HELP! Unable to open certain websites using Internet Explorer.

For a few days now I have been unable to access sites like Google and the SDMB with Internet Explorer. Whenever I try to open them, I first get the message on the status bar that says, “Web site found. Waiting for reply.” After that however, I get the cannot find server or DNS Error page. The odd thing is, I can still access sites using Netscape. It seems like some spyware is messing with my computer, however, I ran both Ad-aware and Spybot and cleaned out everything they found, but I still cannot get things to work. Does anyone have any ideas what could be the problem? This is really annoying. Thanks in advance!

I’m running into similar problems.

Spy Sweeper seemed to have helped find stuff not found by other spyware programs.

I also found that if I boot up the machine, open IE and then press the “stop” before any pages load, wait, and then I could access pages like the straight dope. YMMV

Go to Tools|Internet Options, Connections tab, and hit LAN Settings. Make sure that none of the boxes are checked. Also hit Delete Cookies and Delete Files on the General tab. Close IE and re-open it.

Is any of the spyware detected again after you’ve removed it with Ad-aware or Spybot? You might want to run HijackThis and post the log. This can give clues about what malware is installed.

Could be this: http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.asp

Symptom is DNS errors, inability to browse the web.

Thanks a lot for all the advice. I followed Number’s instructions, and now everything seems to be fine. It was pretty simple!

Actually, I have a similar query…

I am unable to access the site www.globalhoopscsc.org in ANY browser (IE, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla +Firefox). All I get is a time out error.

It seems no-one else has this problem. This computer is shiny and new and I know there’s no spyware/adware/evilware on it, and neither can I call up the site on the laptop. I have no problems with any other websites.

Any ideas?

Go to a command prompt by going to Start|Run, typing cmd and hitting OK. Type ping www.globalhoopscsc.org and hit Enter. The first line you see next should look like this:

If it says “Unknown host” instead then there’s a DNS problem and you should talk to your ISP.

If there’s a different IP in the brackets then you should check your HOSTS file. Go back to Start|Run and paste this:
notepad %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Remove any lines that mention globalhoopscsc.org.

Tried that already the other week, all four packets timed out. Same result trying it again now. :frowning:

That server doesn’t respond to pings, so the packets are going to time out no matter what. The thing to look at is the first line, before “Request timed out.”

I once was having similar problems, and it turned out my firewall, ZoneAlarm, was eating DNS responses for some reason. I uninstalled and re-installed ZA, which fixed the problem.

No extra info, all it says is:

Revtim, I have ZA on this puter, but the laptop doesn’t, and I couldn’t get the site before I installed ZA, so I don’t think that’s what’s causing my problem.

Boooo! :frowning:

Ok, you’ve established that DNS is working. You can narrow the cause of the problem down a little more by going to a command prompt and typing
telnet www.globalhoopscsc.org 80

The window should go blank. Type get and hit Enter. You probably won’t see the letters when you type them but that’s ok. Once you hit Enter you should get a bunch of html, then “Connection to host lost.” If that happens then it’s a Windows or browser issue. If you can’t connect to port 80 then it’s a networking issue.

I can’t connect. “Connecting To www.globalhoopscsc.org…Could not open connection to the host, on port 80: connection failed.”

No problem telnetting to other domains or localhost.

It seems I am unable to connect to any domain hosted on the ORION-HOSTING.COM DNS
www.timtalk.com gives me all the same results, as does www.orion-hosting.com

:smack: stoopid auto-url thing. meh.

You might want to contact the site’s webmaster. Perhaps they have your IP or domain blocked for some reason.

Would that not give me a 403 error though?

You might see a Forbidden error if your IP or domain were denied permission to the pages, but not if it were blocked on their firewall.

ah well, nevermind eh. It’s a good thing I’m not interested in football! :wink:

Cheers Number!