Vista Home - No Websites / Webpages Ever Load Despite Other Online Functionality

Hi,

I've had this problem on two Vista machines now, one was a Home
Premium and this one is a Home Basic. The Home Premium machine never
got permanently fixed- the user decided to roll back to XP, but for
this user that's not an option.

The problem is as follows:

No websites load. This happens randomly- it doesn't appear to follow
any specific trigger, just suddenly websites stop loading. Sometimes a
reboot will fix it, but usually it seems you have to wait a while and
reboot for the loading problem to go away.

By "Stops loading" that doesn't mean there's an error page or
anything- there isn't any. Also, the problem isn't browser specific.
We (the user and I) open either Firefox or IE and try to go to any
website, by known IP address or by name, and it always says "Waiting
for google.com..." on the status bar but never times out. There's
never any error message or timeout, even going to about:config in
Firefox and setting the timeout to 100ms. Pings return to all of the
websites, DNS works fine via Ping or tracert. They just don't load.

Other web-dependent programs, such as instant messaging software
(Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype) all
continue to function normally.

I thought it was perhaps a firewall blocking port 80, but the user
doesn't have any 3rd-party firewalls, and even with the Vista firewall
disabled the problem keeps happening. This isn't a machine on a domain
and the user and I have not messed with group policy (actually, the
user isn't even *aware* of group policy). I tried disabling and re-
enabling the network adapter, and ipconfig /release... ipconfig /
renew, but while both of those options interrupted and then
reestablished network connectivity normally, neither caused the
website problem to go away.

I ran a fully updated Spybot S&D scan, and a fully updated Avast!
scan, without turning up any results other than cookies in S&D. I know
it's not a network problem because the user is in a dorm and the other
people in the dorm have no problem when the user can't connect to
websites.

I also want to reiterate that this isn't for one or two websites, it's
any website. It's not for IE7, it's IE7 and Firefox 2.0.0.6. The user
has automatic updates that run nightly. The user can ping anywhere
normally. It's not DNS, it applies even to website access by IP
address. I haven't been able to find any posts about precisely this,
though I've only spent about half an hour looking, at that point I
decided it was worth starting a new post.

Any help would be appreciated ASAP, I'm heading over there in about
12-18 hours to take a look and see what I can do.

Thanks,

Jon Harvey

"Jon" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I've had this problem on two Vista machines now, one was a Home
> Premium and this one is a Home Basic. The Home Premium machine never
> got permanently fixed- the user decided to roll back to XP, but for
> this user that's not an option.
>
> The problem is as follows:
>
> No websites load. This happens randomly- it doesn't appear to follow
> any specific trigger, just suddenly websites stop loading. Sometimes a
> reboot will fix it, but usually it seems you have to wait a while and
> reboot for the loading problem to go away.
>
> By "Stops loading" that doesn't mean there's an error page or
> anything- there isn't any. Also, the problem isn't browser specific.
> We (the user and I) open either Firefox or IE and try to go to any
> website, by known IP address or by name, and it always says "Waiting
> for google.com..." on the status bar but never times out. There's
> never any error message or timeout, even going to about:config in
> Firefox and setting the timeout to 100ms. Pings return to all of the
> websites, DNS works fine via Ping or tracert. They just don't load.
>
> Other web-dependent programs, such as instant messaging software
> (Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype) all
> continue to function normally.
>
> I thought it was perhaps a firewall blocking port 80, but the user
> doesn't have any 3rd-party firewalls, and even with the Vista firewall
> disabled the problem keeps happening. This isn't a machine on a domain
> and the user and I have not messed with group policy (actually, the
> user isn't even *aware* of group policy). I tried disabling and re-
> enabling the network adapter, and ipconfig /release... ipconfig /
> renew, but while both of those options interrupted and then
> reestablished network connectivity normally, neither caused the
> website problem to go away.
>
> I ran a fully updated Spybot S&D scan, and a fully updated Avast!
> scan, without turning up any results other than cookies in S&D. I know
> it's not a network problem because the user is in a dorm and the other
> people in the dorm have no problem when the user can't connect to
> websites.
>
> I also want to reiterate that this isn't for one or two websites, it's
> any website. It's not for IE7, it's IE7 and Firefox 2.0.0.6. The user
> has automatic updates that run nightly. The user can ping anywhere
> normally. It's not DNS, it applies even to website access by IP
> address. I haven't been able to find any posts about precisely this,
> though I've only spent about half an hour looking, at that point I
> decided it was worth starting a new post.
>
> Any help would be appreciated ASAP, I'm heading over there in about
> 12-18 hours to take a look and see what I can do.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon Harvey
>


What type of Internet connection?

Saucy

On Sep 11, 7:02 pm, "Saucy" <saucy538347334873772.sj...@net.net.net>
wrote:
> "Jon" <jdhar...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news: oups.com...
>
>
>
> > Hi,
>
> > I've had this problem on two Vista machines now, one was a Home
> > Premium and this one is a Home Basic. The Home Premium machine never
> > got permanently fixed- the user decided to roll back to XP, but for
> > this user that's not an option.
>
> > The problem is as follows:
>
> > No websites load. This happens randomly- it doesn't appear to follow
> > any specific trigger, just suddenly websites stop loading. Sometimes a
> > reboot will fix it, but usually it seems you have to wait a while and
> > reboot for the loading problem to go away.
>
> > By "Stops loading" that doesn't mean there's an error page or
> > anything- there isn't any. Also, the problem isn't browser specific.
> > We (the user and I) open either Firefox or IE and try to go to any
> > website, by known IP address or by name, and it always says "Waiting
> > for google.com..." on the status bar but never times out. There's
> > never any error message or timeout, even going to about:config in
> > Firefox and setting the timeout to 100ms. Pings return to all of the
> > websites, DNS works fine via Ping or tracert. They just don't load.
>
> > Other web-dependent programs, such as instant messaging software
> > (Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype) all
> > continue to function normally.
>
> > I thought it was perhaps a firewall blocking port 80, but the user
> > doesn't have any 3rd-party firewalls, and even with the Vista firewall
> > disabled the problem keeps happening. This isn't a machine on a domain
> > and the user and I have not messed with group policy (actually, the
> > user isn't even *aware* of group policy). I tried disabling and re-
> > enabling the network adapter, and ipconfig /release... ipconfig /
> > renew, but while both of those options interrupted and then
> > reestablished network connectivity normally, neither caused the
> > website problem to go away.
>
> > I ran a fully updated Spybot S&D scan, and a fully updated Avast!
> > scan, without turning up any results other than cookies in S&D. I know
> > it's not a network problem because the user is in a dorm and the other
> > people in the dorm have no problem when the user can't connect to
> > websites.
>
> > I also want to reiterate that this isn't for one or two websites, it's
> > any website. It's not for IE7, it's IE7 and Firefox 2.0.0.6. The user
> > has automatic updates that run nightly. The user can ping anywhere
> > normally. It's not DNS, it applies even to website access by IP
> > address. I haven't been able to find any posts about precisely this,
> > though I've only spent about half an hour looking, at that point I
> > decided it was worth starting a new post.
>
> > Any help would be appreciated ASAP, I'm heading over there in about
> > 12-18 hours to take a look and see what I can do.
>
> > Thanks,
>
> > Jon Harvey
>
> What type of Internet connection?
>
> Saucy

It's on a medium college campus so I assume T1, maybe T3 or fiber.
Nonetheless, noone else on the same internet connection replicates the
issue, so I know it's machine specific.

Hello Jon,

Check that the pc in question has the latest NIC drivers. You may wish to
try this:

- Click start
- Type: cmd
- Right-click cmd.exe when it appears under Applications
- Click Run As Administrator
- Type the following: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
- Press enter
- Restart your computer



--
Jane, not plain 64 bit enabled :-)
Batteries not included. Braincell on vacation ;-)
MVP - Windows Shell/User

"Jon" <> wrote

> It's on a medium college campus so I assume T1, maybe T3 or fiber.
> Nonetheless, noone else on the same internet connection replicates the
> issue, so I know it's machine specific.
>