Internet Explorer 9 Frozen

When I open IE 9.0.11, it opens to the home page and then freezes. Nothing works. My operating system is Vista, and all updates have been loaded, including the November 15 updates. Rebooting does not help. I do not think that it is a hardware or ISP issue since programs that bypass IE to access the Internet (e.g., antivirus and antispyware updates) function normally and the laptop that uses the wireless router has normal Internet access. Antivirus and antispyware scans indicate that the system is clean.

I would appreciate any ideas that you may have.

 

Plodr:

Thank you for your suggestion. I will try it and let you know the results. FYI, the problem computer is at home and I am at the office now, so it will likely take a while before I am able to provide an update.

California Geezer

 

Plodr:

It turns out that the first time I open the browser, I have a 10-15 second window of opportunity, so I was able to change the home page. Alas, no effect. Turns out that the browser is not frozen, it just takes 5 minutes to load each web page or to operate each step in a menu. Closing the browser and reopening does not provide a new window of opportunity, but very slow operations. I suspect that slow operations instead of frozen was always the case, but I was too impatient to wait.

I appreciate any thoughts you may have.

CG

 

What Internet speed are you paying your ISP for, and how are you connecting to your ISP (Modem with router (wired or wireless to router).

 

Brownizs:

I have DSL. I have the slower of the two offered speeds, but speed has never been a problem until this issue arose. I have a cable running from the telephone jack to the modem for this computer. I also have a wireless router linked to the modem for my daughter's laptop. The laptop has Internet access with no speed problems.

CG

 

And, the computer is connected to the router via Ethernet cable?

 

USAFVeteran:

Thank you for your service to the Country.

The router is connected to the computer by a cable. I do not know enough to know whether or not it is an Ethernet cable, but it is the cable that came with the router.

CG

 

Still does not state what is the speed you are getting from your ISP. IE9 is a bad browser for slow Internet connections below 6mbps. What happens if you try to use Firefox or Chrome for web browsing? Does it hang also?

 

Brownizs:

Offhand, I do not know the speed from my ISP. I am at the office and that information is at home. I can get the info and report back later. I never installed Firefox or Chrome because, until now, I never had any problems with IE and it was adequate for my needs (which are not that great). From the beginning, in the back of my mind is the thought that the solution would be to download Firefox or Chrome to a thumb drive and transfer that to my computer.

CG

 

Check the Event viewer in Administrative tools for any errors. Anything from an add-on to IE, to the Operating system can be causing the hangup. You can try and start IE in Safe mode and see if it does the same thing.

 

Brownizs:

I did check and there are no add-ons. I will check event viewer and try safe mode and report on what happens.

CG

 

Excuse me for butting in but, have you tried resetting IE ?? Sometimes something as simple as that can fix IE when it hangs. Just a thought if nothing else is working. This works in Vista and Win 7.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Reset-Internet-Explorer-settings-in-Internet-Explorer-9

 

Microsoft automatice updates loaded today, and lo and behold, something kicked IE back into shape. It now runs like it always did. Opens nicely and navigates pages well. I am not certain why it happened, but I am not going to complain.

To fulfill some information requests, I am getting 768K upload from my ISP. I checked the Event Viewer and could not find any errors related to the browser (at least that I could tell).

I want to thank Plodr, Brownizs, USAFVeteran, and Nick T for taking the time and trouble to help me. You are awesome!

CG

 

You may find IE10 a little more faster than 9, along with some other changes. But yes, MS has been known to push out wonky updates, then turned around and pushed a fix without telling anyone why.