Connected to ‘net - unable to browse 6

[Rhort]

Fairly new desktop Elonex machine with internal 56k modem, running XP SP1. Machine dials up, fine, no problems, connects to ISP, icon in the system tray says it’s connected at 45.2k, all seems fine, however, Internet Explorer reports “The page cannot be displayed” when trying to browse (any website) either by URL or IP.

I can PING the website’s IP address, but cannot PING it’s URL, suggesting a DNSing error, however, I can PING the ISP’s DNS server and gateway quite happily (and browsing by IP fails too). Internet Explorer connection settings only include this one dial-up connection (this machine was never part of a LAN, however, it was previously used in an office and had a USB broadband modem attached, but all the settings for that have been removed), and all proxy settings are cleared.

I’ve tried a TCP/IP reset (using “netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt”) more than once now, but the symptoms persist. There is no firewall on this particular machine (I didn’t set it up myself), but the internal XP firewall was running, however, I turned that off, just to rule it out (the initial response from the ISP’s helpdesk was that this “must be a firewall problem”).

After bouncing backwards and forwards with the ISP’s helpdesk for three hours (no, seriously, I have 180 minutes logged to this call), they gave me access to a test account on all different servers, etc, to connect to, however, the same thing happens there, so I can only imagine I’m looking at a client end problem, but I find I can’t be more specific than that.

Any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

faq779-4625
This utility does a far better job than netsh.exe

 

[Rhort]

Nice one, Matey! Worked a treat. Thanks (*)

 

[iatomo]

I am so overjoyed at finally solving my perplexing problem that I wish I could give you all a hug -- bcastner for writing the FAQ, Rhort for asking the question in a way that I could find it on Google, and Option^Explicit for sharing the nifty program. A few days ago I was trying to clean up some old programs I no longer use and as best as I can figure my problems started after I deleted an old VPN program that I no longer need to connect remotely to work. I soon found that I could use my local area network and even ping remote internet sites by IP address but could not browse or get email. It was similar to a problem that had frustrated me several weeks ago on a different computer as I installed a wireless card in my laptop. That problem I had eventually solved by resorting to an XP system restore, which solved that particular problem but left me frustrated not knowing the etiology. This time imagine my horror when I discovered that the XP system restore does not always work -- without explanation, XP just said "sorry, can't do it" to several different restore attempts. After searching and reading about many similar problems on the internet, and trying the most reasonable of the possible "fixes" without fixing anything, I resigned myself to an inevitable clean reinstall of XP. But I can't do that immediately without losing a lot of work because of the 80 Gigs of home videos sitting on my hard drive waiting to be edited and burned to DVD. So I felt totally stuck and pretty ticked off at whoever the programmers were that can't make these things work right (in retrospect, I would have been happy to leave the VPN program on my HD forever if I'd known what I was getting into by hitting that uninstall button!!). Thinking that in both cases the problem had to be related to the 2wire network hardware/software I am using with SBC Yahoo DSL in combination with some XP registry screw up, I decided to just install a dial-up connection so at least my wife could download email. Imagine my surprise when I could get a successful dial-up connection, but again -- NO BROWSING. Now realizing for sure that this had nothing to do with my 2wire network, I decided to make one last internet search with less technical jargon using a basic phrase -- "connected to internet but can't browse." Somewhere down the list on google I saw the above post, and Rhort's reply of "Nice one, Matey! Worked a treat" made me decide it was worth one last investment of time to prevent even more wasted time. Imagine my happiness to find that I could find and freely download the WinsockFix and see a basic explanation of what it would do! My hopes were rising as I made the necessary transfers to get the program to my desktop and start it running. Aaaah, the joy of seeing a correct DHCP assigned IP address for my Local Area Connection, suggesting that my problems were probably over -- and sure enough!!! I'm browsing and downloading on my desktop again without a hitch! Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing and helping. Now if only there was a way to bring your FAQ to the attention of the dozens of frustrated users I came across out there who are blaming the wrong hardware and software for their connection problems. I would never have made the connection between my problem and the Microsoft KB articles you link to -- I had tried many searches on the Microsoft help site but could never make the connection (pun only partly unintended) between my problem and those articles. 2wire (and probably others) might be interested in publishing your fix on their site, given that from what I saw during my ordeal, their hardware is getting blamed for what in many cases are very likely Windows registry problems. In the future, I've decided the most efficient way to prevent this nightmare will be to create my own system restore disks periodically, and not rely on XP to rescue me from its evil designs. But what a relief to have been handed a solution this time! Sorry for all the verbage, but I guess I needed to share my story of frustration and subsequent salvation while I am still on the HIGH that I feel from finding such a simple solution to what I thought was going to be an unsolvable problem (short of a complete overhaul of my system, of course). Thank you all again for helping me.

 

[bcastner]

You all are very welcome.

Bill Castner

 

[DenzWukai]

I'm having this exact problem right now also...
But the link that you put up doesn't work =/
Using 56k modem.. connects at 52.3kbps (normal).. yet I can't browse or do anything.

 

[bcastner]

Try:

http://members.shaw.ca/techcd/VB_Projects/WinsockFix.zip

 

[skolli]

Thank you for the FAQ info and for the SockFix.zip file!! My whole Saturday was about to go wasted because of the exact same problem mentioned above. This fix worked like charm in the last minutes.

Amazing!! It only took five minutes to fix this thing after spending about 9 hours setting/unsetting all kinds of settings and screwing up my environment!! Thanks once again.

-Sudhir

 

[spinneman]

Hello Everyone!
I am having the same problem Rhort was having.
I have a P4 1.6 with XPSP1+updates, IE6SP1+updates, Norton Antivirus and Internet Security running on it. I think the last thing I did was install an update... it could have been either an XP or an IE update I'm not so sure anymore(having problems with my short-term memory).
I tried entering the ISP's given DNS server adresses, but there was no answer there. Found this FAQ and first tried winsockfix.exe(although downloaded it from another site, because 'shaw'-link isn't valid anymore). Thought it would help but it didn't. Then tried it again and having no luck with that, tried the netsh.exe(twice!) but still no choir music. So conclusion is I'm at a loss. Maybe it's something simple that I just don't see.... does anyone here see it?
Thank you guys.

 

[PhilOfAndalucia]

Another happy customer! Thanks Bill. Just one thing - I did have many problems trying to find a site from which I could download this program. In the end I got it from

http://ntcanuck.com/Beta/useful_programs/WinsockFix.exe

 

[bcastner]

I try to keep the WinsockFix download site updated here: faq779-4625

 

[z0iid]

Having a similar problem - but one that didn't get fixed by WinSockFix.exe.

I set up (clean install on all machines) 4 computers with WinXP pro and a server running SBS-2003. Three of the computers run fine and connect fine to the network and to the internet.

The fourth one connects to to the other computers in the network (on this domain) as well as the other domain that is set up in the office. BUT - it does not connect to the internet. Here comes the interesting part. If I ping an outside IP, or web address - it starts to, then tells me "No Reply" (4x).

So I type "nslookup" at the cmd prompt. After it runs - you can type in any web address and it will tell you the IP of that address. Somehow I doubt that that information is stored locally - it would be a huge file(s). Anyhow - it tells me different IP's for each web address I put it. That tells me that it is connecting to DNS - why wouldn't it work through a browser? And why wouldn't it respond when I ping? And why would the other 3 computers work and not this one? The computers are identical - and they all have the same programs installed and the same settings.

(I have already tested several different network cards - all same results)


Maybe someone has an answer??

 

[computerdoctogo]

Thanks much to Bill and Phil. The winsockfix file fixed up my customer's machine just fine. The links did not work except the one from Phil. Just wish I had found this fix a long time ago. I have worked on other machines that I ended up doing a full restore because I could not get TCP/IP to work properly. You guys are a godsend. Keep up the good work!