ie 6 terminates dsl line

[bruce]

My IE 6 browser is losing the network connection after
browsing 6-8 pages. If I restart the computer, it works
again. I have spoken to technical help at my ISP and they
say it is not in the connection. When we go to cmd, I can
ping sites, but cannot get IE to connect. Is there some
kind of timeout setting on IE 6? I have had this
connection since November and this problem just started
today.

 

[greg]

There's a virus that does this. I wanna say the blaster
virus but i'm not sure. do a manual scan with up to date
virus def. and see what it finds.

 

[Michael Fanning]

Next time IE fails to load the page go to the command prompt (start/all
programs/accessories/command prompt) and type in "netstat" (without the").
I bet you see a port numbered from 3127 through 3198. When you restart the
computer IE begins with port 3000 and works it's way up as you load more
pages. My guess is that your ISP has begun to block ports 3127 through 3198
in order to quiet down the mydoom virus which uses those ports. If your ISP
insists on blocking the ports the workaround is to force IE to move up in
port number. You can do this with multiple hits of "refresh" (although I
didn't get a new port with each click) or opening multiple instances of IE.
Try opening some and rerunning netstat, you will see the port numbers
increase. When you reach 3199 or higher, the pages will open normally. If
you ask your ISP (or Microsoft Help) about this they will tell you that IE
only uses port 80 for all web pages. Something is wrong with their answer.
My ISP has stopped blocking those ports after I pointed out what a problem
it was for users. Good luck, and please report back.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

You can do this with multiple hits of "refresh"

(although I didn't get a new port with each click)

What setting do you have for checking the cache?
(E.g. Alt-T,O,Alt-S,...) If it is None Refresh wouldn't do much.
If it is Every Visit you would probably get the most new connections.
It would also help to press Ctrl-F5 instead of just F5 (Refresh)
I think in case that invoked extra redirects. Having a page with
content from lots of different sites would probably add to the number
of connections each Ctrl-F5 would make too.

IE only uses port 80 for all web pages.

Port 80 is the default host port for (unencrypted) HTTP traffic.
Port 443 is the default host port for (encrypted) HTTPS traffic.

This doesn't say anything about which *client* port is being used.
Perhaps those are the ports that mydoom exploits?

Try this as a refinement of your diagnostic (if you are using XP):
Try to simulate the same thing otherwise if possible.

tasklist /fi "IMAGENAME EQ iexplore.exe"

That should give you the PID of your IE task. (You should be able
to get the same thing from Task Manager very easily.)

For example, I did that and found my current PID is 792

Now enter whatever you got for PID where I enter 792
in the next command (notice the leading space):

netstat -a -n -o | find " 792"

In IE go somewhere where there is lots of content preferably from lots
of different sites. Issue the above command. Press Ctrl-F5
and issue the above command again.

FWIW when I do that all the ports used by IE under the column labeled
"Foreign Address" are 80. The ports used by IE under the column
labeled "Local Address" do indeed seem to be increasing.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle

 

[Michael Fanning]

Thanks for the excellent suggestions. Incidentally, Microsoft support has
still not acknowledged that the IE client ports can be involved in the
inability to load web pages. My ISP has, however. They have unblocked
ports 3127-3198 and I no longer have to load extra web pages.
Mike Fanning