Can't browse to a particular site

[BMN]

Heres a weird one for you.

I am at a clients the other day and making the rounds on the PC's and
laptops, cleaning them up, running spyware detectors, defraging, etc
etc. General maintenance stuff. So there is this one lady whom uses a
relatively new Dell Latitude, with docing station, 19" LCD etc. Nice
setup. I ask her if she had any issues she would like me to address,
problems, whatever. So she says she can't get to the corp web site.

She has XP, IE7 (I think) and I thought at first she was just typing it
in wrong or something. So I sit down at the machine and I browse to
google, do a quick test search= no porblems.

I then type in the name of the corp web site (hosted externally, but no
one else has problems reaching it). The result is the browser times out
and defaults to its search function. This of course creates a google
results page with all of the corporate pages etc. I think, thats wierd,
so I check all the IE settings, no indication of content advisor being
enabled or something like that, so I play around a bit and can't find
any setting that would specifically exclude any site "at all",
nevermind the fact that coincidentally it the company web site. LOL.

So I tried a different browser = same thing. can access everything
except the company web site.

So I thought maybe this is a profile problem of some sort, so I log out
and log in with my domain admin account.= same thing. (fyi our domain
dns is different from the corp web domain address)

I start looking into the system settings noticing that the software
firewall is turned on (but even as the admin I can't turn it off, but
that seems to be a security profile item).

So same symptom, multiple browsers, multiple user profiles, only one
web site.

If anyone has any ideas about this please let me know. thx

Cheers all.
BMN

 

[Seahawk60B]

Usually, when I have trouble getting to websites, one of the first
things I check is my DNS resolution.

1. What happens when you ping the web address you're trying to get to?
Does it resolve? What does it resolve to on one of the other working
computers? If you put the actual IP address of the web site in the
browser does it produce the same results?
2. Are the DNS server settings the same on this machine as they are on
others?
3. Are there any rogue entries in her hosts or lmhosts files?
4. Have you tried deleting temp files and temporary internet files?

 

[Daave]

Heres a weird one for you.

I am at a clients the other day and making the rounds on the PC's and
laptops, cleaning them up, running spyware detectors, defraging, etc
etc. General maintenance stuff. So there is this one lady whom uses a
relatively new Dell Latitude, with docing station, 19" LCD etc. Nice
setup. I ask her if she had any issues she would like me to address,
problems, whatever. So she says she can't get to the corp web site.

She has XP, IE7 (I think) and I thought at first she was just typing
it in wrong or something. So I sit down at the machine and I browse to
google, do a quick test search= no porblems.

I then type in the name of the corp web site (hosted externally, but
no one else has problems reaching it). The result is the browser
times out and defaults to its search function. This of course creates
a google results page with all of the corporate pages etc. I think,
thats wierd, so I check all the IE settings, no indication of content
advisor being enabled or something like that, so I play around a bit
and can't find any setting that would specifically exclude any site
"at all", nevermind the fact that coincidentally it the company web
site. LOL.

So I tried a different browser = same thing. can access everything
except the company web site.

So I thought maybe this is a profile problem of some sort, so I log
out and log in with my domain admin account.= same thing. (fyi our
domain dns is different from the corp web domain address)

I start looking into the system settings noticing that the software
firewall is turned on (but even as the admin I can't turn it off, but
that seems to be a security profile item).

So same symptom, multiple browsers, multiple user profiles, only one
web site.

If anyone has any ideas about this please let me know. thx

Is it possible the Web site is just simply down? Have you tried
accessing it from someplace else?

 

[Peter Foldes]

Does the station have another firewall (3rd party) that has a lock on the site. Also see if you can change the Windows firewall in the Safe mode

 

[Peter Foldes]

Daave

I think you did not read the OP's issue correctly.

 

[Daave]

I think you did not read the OP's issue correctly.

Oops! You are correct, Peter. (sorry, BMN)

 

[BMN]

All other workstations are fine
I have cleaned the machine of spyware, temp folders etc, besides,
trying multiple profiles should negate that as a possibility anyway I
think (temp folders I mean)
When I try to ping the address, it states the IP address, then times
out the four attempts
Just the default host files, no modifications.

This is really weird. I will double check to see if the DNS servers
are all the same, but they should only be three as with all other
workstations, the domain server and the ISP PRI/SEC, that is all I have
ever done with the workstations. I would think anyway, that since I can
reach every other single web site on the internet without issue it
wouldn't be a DNS server problem <scratching head>, I can ping other
sites without issue, which is also consistent with browser behaviour.
Since the machine came from Dell with a default security profile
restricting users from disabling the software firewall I am starting to
think that wouldn't be the problem either as no one including the local
admin account can change the firewall settings.

I will double check the DNS server IP addresses, try the safe mode
thing (with networking) and go from there.

 

[Seahawk60B]

"> When I try to ping the address, it states the IP address, then
times

out the four attempts"

I assume that it is resolving the IP address correctly?
Does that IP address respond to ping requests from other workstations?

If the answer to both is yes, then you would seem to have something
somewhere that is blocking traffic between two addresses.
What happens when you do a tracert? What does a tracert from a
working pc look like in comparison?