Common websites unavailable

[twhedbee]

When using Internet Explorer 6.0, there are a number of common websites to which I am not able to connect. Among these are Google.com, Hotmail.com, any Microsoft site, any ZDNet site, etc.. I always get a "This page cannot be displayed" message.

I have tried a number of things to solve the problem -- all to no avail. I have deleted all my temporary internet files, I have deleted all cookies, I have tried security set to the lowest level, I have re-installed IE, etc..

What is really interesting is that the list of unavailable sites seems to be growing slowly. For instance, it is only recently that ZDNet sites became unavailable. I have run virus scans with no positive results.

Any thoughts?

 

[gargouille]

Depending on your OS and your install history....there's a repair option for IE.
Here's a link to the Internet Explorer repair install tool

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q194177

 

[strokerman]

If it's any help I have the same problem. Only I'm not able to access certain lotus and IBM sites. I ran the repair tool, but it didn't help. It almost looks like I have older version of the site cached and IE can't/won't update it. If you find anything let me know. This problem didn't start until I installed 6.0. I have since removed it from my system and gone back to 5.5, but the problem won't go away.

 

[gargouille]

Strokerman, go to the advanced tab of IE and look at the radio buttons...there's one that lets you empty the cache when you close the session and another in the General/Settings tab that let's you choose when the page is searched for changes.
F5 should in fact refresh the page anyway and let it load (without any changes)

 

[strokerman]

gargouille, I've been there, done that, got the shirt. I've have completely scoured IE off my system (and I mean everything), except maybe some hidden registry entries. At this point I'm sure it's something hidden in some obscure directory(yet another evil Microsoft plot). Ckecking through this forum I see that me and twhedbee aren't the only ones experiencing this.

 

[twhedbee]

Ialso have scoured IE off the drive as much as possible. Some other info I didn't add earlier: I am running under Windows 98. Under a command prompt, I am able to successfully ping the sites that I can't get with IE. Very weird.

 

[joegz]

Since you can ping the DNS address can you pull up the web page using the IP address instead of the DNS address? joegz
"Sometimes you just need to find out what it's not first to figure out what it is."

 

[Designware]

I have having the exact same problem with IE 6. I cannot get to google, doubledaybookclub, and several other sites. Another PC on my network has no problem though. Cleared the cache, deleted cookies, and set IE to refresh every time a page is visited. Still the same problem.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[gargouille]

Copied from elsewhere:

[[Search for a file called HOSTS (not hosts.sam which is a sample).
Open Hosts with Notepad and look for any references to the sites where you are having trouble. Remove the lines referring to those sites.
One of the tricks that so called web accelerators use is to bypass DNS lookup by tying the name of the site to its IP address. It places the IP address in this HOSTS file. This does speed things up until the site
changes its IP address, at which point the site becomes unreachable because IE is forced to keep trying the wrong address.

Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP ]]]

 

[twhedbee]

gargouille,

Thanks for the post. Sounded promising, but I have no HOSTS files (just HOSTS.sam). This is really getting frustrating.

tom

 

[Designware]

I had a hosts file (as well as a hosts sample file). However, all that was in it was two entries for Norton email virus scanning.

Interesting enough, my ability to get to google.com has returned this morning. However, my ability to get to other web sites (i.e. doubledaybookclub.com ) is still not working.

I agree Tom, this is getting very frustrating!

Dale

 

[gargouille]

Possibly some help...if you don't have them already:
adaware

http://lavasoft.de/downloads.html

spybot

http://security.kolla.de/

free downloads