IE cannot find server, OE, Norton Update okay

Has anyone found out the problem with this yet?

Every few days, IE will (after initially working for 30 to 120 minutes) suddenly show the "cannot find server" screen no matter what site is selected. FireFox will no longer access the internet ("connection refused" error message). However, OE, Norton Update and anything else that uses the modem continues to work okay (OE gets mail, Norton Update updates, etc.). All this is very puzzling. Clearing the IE internet files does no good. Running "netsh int setup log reset" does no good. Clicking on "repair" in the connection icon does no good.

However, a "Restart" from the Start button always restores the IE connection (and Firefox) to the internet.

I have XP Home (SP2) and all updates, Norton AntiVirus and Firewall, SpySweeper - all show a clean system. defragged a couple of weeks ago. I have a DSL connection with Frontier net. It seems to happen when I have more than one IE window open and/or when I'm impatient and click on a different "favorites" while the previous site is attempting to load.

Nobody had an answer last month, I wondered if anyone found out anything new in the meantime. I just reboot and everything is fine, it's just annoying to occasionally have IE lose the internet connection.

Regards, Bob

 

That could be the case, I'm not sure of the exact timing. Sure is a nuisance! BTW, I've also scanned with SpyBot, AdAware, etc., all clean according to them too.

I just thought someone may have come up with something in the last month. There's no definitive answers on the internet (Google search) except to suspect spyware, but then if that's what it is, it's being missed by all the major spyware detection programs.

Regards, Bob

 

That is certainly one thing I could do but I'm not yet that annoyed. There are a lot of users of SP2 that, apparently, don't have the problem. I was hoping for another option.

Regards, Bob

 

Something else you might check,

Disable the Norton Firewall and see if Firefox works, if it does tell us which version of NIS you have.

Also, do you have ZoneAlarm installed?

Steve

 

About a month ago I posted on the Spyware Forum and followed the instructions on Hijack and posted the results when asked by the moderator. He looked through the Hijack output and didn't find anything suspect. He suggested I post on this forum (Software) for further help.

Regards, Bob

 

The last time FireFox and IE stopped working, I clicked on the Norton Firewall icon and selected "disable" but neither browser worked. I still got the same error messages. This is really frustrating. I don't have ZoneAlarm installed.

I saw some hints on the web (from a Google search) of first having a problem after installing FireFox so I uninstalled it last night - I don't know if that has anything to do with it but I've run out of others things to do (other than uninstalling SP2 - not desperate enough for that yet).

Regards, Bob

 

Kinda wish you had kept FireFox a little longer, me and D3m3nt3d were just getting started. Let us know how it goes with IE.

Steve

 

I am now up to a full week without a reoccurrence of "cannot find server" message from IE after uninstalling FireFox. To my knowledge, I've done nothing else to the system. It's the first time in over two months (since installing FireFox?, can't remember the exact date) that I've gone without that message for a full week!

Now that I've posted, I'm sure I've jinxed it and I'll get the message again! (but not yet...)

Regards, Bob

 

All I'm saying is that having tried everything else to no avail and remembering that the problem started about the time I installed FireFox, I deleted it last week and my "cannot find server" problem has not reappeared.

I'll let it go another month and if I still do not get the "cannot find server" error message I could reinstall FireFox to see if it comes back. I have no other explanation for the change over the last week.

Regards, Bob

 

My problem (per the title of the thread) has come back so deleting FireFox had nothing to do with it (apparently). My system was stable for about a month but then again I started to lose connectivity. It was the same as before, IE gave the error message while OE, Norton Update and everything else on my system had no trouble connecting to the internet. When there's a problem, it's a problem with every site. When I had FireFox installed and IE couldn't connect, then FireFox couldn't either.

All the standard actions had no effect (deleted temp internet files, clicking on "repair" on the connections icon, turning off the firewall and spyware temporarily...) I still use Norton Anti-virus, Norton Firewall, SpySweeper and do regular scans with anti-virus and SpySweeper and use Norton to clean the registry. I periodically do scans with Adware and SpyBot too but I've seldom found anything after I installed SpySweeper last year.

The only action that fixes the problem is a re-boot (sigh...) Has anyone run across a fix to this problem since my last post?

Bob

PS, I lose connectivity using IE about once a week, not too bad but a real pain when I'm in the middle of something.

 

I seem to have hit upon the solution to my "IE cannot find server.." problem. After a very long process of elimination over the phone with my ISP technical support (many combinations of unplug DSL, reset, plug in DSL bypassing the router, all sorts of "repair" commands in a DOS window, the technician (she was in the USA, not India!) directed me to this site to download a program to repair Winsock which apparently became corrupted (I was losing IE access to the internet multiple times a day - on some days, other days it was fine for several days at a time - maddening!)

I downloaded the program and (so far!!) IE has not lost the connection again. Here's the link:
http://support.frontiernet.net/winsockxpfix/

I'll check back in here with either an update in 2 months with a no problem report or a report that it's broken again and the download didn't fix it. However, so far so good.

Regards, Bob

 

The winsockxp fix is a very good tool to use with these issues.

 

This will be my last post.

It's been 1.5 months since I downloaded the winsock repair program referred to in my last post and I have not lost my internet connection since then (I'm on for at least 8 hours daily). With that I'm claiming victory and enjoying the continuous, uninterrupted internet service.

Regards, Bob