internet explorer could not open the search page 12

[Drachenhunter]

Hello,


I have two computers that share a dsl connection. right now one computer works and the other doesn't. on the one that doesn't work every time I enter an address(web or ip) I get a message that "internet explorer could not open the web page. The dsl is set up correctly on that computer as I can ping both ip address and web site names. also I've read a post somewhere once before about how to correct this error (by deleteing/renaming some .dll's) but I cannot find it now that I need it. I've tried uninstalling IE and re installing it. but when I uninstalled it, windowsME(R) tried to re install a previous version and that didnt work(it kept getting an error).

I've loaded up the ME disc and re loaded it and nothing same thing, I might as well not have done it. I'm really tapped out right now, I can't figure out what to do, I can ping but nothing else I can't even telnet into the router(I might be doing it wrong though.) Please if anyone knows what I can do I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[jbotz]

Let's start off with a couple background questions first. You say you're sharing your DSL connection. Are you using Windows ICS, or do you have a modem with a router built-in, or an "aftermarket" router? Is your machine that isn't functioning correctly pulling an IP address that you would expect (i.e. on the same IP subnet as the machine that works)? Let me know and hopefully we'll get you up and running...8)

J

 

[Drachenhunter]

I'm using a lynksys(not sure on the spelling at this time) router and a speedstream adsl modem the one computer works great the other gets the message. I can't open up anything. I can ping what ever I want(ip addresses, Names, ect) but I can't telnet or browse anything. not even the router.


both computers are on the same (false) range of ip numbers (eg 192.168.0.1-200) ect. and have the same subnet mask and gateway. all the settings are identical(I have the router set to asign an ip address[DCHP?]). they both even have ME.

I even went through the regestries to make sure both were pulling up the same "search page" and still nothing. I Hate the thought of reformating and reinstalling the OS but I think that's what I'll have to do.

Thanks in advance for any info you can give,

Cody.

 

[jbotz]

On the computer that isn't working right now, run an "ipconfig /all" at the command prompt, and see if the DNS servers match what comes up on an "ipconfig /all" on the working machine. Also, check to see if your networking protocols match between the two machines. Repost here, and we'll go from there.

-J

 

[Drachenhunter]

ok Sorry it took so long to figure this out.

I ended up reformatting my computer and it worked for a while. but then it started having trouble again after I installed some PTP(person to person) software. so I removed all the network addapters and the tcp/ip and ran spybot.

It now is working.

 

[jbotz]

Good deal, glad to hear you're back up and running, but I'm sorry that you went through the pain of a format. Hope everything stays running for ya.

-J

 

[gvar29]

Strangely enough I have exactly the same problem that is described here. I have two laptops and I am using a Netgeare Wireless Router with DSL Modem DG824M. One system works just fine while the other when trying to access internet (IE version 6.0.2800) gives me the error "cannot open search page" I have compared all the settings including ipconfig / all on both machines (both w2K) and everything is the same. From the system that does not load pages I can ping yahoo.com so there is a network connection. Since both systems are work machines I do not want to format the system and install everything again. Any ides anyone

 

[bcastner]

I hope the settings are not exactly the same. They need to have different IP numbers!

I'm certain that is not the problem. As at least one step to take is to rebuild your Winsock service stacks. I suspect Drachenhunter's resolution fundamentally involved exactly that step.

An easy way to do this is to run this freeware tool:

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

Check your settings again after a reboot to make sure your TCP/IP Properties are setup correctly again.

 

[Drachenhunter]

one thing you can try doing is installing spybot and running that, it has a network fix in it that seems to work a lot of the time.

 

[jamrpi]

My problem seems related to this. I have a small network hub with two laptops connected via ethernet, and both laptops are running w2k. i created a dial up connection in one of these laptops let's call it ABC, and set it to share the dial-up internet connection using the 'sharing' tab provided in the connection properties. i dial to the internet and access web sites using internet explorer and i can access web pages. i can also get e-mails through the ms outlook. the other laptop computer let's call this XYZ is configured as advised by ms, to 'obtain ip address and dns server address dynamically'. also in the internet explorer, internet options settings is set to 'never dial a connection' and in the lan settings all options are cleared.

i start my internet explorer in XYZ and get a message 'internet explorer could not open search page.' i also can't use ms outlook to retrieve e-mails. what is strange however is that in XYZ i have an attachmate tn3270 client and i can establish session via this ics/dial-up connection in ABC, to our mainframe host. this means that XYZ can actually connect to the internet. it is just that ms internet explorer/outlook can not. any advise please? did i miss something in configuring XYZ or ABC?

jamrpi

 

[bcastner]

jamrpi,

Your Gateway entry must be made to the ICS host IP on the client machine. The ICS host Gateway entry should be empty, or 127.0.0.1.

 

[jm379]

Hello there.

I am receiving the same error message recently.
I recently removed a search browser (xupiter.com) and now I am receiving this error message.
I have also deleted my cookies but I don't think deleting the cookies would affect anything but not sure.

Now, I cannot access google.com and cannot search for anything in the search fields with any search browsers.
Returns the error message prompt and the page cannot be displayed message.

I am using SBC DSL and am able to access yahoo.com but cannot search for anything.
Can ping

http://www.yahoo.com

and receive a reply but cannot successfully ping any other sites.
This is the only computer connected through my DSL line.
Tried setting my Internet options to all defaults and also reinstalled my IE 6.0 SP1 and still no help.

Any suggestions appreciated!

 

[bcastner]

jm379,

Your issue sounds like the Qhost trojan:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.qhosts.htm

 

[Bikeboytaylor]

I had the same problem, couln't access any search pages from IE. I downloaded the Winsockfix.zip and ran that program, but it ended up making it worse, I couldn't access any web pages. So I rebooted to DOS and ran the ERD (The winsockfix program makes that program) to replace all the changes I made, rebooted and low and behold everything now works fine. Go Figure.

 

[PoncyGit]

I had the same problem. An alcatel home modem cracked to pro, hooked up via a switch uplink to two other computers. One was working, whilst the other had that damned "could not open search page" error. All the settings on both computers were identical as far as I could tell (but they actually weren't apparantly...)

Anyway, the way I fixed it was rather crude but effective. I used System Tools -> File and Settings Transfer Wizard to transfer all the Network and IE settings from the working computer, to the one that was giving the error and lo and behold no more error. Hopefully someone can pinpoint exactly what causes this error (in my case I think it was a problem with my isp's proxy)

 

[oaktownsun]

I had a similar problem to those described in this thread. While browsing the web, a Lycos menu bar attached itself to my IE6 browser and when I uninstalled it (the uninstall did not work so I had to delete it piece by piece) IE6 stopped being able to reach any page on the web. I have DSL and any other browser I used still worked fine (SBC’s browser, Mozilla) so I knew that it was not a connectivity problem but a problem just with IE. Whenever I opened IE, I’d get the page could not be found error with a message at the bottom of the browser “rec://c:\windows\system32\shdoclc.dll/dnserror.htm” so I started my search for a solution with the error message. That was three days ago. What I found was that many, many people have gotten this problem (mostly Windows XP users with IE6 and sometimes with AOL installed.) and that the solution is elusive. I did all the MS patches, uninstalls and re-installs, etc that I could think of or found suggested on the web but nothing worked. So today I decided to search by the error message “IE could not open the search page” which I got when I tried to click the search button and Google gave me this site. I read through the thread and decided to try the Winsock fix suggested by Bcastner. Well, after days of frustration, something finally worked. The Winsock fix worked like a dream and IE6 runs fine again! So I just wanted to write to express my appreciation. I joined your forum and marked Bcastner’s post as a helpful/expert post. Thanks for the great work!

 

[JJSman]

Guys - Thanks SOOOOO much for your help on this issue. I have been trying to figure out this problem for a week and bcastner's winfix utility got ie up and running. I got the virus by clicking on a pop-up box by mistake (and believe me, I should know better). The results were much worse than for oaktownsun. Additional software was installed which made ie unusable, since it would look for a series of addresses continuously. Since I knew the time of the infection, I went through my system and deleted a lot of interesting applications in winnt/system32. I even had to go into safe mode to get some of them! But I couldn't figure out this last thing. Thanks once again. I'm sure this is happening to a great many people, so this forum will certainly be of assistance! I feel like a million bucks!

 

[ProtocolGuy]

I have an easy solution to this problem. Your comments helped track this down. The problem is with IE. Open the Internet Properties dialog click on Connections-->Lan Settings...
uncheck Automatically Detect Settings. After that IE was able to use the DNS to find the Web pages.

 

[sark3]

I am having the same problem and I tried the WinsockFix program but still no luck. I removed the appropriate keys in regedit, but I'm still having problems. I have no problems when I initially log on, but after a while I receive either the 'Internet Explorer could not open the search page' or 'Page cannot be displayed' error messages. I have the same problem with Netscape, though the error messages differ of course.

Is there something I need to do with WinSockFix that I may have missed? I clicked Fix and let it do it's thing, and also ran through the steps under Info.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[oaktownsun]

I’m not sure if you have the same winsock issue since your internet connection initially works and then you start receiving the errors after a while. You may want to verify that you still have an internet connection after getting the error by pinging a web address or sending and receiving mail or something. If you cannot ping out anywhere or receive mail, the problem is not likely with winsock but rather with your internet connection itself. After you stop being able to display web pages, do you still have an internet connection?