Hopefully someone here can help with this problem. Sometimes when using IE (version 6.0), random pages just won’t display, and I get the “Cannot find server” page. I know these pages are working find, because I’m able to open them in other browsers, and if I restart my computer, I’m able to open them in IE. Anyone know what could be causing this problem?
For starters (as everyone else will say) clear your cache. You may have gone to that page once before and received that (legit) error. Then everytime you try it again, IE is pulling it off your hard drive. Find a site that does it, reset your cache and try it again.
Thanks Joey, but I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work.
If you’re using Windows 2000 or Windows XP, the problem may be down to ‘negative’ DNS caching.
This site
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3384507,00.html
has solutions.
Hmmm. I’m using Windows 98. Do you think this may still apply?
If you use the “refresh” icon on the browser it will retrieve the cite from the web and not your cache.
That would be a soft refresh. In Netscape you push shift when you push refresh to do a full refresh. I forgot what key you use in IE for that, probably CTRL or ALT…
Hmm … seems like when I was developing JavaScripts all I would need to do is hit the refresh button to get the page reloaded from the server. Maybe I had to do more than that, it’s been awhile. I might have set my cache to zero too.
None of the refresh options work. Even if I close and restart IE, or if I empty the cache, it still comes back with the same “Cannot Find Server” page. The only thing that corrects the problem is restarting the computer.
If restarting the computer fixes the problem, it sounds like a system software bug to me. Make sure you download and install all the latest system updates (I know this takes forever and is a royal pain in the butt, but if fixing this problem is that important to you …).
Also try the System File Checker. You can find it under Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Information. Under the Tools menu, click System File Checker, and follow the prompts. Have your Windows 98 installation CD handy, in case it finds corrupt or missing system files that need to be restored.
Thanks for the suggestions, ccwaterback and Q.E.D. I’ll give those a try first thing Monday morning.
F5 (or CTRL-R) does the trick, but it just seems to reload the HTML. Shift-F5 (or holding down Shift while hitting the reload button) is a hard refresh, and will re-retrieve everything on the whole page.