IE crashes when I click on Favorites

[donusenetgarbage]

Hi,

I'm having a problem with my Favorites in IE6 with XP.

There are three symptoms that I see:

1. When I click on the Favorites pull down, I receive a popup with the
following message: "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and
needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

2. When I navigate using windows explorer to C:\Documents and
Settings\<user name>\ and then try to access the Favorites item, I
receive a popup with this message: "Windows Explorer has encountered a
problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

3. When I run Adaware it runs until it hits the file C:\Documents and
Settings\<user name>\Favorites and then stalls.

I've run error checking on the disk and it comes back fine.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Don

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Don

Try the following:

Boot up into Safe Mode as below. Navigate to the User folder where the
problem is. See if you can delete the Favorites folder. If not, see if you
can rename it to Favorites_old. Report back, and if you can't not do either,
post the exact wording of any error messages.

Windows XP:
To use the F8 key to start Windows XP in Safe mode
Restart the computer.
Some computers have a progress bar that refers to the word BIOS. Others may
not let you know what is happening.
As soon as the BIOS loads, begin tapping the F8 key on your keyboard. Do so
until the Windows Advanced Options menu appears.
If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a "keyboard
error" message. If this happens, restart the computer and try again.
Using the arrow keys on the keyboard, select Safe mode and then press Enter


Hope this helps.

Jan
MS MVP - Windows IE/OE [DTS/AumHa]
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

Replies are posted only to the newsgroup for the benefit or other readers.
How to make a good newsgroup post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[donusenetgarbage]

Thanks for the reply Jan. Unfortunately, your suggestion did not solve
the problem. I was able to boot into Safe Mode, and, moved Favorites to
Favorites_old. When I run IE and click on Favorites menu item I still
get the popup with this error message: "Internet Explorer has
encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the
inconvenience.". There is not much more information about the problem
in the error message. It does ask whether I'd like to send the error
report to microsoft.

Also, when I use windows explorer to navigate to the new Favorites_old
file (or is it a directory?) I get the same error message as above. In
fact, the popup message happens when I mouse over Favorites_old.

Another clue is that when I try to type an URL into IE, I get the same
error popup.

Any other suggestions? Is there any more information I can give?

Thanks,
Don

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Don

OK..did you open IE while still in Safe Mode, or after you rebooted to
normal mode, when Windows reloaded normally? Do you have an install CD or
just an OEM?

First try this:

Open IE>Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Browsing
Uncheck the Enable 3rd party browser extensions

If this allows you to access the Favorites and all other functions then your
machine is infected and you need to take further steps to clean it.

If the above makes no difference, the try the following:

IE Fix
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/IEFIX.htm

Post back the results of the above.

Hope this helps.

Jan
MS MVP - Windows IE/OE [DTS/AumHa]
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

Replies are posted only to the newsgroup for the benefit or other readers.
How to make a good newsgroup post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[donusenetgarbage]

Thanks again Jan.

When I run IE in safe mode I can view Favorites. The really odd thing
is that I moved the new file I created (Favorites_old) to a different
folder on my desktop. How does IE know where I moved the Favorites
directory? This may hold the key to why IE is crashing when not in
Normal Mode. If IE knows where the Favorites folder is independent of
where I put it or what I call it, it will always try to access it.

I don't want to lose the bookmarks that are in Favorites, so, I'd
prefer not to delete it. Is there a way to copy Favorites and then
delete the original?

I disabled 3rd party browser extensions and IE still crashes even after
reboot.

I'm about to try the IE fix you suggested above. Wish me luck

Thanks,
Don

 

[donusenetgarbage]

Ok, that didn't work either.

I tried to delete the Favorites folder but I got a message saying that
I could not delete the folder because it is a Windows System file.

Any other suggestions? Is it possible that the folder is somehow
corrupt? if it is corrupt, is there a way to fix the corruption?

Thanks,
Don

 

[Jon Kennedy]

Yes, it's possible the folder is corrupt. Try doing a File...Import/Export
on your Favorites in IE - to save them if you want. Then, to delete the
folder, you'll have to log on as administrator from another account. From
there you can delete the troublesome Favorites folder in the other account.

 

[Guest]

I had exactly this problem....just got it resolved by:

1) Logging into Safe Mode and exporting Favorites
2) Tinkering w/ the registry as described here:
(http://groups.google.com/group/micr...945e52e130e/cac28ffd6dfebcdc#cac28ffd6dfebcdc)
3) Reimport Favorites from bookmark file

Seems to work ok now.

-A

 

[MattE]

Hi Don

Did you fix the problem - I have just got exactly the same problem, ie6
crashes if I click on favourites or type in the url box.

thanks

Matt

 

[Jan Il]

Hi MattE

Have you tried any of the information that has been posted here by Don
Varnau or myself for the OP to see if it would work for you? If so, what was
the result? Please be specific in reporting the results.

Jan
MS MVP - Windows IE/OE [DTS/AumHa]
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

 

[donusenetgarbage]

Thanks all for the input.

I ran a Symantec antivirus scan on my computer (from Administrator
account) and the problem is fixed. The virus found was Trojan.Abwiz.
So, there must have been a problem with a virus that I ran into. Now,
I'll have to copy back my Favorites folders to their original
locations.

Thanks again,
Don

 

[Guest]

I had the same problem and resolved it like this:

Using information found in article KB318378 under the heading "Windows XP
and Windows XP SP1: Edit the registry and install Internet Explorer 6", (Even
though I have SP2), I edited the registry to allow me to reinstall IE 6.

After doing this IT STILL told me the same thing as before, "Setup has
encountered a newer version of Internet Explorer on this system. Setup cannot
continue. I rebooted and a message was displayed that read something like,
"IE has been removed from your system, would you like to clean up personal
settings?"

At first I resisted as I didn't want to loose these, but I could still not
reinstall IE. So I rebooted again and this time I choose "Yes" to delete my
personal settings.

At this point I opened IE and attempted to access the Favorite menu and
"Save" a new Favorite and all is well! I am most pleased!

I hope this helps someone else.

Dave