Can't connect to seversal websites

[Jeff]

I need some help. I've tried on Anadtech forums, but so far I haven't had
any luck.

I don't know why, but for the past two days I've been unable to connect to
my Yahoo personal page, or to my Juno, Netzero or Excite email account start
pages. I can connect to any other sites though.

I've relaxed all of my security settings to their minimums for java,
scripts, ActiveX, etc. I've made sure cookies were working (and I had the
cookies from these sites still in my Temp internet folder). I tried turning
off my software firewall, and made sure I was using my ISPs server and not
going through a proxy.

I've run traceroute several times on the my.yahoo.com page, and it has
gotten through quickly in 14 hops. Today it was suggested that I check the
HOSTS file, but it wasn't the problem. I searched for "Yahoo" and put a #
before any line with "Yahoo" in it, but I still couldn't connect.

Does anybody else have some suggestions for what I can do next?

Thank you.

 

[Jeff]

Also, I was using the IE based Avant web browser. But I also tried IE with
the same results, and since the traceroute went through I thought it might
be browser related. So I d/l Opera and tried with that browser, but still
no luck.

 

[Jeff]

I haven't installed an update in at least the last ten days, but this
problem only began two days ago.

I would prefer not to do a system restore because last night I spent an hour
locating and erasing all spyware and adware files and editing the registry
to remove keys installed by the spyware.

And this problem started before I did this prior mentioned operation, so my
inability to connect is not a related issue.

 

[Jeff]

Spontaneously just now I can connect to these sites. I've done nothing
today to have caused this change, and I couldn't connect as recently as 60
minutes ago. I don't know what's going on. If the problem were with the
websites, there is no explanation for Yahoo, Excite, Juno and Netzero all
being down at the same time.

 

[Microsoft Preferred Customer]

Have you installed any MS hotfix file or have you updated your windows XP
recently? If so then it is a good idea to rollback or to go back to previous
good state. You do this by going to:

START, ALL PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, SYSTEM RESTORE

Then you need to put back to whenever you were last able to logon to your secure
website.

If this works then you may need to download a patch from MS website to correct
problems logging onto secure sites.

Let us know if this works.

 

[Microsoft Preferred Customer]

The link to the download patch is as follows:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...16-604b-4bee-9c66-c66c05c62244&displaylang=en

hth

 

[Jeff]

I can't install this patch. It is a fix for IE 6.0 SP1. My version of IE
is 6.0.2800.1106.xpsp2.030422-1633.

My problem went away for 6 or 8 hours last night, and then recurred (I think
after I rebooted, but I'm not sure of the exact sequence of events).

 

[Jeff]

When I run a traceroute on https://login.yahoo.com/config/login, I receive
an error message "Unable to locate this hostname".