Ok, I posted this on another board that I'm on everyday, but it's not necessarily a computer-tech forum. My system specs are: Sony Vaio PCG-FX210, running Windows XP Home SP1A, IE 6.0 fully updated. I checked some of the other threads in this forum about the "red x's for pictures," but none of that helps.
This is a weird one.
I normally go straight to the address mail.yahoo.com to check my email on there. Yesterday though, I kept getting the "Page cannot be displayed" error. No big deal, maybe the server is down, so I try going to the main site, It loaded fine. So, let me try goin to another portion of the yahoo site that requires a login. Hmm. Ok, the personals section. That site loads up, but when I type in my name and password, I once again get the "page cannot be displayed/DNS" error. Ask a friend if they can open these sites, they can. Weird, very weird. So, poke around some other sites on yahoo. If I try looking at people's profiles I can't see pictures, just red x's. But my own profile displays fine. EVERY other site works flawlessly.
Time to troubleshoot.
Check for blocked ports/sites in firewall. No go.
Check for blocked ports/sites in IE6. No go.
Shutdown firewall. No go.
Run AdAware. Usual objects, no go.
Clear Cache/Cookies/History. No go.
Reinstall script engine. No go.
Check java. Good to go.
Check for updates. Good to go.
Attempt to ping mail.yahoo.com. No go.
Attempt nslookup mail.yahoo.com. Returns good.
Login from UK.yahoo.com. Works, but then get the repeated error when I try to logout.
Ok, back to IE. Checked encoding. Good.
Checked registry entry for encoding. Good.
Tried system restore. No go.
Heard something about a "hosts" file. Found those, nothing in them, not sure if there should be or not.
Disabled unused start-up items. No go.
What just blows my mind is that this started happening out of nowhere, with no system changes in between. Literally, I logged in two hours before, then tried again two hours later, and it didn't work. What confuses me even more is that I can login from the UK site, but then when I go to sign out, I get the same error. If I return to the site and try to login, it shows that I'm still in under the same name. I installed Yahoo messenger to see if I could go through the little mail pop-up notification. Nope. But it pops up and says I have mail. I'm thinking that there's some kind of setting that somehow got changed that I don't know about, or somehow I've restricted those servers which handle these functions within Yahoo's network. But, I'm clueless now. It's not like it's an urgently pressing matter. But it is rather frustrating on how these things just show up half the time, with no input whatsoever from me.
I realize IE has a host of problems. But because I'm on dialup, and I've been using this for years, I'd rather not try to download and install a completely new browser. The security settings aren't weird, per-se. Custom level, but most of the stuff isn't set that high. I'd say "medium." Also, I can't find the repair operation in XP. MSIE isn't in the Add/Remove programs list, and if I go to the Add/Remove Windows components, it just completely uninstalls IE, doesn't even give the option of repairing. I tried locating it under MSinfo32.exe as well, no luck.
I tried turning my security settings down to low, and still had the same problems.
I can get to login.yahoo.com, login to one name, check the email, and logout. But when I hit the "return to yahoo mail" link to try another name, I get the same error. Logging into login.yahoo.com with the other name works, but when I click the email link, still get the same error. This is after trying the security settings completely off. So. Any more suggestions are welcome, I'm going to take this thread over to another board I watch and see what happens there too.
This is a weird one.
I normally go straight to the address mail.yahoo.com to check my email on there. Yesterday though, I kept getting the "Page cannot be displayed" error. No big deal, maybe the server is down, so I try going to the main site, It loaded fine. So, let me try goin to another portion of the yahoo site that requires a login. Hmm. Ok, the personals section. That site loads up, but when I type in my name and password, I once again get the "page cannot be displayed/DNS" error. Ask a friend if they can open these sites, they can. Weird, very weird. So, poke around some other sites on yahoo. If I try looking at people's profiles I can't see pictures, just red x's. But my own profile displays fine. EVERY other site works flawlessly.
Time to troubleshoot.
Check for blocked ports/sites in firewall. No go.
Check for blocked ports/sites in IE6. No go.
Shutdown firewall. No go.
Run AdAware. Usual objects, no go.
Clear Cache/Cookies/History. No go.
Reinstall script engine. No go.
Check java. Good to go.
Check for updates. Good to go.
Attempt to ping mail.yahoo.com. No go.
Attempt nslookup mail.yahoo.com. Returns good.
Login from UK.yahoo.com. Works, but then get the repeated error when I try to logout.
Ok, back to IE. Checked encoding. Good.
Checked registry entry for encoding. Good.
Tried system restore. No go.
Heard something about a "hosts" file. Found those, nothing in them, not sure if there should be or not.
Disabled unused start-up items. No go.
What just blows my mind is that this started happening out of nowhere, with no system changes in between. Literally, I logged in two hours before, then tried again two hours later, and it didn't work. What confuses me even more is that I can login from the UK site, but then when I go to sign out, I get the same error. If I return to the site and try to login, it shows that I'm still in under the same name. I installed Yahoo messenger to see if I could go through the little mail pop-up notification. Nope. But it pops up and says I have mail. I'm thinking that there's some kind of setting that somehow got changed that I don't know about, or somehow I've restricted those servers which handle these functions within Yahoo's network. But, I'm clueless now. It's not like it's an urgently pressing matter. But it is rather frustrating on how these things just show up half the time, with no input whatsoever from me.
I realize IE has a host of problems. But because I'm on dialup, and I've been using this for years, I'd rather not try to download and install a completely new browser. The security settings aren't weird, per-se. Custom level, but most of the stuff isn't set that high. I'd say "medium." Also, I can't find the repair operation in XP. MSIE isn't in the Add/Remove programs list, and if I go to the Add/Remove Windows components, it just completely uninstalls IE, doesn't even give the option of repairing. I tried locating it under MSinfo32.exe as well, no luck.
I tried turning my security settings down to low, and still had the same problems.
I can get to login.yahoo.com, login to one name, check the email, and logout. But when I hit the "return to yahoo mail" link to try another name, I get the same error. Logging into login.yahoo.com with the other name works, but when I click the email link, still get the same error. This is after trying the security settings completely off. So. Any more suggestions are welcome, I'm going to take this thread over to another board I watch and see what happens there too.