IE8, Firefox 3, Safari 4 NOT Working in Vista

Hi guys, Need help. Recently, my Firefox browser showed a message like "Well, this is emabarassing. Firefox is having trouble to recover your windows and tabs" when I searched for a movie on IMDB. I repeated the search thinking that it might be a temporary problem with firefox and tried the same on IE and Safari. Alas, the same happened, n it kept on happening for many other sites. The site loads a bit and immediately a message pops up "Internet explorer stopped working" or "Firefox stopped working" (Images attached for reference). Searched for solutions on the internet but most of them were not clearly indicating a problem like mine or they were suggesting installation of a spyware or malware removal software. I have Avira Antivir free software and its working pretty fine for me. I have also tried many combinations like installing/uninstalling firefox 3.5, 3, 2 but the problem occurred in all of them. Finally I installed Google Chrome and it is working fine without any error. But it continues to happen in other browsers. No new software was installed except for small ones like a pdf reader or some windows updates etc. I did install malware and spyware software to see if I can trace something, but I could not find/understand anything specific. My guess is that it might be a plugin problem like flash or java. Or a virus may be. I uninstalled adobe flash plugin and reinstalled it, but it didnt change anything. I really miss firefox (add-ons) and I want it back. Please help me in this regard .

Well I can't directly guide you as I don't have Vista loaded here ATM, but the problem(s) your having are symptomatic of an add-on conflict, in other words you have something installed that is connected to the browser, and for whatever reason this is causing the problems, the way to check this is to disable ALL add-ons to the browser, then see if it behaves, then if it does start them back up 1 at a time, then when it starts playing up again that is your problem item. Now this is where I can't guide accurately not having vista loaded ATM, but IIRC the OS makes no difference in how the browser shows, so if we're lucky it should be as simple as clicking on Tools in the top right corner of the browser, directly above the window that displays, then click on Manage Add-ons, this will open a window that will display everything connected with the browser, highlight each in turn and select Disable (only touch the items in the right hand pane), repeat until all are done, now try to use the browser and see if it crashes when you try to use IMDB again. I don't really use Firefox so not sure what can be going on with that, but to check the same as ie click on Tools then Add-ons, then disable them etc as you did with ie, you may find it has already disabled some, hopefully this will be resolved doing this, hope it helps.

Thanks for the reply 8210Guy. I forgot to tell you this, I don't have a single add-on installed on my firefox or even safari. And In the case of IE 8, I checked the "manage add-ons" button and almost all the add-ons are disabled. The problem still persists . I am actually thinking about how anything can affect some browsers but not Chrome!?. What exactly must be happening behind?. Is it the latest updates installed by Vista?. Some compatibility view related problem??. Even if it is, how can it affect all the browsers including safari. I am losing out on options guys, it is very frustrating , please help me. Here is what I did in the mean time: a malware check, spyware removal check (nothing found), registry errors rectified. Sadly, these things didnt have any impact. I dont have my system restore on so i cannot take it back. I am trying for some answers on web…hope I will find one soon and will get rid of this problem forever.

Updates can often cause problems for some, but unless it becomes a widespread problem one can only guess, but you mention a couple of entries that are not disabled, I suggest disabling those for testing purposes, the only other thing I can think of checking at this time is the event log, click on Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Event Viewer, look for any errors in there that may give a clue, easiest way to do this is directly after an incident, that way the error should be right near the top of the list, and is most likely to be the error connected with this issue, see what that throws up.

hmm..this is what I get from the error log, see if you can derive anything out of it: 0xe68, application start time 0x01ca28b1fa4e763a. - EventData iexplore.exe 8.0.6001.18813 4a6621ae ntdll.dll 6.0.6001.18000 4791a7a6 c0000005 00065844 e68 01ca28b1fa4e763a Faulting application firefox.exe, version 1.8.20061.1023, time stamp 0x452c9eef, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x4791a7a6, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00065844, process id 0x16a4, application start time 0x01ca28b649d9928a. - EventData firefox.exe 1.8.20061.1023 452c9eef ntdll.dll 6.0.6001.18000 4791a7a6 c0000005 00065844 16a4 01ca28b649d9928a Faulting application Safari.exe, version 4.531.9.1, time stamp 0x4a7a8277, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x4791a7a6, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00065844, process id 0x950, application start time 0x01ca28bd2fe8599e. - EventData Safari.exe 4.531.9.1 4a7a8277 ntdll.dll 6.0.6001.18000 4791a7a6 c0000005 00065844 950 01ca28bd2fe8599e Do tell me if I can provide more information on this.

I can't make out anything specific from those (bit over my head), but from what little I could piece together it still comes back to add-ons, but here are a couple of links to do with ie.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…n/ms03-007.mspx
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chie.htm
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/startup/iexplore.exe.php <- Suggests possible infection(s), have you run any scans to be safe ?

I wont bother listing links for the other browsers, because your issue is the same, the problem is your ntdll.dll file is causing all the problems, but finding out what\why is not as easy, I did see 1 group of suggestions that I took this quote from:-

Solution: Disable K8 Cool n Quiet in bios; for AMD

Basically they are saying if you have any kind of system management (eg CPU fan control or energy saving feature) that this may be what is causing this, that may be worth checking out, you may need to enter the bios to see if such a thing is enabled or not.

A tool that can help disabling items is ShellExView, you may find this an easier way to disable anything in the list, and more importantly be able to find it again to enable it after you prove it's not an issue, but whatever it is it is definitely down to the ntdll.dll file, but identifying what it's used by may not be as easy.

I wonder if it's worth you running a Pit Scan and post the log back here, then we can get a better idea of your system etc, you need to sign up (it's free) to be able to post the log (it's the url of your results page) back here.

I agree, the problem is definitely related to that ntdll.dll file. I could never ever think of a solution like the one you have pasted, or the reason behind it. But is google chrome not using that ntdll.dll file, why is it not breaking at all??. Probably the "why" part is beyond my reach in this case . Anyways, I will register for a pit scan and post the details soon.

And Finally THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED . Thanks to Avast antivirus. Also I need to thank Slossius from this link (http://forums.techguy.org/malware-removal-hijackthis-logs/839009-every-anti-spyware-program-crashes.html). I uninstalled my antivir software, installed avast and immediately it popped SKYnet malware alerts (which could not be detected by even malware bytes!) and i deleted all. After a bootscan, now my system is perfectly fine. Hope it remains the same. Special thanks to 8210guy for all the support .

NP just glad your sorted.