IE8 and video's

Running 3GHz CPU, 2 G RAM, WinXP Pro SP3, hi speed internet (Comcast)

IE8 has been working just fine on my computer for months. IE8 about a couple
of months ago started not loading videos from *some* sites like
Marketwatch.com. It does load YouTube and videos from other sites and .swf
files from my hard drive. I've contacted Marketwatch and they have no
answer. IE8 works just fine on my wife's computer. I opened IE8 to
tools/internet options on both my computer and my wife's and compared the
settings for all tabs and they are exactly the same, but her IE8 works and
mine doesn't. I have the latest version of flash and Java. I installed
Microsoft Silverlight 4.0.51204.0 to no avail. I disabled Windows firewall
and Avast to no avail and enabled them again. I re-booted in Safe Mode with
Networking and got the same bad results. I un-installed SP3 and IE8 and
re-installed both and then got all the updates, with no luck with the
video's. I did a clean boot and tried IE8 with no luck. I ran ie8-regeg.cmd
and that didn't help. I switched to compatibility mode (IE7) no luck. I used
Microsofts FixIt program with no luck. I made a new account and transfered my
old profile over except for the ntuser files. IE8 would not play videos in
my new account.

Anyone got any other ideas please?

Henry wrote:

> Running 3GHz CPU, 2 G RAM, WinXP Pro SP3, hi speed internet (Comcast)
>
> IE8 has been working just fine on my computer for months. IE8 about a couple
> of months ago started not loading videos from *some* sites like
> Marketwatch.com. It does load YouTube and videos from other sites and .swf
> files from my hard drive. I've contacted Marketwatch and they have no
> answer. IE8 works just fine on my wife's computer. I opened IE8 to
> tools/internet options on both my computer and my wife's and compared the
> settings for all tabs and they are exactly the same, but her IE8 works and
> mine doesn't. I have the latest version of flash and Java. I installed
> Microsoft Silverlight 4.0.51204.0 to no avail. I disabled Windows firewall
> and Avast to no avail and enabled them again. I re-booted in Safe Mode with
> Networking and got the same bad results. I un-installed SP3 and IE8 and
> re-installed both and then got all the updates, with no luck with the
> video's. I did a clean boot and tried IE8 with no luck. I ran ie8-regeg.cmd
> and that didn't help. I switched to compatibility mode (IE7) no luck. I used
> Microsofts FixIt program with no luck. I made a new account and transfered my
> old profile over except for the ntuser files. IE8 would not play videos in
> my new account.
>
> Anyone got any other ideas please?

What's in your 'hosts' file? Unless you update and manage your own
hosts file to use in blocking unwanted content, you won't know what's
included in a pre-compiled hosts file you got from elsewhere (ex., MVP's
hosts file) unless you look in it to see what's listed. Even if
marketwatch.com isn't listed, content there may be sourced elsewhere and
that's what gets blocked.

What security software do you have running? Uninstalled it during test?
What spam/ad blockers did you install?

Whose DNS server are you using?
Have the TCP settings in registry been tampered?
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
Keys under here define the TCP interfaces and malware can change these
so you end up using a different DNS server than you think you are.

Have you uninstalled and reinstalled the Adobe Flash Player (from
Adobe's web site, not from somewhere else that claimed you needed a
newer version and "offered" it to you from their site)? Got any other
FLV/SWF players installed?

VanguardLH wrote:

> What's in your 'hosts' file?

One entry for localhost

I'm not comfortable about giving out the number.

> What security software do you have running?

Avast ver 5.0.667

> Uninstalled it during test?

Yes and it didn't help

> What spam/ad blockers did you install?

None running in background. SuperAntiSpyware, SpywareBlaster,
MalwareBytes'Anti-Malware

> Whose DNS server are you using?

Comcast.net Again, I'm not comfortable about giving out the number.


> Have the TCP settings in registry been tampered?
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
> Keys under here define the TCP interfaces and malware can change these
> so you end up using a different DNS server than you think you are.

Went there and couldn't find anything about TCP settings. I must be using
the right DNS server because everything else works. Correct?

> Have you uninstalled and reinstalled the Adobe Flash Player (from
> Adobe's web site

Yes

>Got any other FLV/SWF players installed?

Cam Studio, FLV Player, WinAmp

I've had all of the above for as long as I've had IE8. IE8 worked just fine
up to about 2 months ago. It still plays video's on many sites and on
YouTube and on .swf files on my hard drive and on Comcast.net. There are
other sites it won't play video's on like MarketWatch.com. MarketWatch.com
works fine except for not being able to play video's there. Their updates,
text, pictures and sound all work OK.

Henry wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> What's in your 'hosts' file?
>
> One entry for localhost
>
> I'm not comfortable about giving out the number.

127.0.0.1
It's the same for EVERYONE.

>> Whose DNS server are you using?
>
> Comcast.net Again, I'm not comfortable about giving out the number.

Why do you care about the IP address for Comcast's DNS server? It's the
same suite of servers used by all Comcast users and can be found
published many places.

I never asked you for *your* IP address, did I?

>> Have the TCP settings in registry been tampered?
>> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
>> Keys under here define the TCP interfaces and malware can change these
>> so you end up using a different DNS server than you think you are.
>
> Went there and couldn't find anything about TCP settings. I must be using
> the right DNS server because everything else works. Correct?

A phish/scam site's DNS server doesn't lie about all IP address lookups.

> I've had all of the above for as long as I've had IE8. IE8 worked just fine
> up to about 2 months ago.

Which makes it appear you installed an update (or you authorized it by
allowing automatic updates).

> It still plays video's on many sites and on
> YouTube and on .swf files on my hard drive and on Comcast.net. There are
> other sites it won't play video's on like MarketWatch.com. MarketWatch.com
> works fine except for not being able to play video's there. Their updates,
> text, pictures and sound all work OK.

That's why I'm wondering what is the *source* for those .flv videos that
won't play. Just because you're visiting marketwatch.com doesn't mean
the videos come from there. Got an example video (web page and where is
the video in that page)?

VanguardLH wrote:

>>>What's in your 'hosts' file?
>>
>>127.0.0.1 localhost

>>>Whose DNS server are you using?

192.168.35.1

> I never asked you for *your* IP address, did I?

No


>>>Have the TCP settings in registry been tampered?
>>>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Ser vices\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
>>>Keys under here define the TCP interfaces and malware can change these
>>>so you end up using a different DNS server than you think you are.
>>
>>Went there and couldn't find anything about TCP settings. I must be using
>>the right DNS server because everything else works. Correct?
>
>
> A phish/scam site's DNS server doesn't lie about all IP address lookups.
>
>
>>I've had all of the above for as long as I've had IE8. IE8 worked just fine
>>up to about 2 months ago.
>
>
> Which makes it appear you installed an update (or you authorized it by
> allowing automatic updates).

The only updates have been for Microsoft, Avast and my malware. No new
programs installed.

>>It still plays video's on many sites and on
>>YouTube and on .swf files on my hard drive and on Comcast.net. There are
>>other sites it won't play video's on like MarketWatch.com. MarketWatch.com
>>works fine except for not being able to play video's there. Their updates,
>>text, pictures and sound files all work OK.
>
>
> That's why I'm wondering what is the *source* for those .flv videos that
> won't play. Just because you're visiting marketwatch.com doesn't mean
> the videos come from there. Got an example video (web page and where is
> the video in that page)?

Go to http:/www.MarketWatch.com and click on any of the video's. IE8 doesn't
play any of them. Go to Comcast.net or YouTube and IE8 plays all of them. I
don't know if they are .flv video's or what they are.

Henry

Henry wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>>Whose DNS server are you using?
>
> 192.168.35.1

That's not Comcast's DNS server. 192.168.x.x is an internal IP address
somewhere in YOUR network, like maybe the one in your router (which
really isn't a DNS server but merely fails the lookup to then pass it up
to whatever it is configured to use as its DNS server).

>> Got an example video (web page and where is
>> the video in that page)?
>
> Go to http:/www.MarketWatch.com and click on any of the video's. IE8 doesn't
> play any of them. Go to Comcast.net or YouTube and IE8 plays all of them. I
> don't know if they are .flv video's or what they are.
>
> Henry

I found lots of links that took me elsewhere. No videos on their home
page (when I happened to visit their site). One link took me to:

http://www.marketwatch.com/video/ass...5-12DC8AF602B8

The videos didn't load there. Looks like their streaming source is dead
or the link to it has failed. Or it could be they restrict some content
until you establish an account and log into their site (I'm not going to
bother creating an account there). Did you login and retest?

VanguardLH wrote:

>>
>>>Whose DNS server are you using?

I don't know how to find it.

>>>Got an example video (web page and where is
>>>the video in that page)?

Here's two:

http://www.marketwatch.com/video/ass...ist=beforebell
http://tinyurl.com/3dh57pc

http://www.marketwatch.com/video/ass...9-A646F1E35A53
http://tinyurl.com/3qmf682


> I found lots of links that took me elsewhere. No videos on their home
> page (when I happened to visit their site). One link took me to:
>
> http://www.marketwatch.com/video/ass...5-12DC8AF602B8

I logged in and went there and your example wouldn't play. There are many
places on MarketWatch.com with videos. They are all marked with a little camera.


> The videos didn't load there. Looks like their streaming source is dead
> or the link to it has failed.

This has been going on for a couple of months on my computer. On my wife's
and our laptop, IE8 works great on MarketWatch.com so I don't think their
link has failed. I think it's a problem with *my* computers IE8.


> Or it could be they restrict some content
> until you establish an account and log into their site (I'm not going to
> bother creating an account there). Did you login and retest?

As I said above, yes I did login. I thought of that when it started acting
up a couple of months ago and established an account then.

Henry

Henry wrote:

> http://tinyurl.com/3dh57pc

With my real OS instance, in IE8 there is no right-arrow (indicating a
Play button) and the videos won't play. With my guest OS instance
(running WinXP+IE8 in a virtual machine), the videos play. The
difference is my IE8 on my real OS instance is configured to block many
ad content sources along with cookie blocking. I don't block cookies
from specific sites because IE8 is configured to delete all cookies when
it exits. I have cookie management configured in IE8 to disallow 3rd
party cookies. These are cookies written by the domain you are visiting
but specify a different domain within them. The web browser prevents a
domain from accessing a cookie that isn't for its domain but it does
permit writing cookies for a different domain (so when you visit there
then that other domain can open that cookie). This is one way to trace
your web navigation (it's an old tracking scheme). I suppose it is also
possible to open a frame within a web page on one domain that is
actually for another domain but I configure IE8 to block that. If a
site isn't willing to route all of their content through their domain,
even for ads from another domain, then I don't want to see that piped
content (for which the domain will disclaim responsibility regarding
content and effects).

I notice in my real host that IE8 shows me it is blocking cookies from
doubleclick, atdmt, imrworldwide (a multi-magazine publisher), and wsod.
I know many sites demand that you save all they cookies they want to
puke onto your host for their site to function but I don't care. I'm
not interested in them tracking my web navigation and most of this crap
is for advertising which is funneled through their domain rather than
being sourced from there.

Because I have IE8 delete all cookies on exit, I no longer bother with a
custom cookie management setup (Internet Options -> Privacy ->
Advanced). I just use the Medium cookie management scheme. It could be
that policy level is too restrictive for the Marketwatch site to get
their 3rd party (other domain) cookies on my host for which they punish
me by not delivering all content. If you setup a custom cookie policy,
that can cause cookies to get rejected. Also, if you go under the
Internet Options -> Security tab and look at the Restricted Sites list,
maybe those 3rd party domains are listed. If so, no content will be
accepted from there. I happen to use SpywareBlaster which includes a
Restricted Sites list that I add to IE8. Doubleclick and ATDMT are in
the Restricted Sites list (after using SpywareBlaster to put them
there). Those are big media content providers. Sites will funnel
through the media content but it comes through these 3rd party content
providers, so if you block content from those 3rd party media content
providers then you won't see it at the site it gets funnelled through.
This funnelling lets the site not have to deal with setting up the media
delivery while letting the 3rd party content provider track who (which
site) is using their content, who (by user) is using their content (for
demographics), and restrict what gets delivered if, for example, users
choose to block that content. You might not want everything that a site
wants to dump into your web browser but they can see what you omitted
and decide not to give you all their content if you block some of it.

SpywareBlaster (the free version) does not stay resident. You update it
and use it to add entries in the registry. One of these registry
updates is to add domains/hosts to the Restricted Sites in the web
browser. There are other security products that do the same thing by
either adding the entries in the registry which configures the web
browser to block that source for content or they filter it on-the-fly by
interrogating your web traffic. You mentioned using Avast but not which
version. Back in Avast 4.8, there was a URL blocking feature which they
removed in v5 but restored in v6, so it's possible some sites and
thereby their content is being filtered out by Avast (or some other
security product you aren't aware you used or are using).

VanguardLH wrote:
>
> With my real OS instance, in IE8 there is no right-arrow (indicating a
> Play button) and the videos won't play. With my guest OS instance
> (running WinXP+IE8 in a virtual machine), the videos play. The
> difference is my IE8 on my real OS instance is configured to block many
> ad content sources along with cookie blocking. I don't block cookies
> from specific sites because IE8 is configured to delete all cookies when
> it exits. I have cookie management configured in IE8 to disallow 3rd
> party cookies. These are cookies written by the domain you are visiting
> but specify a different domain within them. The web browser prevents a
> domain from accessing a cookie that isn't for its domain but it does
> permit writing cookies for a different domain (so when you visit there
> then that other domain can open that cookie). This is one way to trace
> your web navigation (it's an old tracking scheme). I suppose it is also
> possible to open a frame within a web page on one domain that is
> actually for another domain but I configure IE8 to block that. If a
> site isn't willing to route all of their content through their domain,
> even for ads from another domain, then I don't want to see that piped
> content (for which the domain will disclaim responsibility regarding
> content and effects).
>
> I notice in my real host that IE8 shows me it is blocking cookies from
> doubleclick, atdmt, imrworldwide (a multi-magazine publisher), and wsod.
> I know many sites demand that you save all they cookies they want to
> puke onto your host for their site to function but I don't care. I'm
> not interested in them tracking my web navigation and most of this crap
> is for advertising which is funneled through their domain rather than
> being sourced from there.
>
> Because I have IE8 delete all cookies on exit, I no longer bother with a
> custom cookie management setup (Internet Options -> Privacy ->
> Advanced). I just use the Medium cookie management scheme. It could be
> that policy level is too restrictive for the Marketwatch site to get
> their 3rd party (other domain) cookies on my host for which they punish
> me by not delivering all content. If you setup a custom cookie policy,
> that can cause cookies to get rejected. Also, if you go under the
> Internet Options -> Security tab and look at the Restricted Sites list,
> maybe those 3rd party domains are listed. If so, no content will be
> accepted from there. I happen to use SpywareBlaster which includes a
> Restricted Sites list that I add to IE8. Doubleclick and ATDMT are in
> the Restricted Sites list (after using SpywareBlaster to put them
> there). Those are big media content providers. Sites will funnel
> through the media content but it comes through these 3rd party content
> providers, so if you block content from those 3rd party media content
> providers then you won't see it at the site it gets funnelled through.
> This funnelling lets the site not have to deal with setting up the media
> delivery while letting the 3rd party content provider track who (which
> site) is using their content, who (by user) is using their content (for
> demographics), and restrict what gets delivered if, for example, users
> choose to block that content. You might not want everything that a site
> wants to dump into your web browser but they can see what you omitted
> and decide not to give you all their content if you block some of it.
>
> SpywareBlaster (the free version) does not stay resident. You update it
> and use it to add entries in the registry. One of these registry
> updates is to add domains/hosts to the Restricted Sites in the web
> browser. There are other security products that do the same thing by
> either adding the entries in the registry which configures the web
> browser to block that source for content or they filter it on-the-fly by
> interrogating your web traffic. You mentioned using Avast but not which
> version. Back in Avast 4.8, there was a URL blocking feature which they
> removed in v5 but restored in v6, so it's possible some sites and
> thereby their content is being filtered out by Avast (or some other
> security product you aren't aware you used or are using).

I'm sorry but your last post lost me entirely. I'm sorry for being so dumb.
Would you be so kind to take the time to walk me through what my settings
should be please? Are there places that I should look for problems from any
of the antivirus/malware products that I have/had? I have Avast 5.0.677
presently. So as an example where would I look to find problems from that? I
don't understand about your comments on hosts either. As I said before I only
found the one host file and it had only one entry "local host 127.0.0.1"

I didn't mention that I had Spybot S & D and Adaware on for many years before
IE8 started acting up. I deleted them on the advice of another person but
perhaps they did something before I deleted them. If I go to IE8/Tools there
is still an entry "Spybot-Search Search Destroy Configuration" even though
I've deleted it and when I click on it nothing happens.

The confusing part is that I have my computer, my wife's computer and our
laptop all running WinXP Pro SP3 and IE8 with the same antivirus/malware
products and it's only my computer that is having problems. I opened IE8 in
both my computer and my wife's computer and went to Internet Options and
compared each and every tab and they are exactly the same on both computers.

Thanks for hanging with me. Henry

Henry wrote:

> Would you be so kind to take the time to walk me through what my
> settings should be please? Are there places that I should look for
> problems from any of the antivirus/malware products that I have/had?
> I have Avast 5.0.677 presently. So as an example where would I look
> to find problems from that? I don't understand about your comments on
> hosts either. As I said before I only found the one host file and it
> had only one entry "local host 127.0.0.1"
>
> I didn't mention that I had Spybot S & D and Adaware on for many
> years before IE8 started acting up. I deleted them on the advice of
> another person but perhaps they did something before I deleted them.
> If I go to IE8/Tools there is still an entry "Spybot-Search Search
> Destroy Configuration" even though I've deleted it and when I click
> on it nothing happens.

Internet Options -> Security -> Restricted Sites security zone Anything
listed there?

Internet Options -> Privacy -> Advanced What's the settings there?

I no longer have Avast. I think v4.8 was when they removed the URL
blocking feature (where you could list domains from where it blocked
content) and then they restored it in v6. You're in between at v5.0 so
you probably don't have the URL blocking feature. Have you yet
uninstalled Avast and retest?

I remember seeing someone else complaining that S&D was still listed as
an add-on for IE although they uninstalled it. I think one of its
components is sdhelper.dll and users complained IE didn't work
correctly after an incomplete uninstall of Spybot but with this add-ons
still listed in IE. Go to the Spybot forums to ask how to completely
eradicate that program from your host. I found an article on their
site (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/howto/uninstall.html) but it
doesn't address how to edit the registry to remove lingering add-on
definitions for IE. I haven't bothered using Spybot S&D for many years
(and it doesn't appeal to me now, either, since other products are
better).

Have you yet tried rebooting Windows into its safe mode (with
networking) and ran IE8 in its no add-ons mode?

> The confusing part is that I have my computer, my wife's computer and
> our laptop all running WinXP Pro SP3 and IE8 with the same
> antivirus/malware products and it's only my computer that is having
> problems. I opened IE8 in both my computer and my wife's computer and
> went to Internet Options and compared each and every tab and they are
> exactly the same on both computers.

Having the same software suite doesn't preclude differences in
configuration or differences in update state. You may have to
temporarily all the security software to see if the problem gets solved
except leave the Windows firewall (and the one in your router) enabled.