Firefox works fine, IE8 doesn't

[aking]

I have the following issue on 3 machines and i was wondering if anyone else has had anything like this.
Summary: Firefox works (ver 12.0), but Internet Explorer (ver 8 or 9) doesn't.

More detail:
On the XP machine, i cannot run Enterprise Manager (Oracle web admin) from IE8 - page cannot be displayed. But i can load this page on firefox and login successfully. The address is a local port on the machine (

https://machine-name:5501/em)

On one of the Win7 machines IE can get to all pages - both on the intranet and the internet. But it is significantly slower than FF and also every now and then it crashes out.

On the other Win7 machine IE crashes most times the first time it is run, then if you run it again it is usually fine and again it can get to all pages (altho slowly).

Another problem with IE on all machines is opening a 2nd tab - sometimes this works (but takes ages), other times IE crashes out.

I am sure it is not firewall issues (using sophos) as all pages can be got to via firefox. (And also i've looked at the firewall log and tried IE while firewall is turned off briefly).

Event viewer is not telling me much: I get Application Hang errors in the Application log for iexplore.exe and occasionally I'm getting the 'too many concurrent TCP connects' in system log e.g

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Tcpip
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4226
Date: 22/10/2012
Time: 12:39:56
Description: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

On 2 of these machines i've already run malwarebytes, the other one is running now, but i don't hold out much hope for it, the scans take ages (4hours+), so far they haven't found anything and on one of the machines they cleared out the start menu.

Sophos antivirus has been run (a lot of times), i've scanned all the local drives on all machines - no viruses found.

Oh yeah, all workstations are Dell Optiplexes, none of them older than 2 years, all dual core, tons of memory, tons of disk space - i.e would not expect any performance issues.
Also all workstations are fine with all the other standard office work we do - i.e. office 2010, adobe, visio, project, various printers and scanners.

I've reached the point where i am about to rebuild cos i don't know what else to try. (Sadly due to company policy I cannot just switch to FireFox. Even though these machines are usable now i have to make them work with IE).

 

[Geates]

I have the following issue on 3 machines

Are your seeing the issue on other machines?

Maybe a proxy setting was set on these machines somehow. Check the registry - if you have no proxy, these values should
be empty.
[tt]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ProxyEnable
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ProxyServer
[/tt]

-Geates

 

[aking]

Hi Geates

I don't even have those registry entries (the final bit - ProxyEnable and ProxyServer).
But i figure this is a good thing....

I have also been trying to remove all plugins from IE and take it back to just Google (had the ask toolbar, and yahoo, and some canon stuff). I am telling myself that it has got quicker (possibly, but not by much) but i still can't load internal pages.

 

[BadBigBen]

Do you have a HiJackThis Log perhaps, for us to peruse through... of course, any sensitive data is to be removed before posting...

I am thinking that perhaps the winsocks are corrupt or the LSP's are hooked, and you could try from a CMD window (DOS Box, CLI) to issue the following command (it resets the winsocks to the windows defaults): netsh winsock reset catalog

also have you checked the GPO's on those machines?

see:

Group Policy and Internet Explorer 8

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc985351.aspx

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[aking]

Hi BBB

Just to update (and close) this one.
I hit it with a sledge hammer yesterday - i re-installed windows and it works.
I was pretty sure that would fix it and it was also a good reason for a couple of other reasons (got the user in question a faster hard drive).

I do like fixing windows (as opposed to just re-installing a million apps).
But once windows gets more than 2 years old it always seems quicker to rebuild.
Not as satisfying technically but more time efficient (and being a contractor i'm always on the clock).

will remember tha winsock command for next time tho - thanks.

 

[BadBigBen]

Thanks for the update...

and yes, sometimes it is more prudent to go ahead and start afresh...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"