, do you have installed?

It was suggested earlier that you try Firefox in safe mode. You didn't respond if that was successful or not. I have a similar suggestiong for IE. Click start -> run -> type iexplore -extoff and press ENTER. NOTE: You will have to be running Internet Explorer 7 or newer for this command to work as it is supposed to. Also, please, if you followed instructions to modify the proxy server settings please go back into control panel -> internet options -> connections -> LAN Settings and uncheck everything in that window before continuing. Once you have all proxy options turned off and you have run Internet Explorer with the -extoff command, try going to www.microsoft.com and see if you are able to access the website.

navin, What Firewall are you using? I'd suggest you look and see what it's blocking.

Hi, I checked the safe mode options for IE and Firefox but I still see the same issues with msn/microsoft/sun. I do not have any third party software installed. I do use the default windows firewall. I have already tried disabling this too but the results are identical. Apart from this, the only other place I can think of is the wireless router. I disabled the firewall option and tried but still see the same issue. This issue has stumped me since December. I have not had a chance to take my system outside to another network and see if I am able to connect from another network or not. I will try this option also and post back the results. Thanks, Navin

I also have a windows XP machine from my office. From my home network, I am able to connect to all these sites using my office machine without any problems.

Do you use your wireless router or hard wire with the work pc?