Error 403 on Internet Explorer, v6.0

[Gemma Clark]

I keep getting the 403 error message appear on my internet explorer
every time i try to open a page. The message says Error 403, you were
denied access by the access control list. This has been a problem
since i installed a wireless network. i have 3 pcs, one is connected
to the router through a USb cable, which is running 98, and i have
two laptops, which are connected to the network wirelessly, and are
running XP home. The 403 message only appears on the computers running
XP. I know that this must be a problem with IE, because it will run
other browsers with no problem.

I was wondering if anybody knew where i could find the access control
list?, i am computer administrator, so there is no problem there, and
it occurs on every page i try to load. Both computers are running
anti-virus programmes, and i was wonering whether it was some kind of
firewall set up by these computers? Any help would be greatly
appriciated. Thank you.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP]

I keep getting the 403 error message appear on my internet explorer
every time i try to open a page. The message says Error 403, you were
denied access by the access control list. This has been a problem
since i installed a wireless network. i have 3 pcs, one is connected
to the router through a USb cable, which is running 98, and i have
two laptops, which are connected to the network wirelessly, and are
running XP home. The 403 message only appears on the computers running
XP. I know that this must be a problem with IE, because it will run
other browsers with no problem.

I was wondering if anybody knew where i could find the access control
list?, i am computer administrator, so there is no problem there, and
it occurs on every page i try to load. Both computers are running
anti-virus programmes, and i was wonering whether it was some kind of
firewall set up by these computers? Any help would be greatly
appriciated. Thank you.

"Access Denied By Access Control List" Error Message When You Open a Web
Page
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316699

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

 

[Gemma Clark]

"Access Denied By Access Control List" Error Message When You Open a Web
Page
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316699

i have tried this, and had no luck, is there any other way of disabling it??

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

The message says Error 403, you were denied access

by the access control list.

My guess is you are getting some kind of error (probably not 403)
which is being misinterpreted. Make sure that you have unchecked
Show friendly HTTP error messages
(Options, Advanced tab, type R and press CursorDown)

What happens if you try to simulate that access using telnet?
Since another browser is working you would at least need to
send the appropriate User-Agent: header to make the simulation
sufficiently similar.

Another thing that you could do is use netcap to capture the same
attempts by both browsers and then compare the message flows.
Use netmon or Ethereal to format those traces and simplify
your analysis.

An almost as good alternative might be to use the following technique
in a command window:

netstat -s >begin.txt
...
(do your test quickly)
....
netstat -s >after.txt
fc begin.txt after.txt >diff.txt
notepad diff.txt

Do that for both browsers and see what is going on differently
packetwise (counts only) for each.

Make sure that any other connections are reduced to a minimum
to make the outputs comparable. Do more than one capture
per case if necessary to prove that your results are repeatable.

If it turns out that NO data is flowing to produce that message
then the error message is some kind of permission problem
on the XP machine. You might get more clues about that
by using a tool such as RegMon (freeware from SysInternals).


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle

 

[Gemma Clark]

My guess is you are getting some kind of error (probably not 403)
which is being misinterpreted. Make sure that you have unchecked
Show friendly HTTP error messages
(Options, Advanced tab, type R and press CursorDown)

What happens if you try to simulate that access using telnet?
Since another browser is working you would at least need to
send the appropriate User-Agent: header to make the simulation
sufficiently similar.

Another thing that you could do is use netcap to capture the same
attempts by both browsers and then compare the message flows.
Use netmon or Ethereal to format those traces and simplify
your analysis.

An almost as good alternative might be to use the following technique
in a command window:

netstat -s >begin.txt
...
(do your test quickly)
...
netstat -s >after.txt
fc begin.txt after.txt >diff.txt
notepad diff.txt

Do that for both browsers and see what is going on differently
packetwise (counts only) for each.

Make sure that any other connections are reduced to a minimum
to make the outputs comparable. Do more than one capture
per case if necessary to prove that your results are repeatable.

If it turns out that NO data is flowing to produce that message
then the error message is some kind of permission problem
on the XP machine. You might get more clues about that
by using a tool such as RegMon (freeware from SysInternals).


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle

oh dear, i dont really know a lot about computers and networks, i
need some simple instructions! i got the netstat thing to work in
command prompt, and when i had only IE open the packets sent was a lot
less than when i opened my other browser, but when i had IE open there
was still a transfer. however even with this information i dont know
what to do with it! please help me. thank you for your original
information, but i really need to know how to fix the problem. Thanks
again, hope to be hearing from you again. bye

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

....

i got the netstat thing to work in command prompt,
and when i had only IE open the packets sent was a lot
less than when i opened my other browser,
but when i had IE open there was still a transfer.
however even with this information i dont know what to do with it!

How about posting the diff.txt for that case?

You haven't disclosed much about your configuration
but a previous user with a related problem used the same sort of diagnosis
(including using Ethereal to format the captured packets)
to discover that his symptom was being caused by an incompletely
uninstalled "firewall". Do you have or did you have a firewall program
installed?


---

 

[Gemma Clark]

...

How about posting the diff.txt for that case?

You haven't disclosed much about your configuration
but a previous user with a related problem used the same sort of diagnosis
(including using Ethereal to format the captured packets)
to discover that his symptom was being caused by an incompletely
uninstalled "firewall". Do you have or did you have a firewall program
installed?

Hi again,

the diff.txt for IE was:
Comparing files begin5.txt and AFTER5.TXT
***** begin5.txt

Packets Received = 3625
Received Header Errors = 0
***** AFTER5.TXT

Packets Received = 3630
Received Header Errors = 0
*****

***** begin5.txt
Received Packets Discarded = 0
Received Packets Delivered = 3625
Output Requests = 3660
Routing Discards = 0
***** AFTER5.TXT
Received Packets Discarded = 0
Received Packets Delivered = 3630
Output Requests = 3673
Routing Discards = 0

This is the diff.txt for my other browser (mozilla firefox)

Comparing files begin3.txt and AFTER.TXT
***** begin3.txt

Packets Received = 3565
Received Header Errors = 0
Received Address Errors = 6
Datagrams Forwarded = 0
***** AFTER.TXT

Packets Received = 5234
Received Header Errors = 0
Received Address Errors = 13
Datagrams Forwarded = 0
*****

***** begin3.txt
Received Packets Discarded = 0
Received Packets Delivered = 3565
Output Requests = 3578
Routing Discards = 0
***** AFTER.TXT
Received Packets Discarded = 0
Received Packets Delivered = 5234
Output Requests = 5181
Routing Discards = 0


im not sure what ethereal is, and i dont know a lot about my
configuration, but if there is anything you need to know, then i will
find out for you. I used to have Norton installed, however i found
this slowed down my internet, so i turned it off. i was wondering if
this was the problem?

Thanks for the help. bye!

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

the diff.txt for IE was:

Comparing files begin5.txt and AFTER5.TXT

Let's summarize the non-zero differences for clarity:
(Search for prefix Net to find these summary additions.)

***** begin5.txt

Packets Received = 3625
Received Header Errors = 0
***** AFTER5.TXT

Packets Received = 3630
Received Header Errors = 0
*****

Net Packets Received = 5

***** begin5.txt
Received Packets Discarded = 0
Received Packets Delivered = 3625
Output Requests = 3660
Routing Discards = 0
***** AFTER5.TXT
Received Packets Discarded = 0
Received Packets Delivered = 3630
Output Requests = 3673
Routing Discards = 0

Net Received Packets Delivered = 5
Net Output Requests = 13

The delivered packets number seems consistent with the idea that
you are getting a single error message. I don't know what that high
number of output requests will mean. It could mean that that is the
number of HTTP request headers that are being sent (such as the
User-Agent: header I alluded to earlier). That is why it would be useful
I think to capture the actual packets and be able to format them for
further analysis. XP has a simple means of capturing them with its
netcap command. Unfortunately Microsoft only provides a formatter
for the .cap files that that creates with Windows server. That is what
Ethereal would do for you. (FYI Ethereal is third-party freeware.)

The number of packets and requests for the non-IE case seem
too large to be interesting. Did you try using telnet instead?
The results of that test should be interesting because if it works
it should show you a much smaller packet count than your alternate
browser test and also if it doesn't work it may show you exactly the
same result that IE is getting with much smaller packet and request
counts.

Coincidentally I was trying to help someone else with a related problem
yesterday and suggested the following:

<excerpt>
netstat -s >before.txt
telnet 207.46.244.188 80

<wait for the screen to clear and type GET /
then press Enter
netstat -s >after.txt
fc before.txt after.txt >diff.txt
notepad diff.txt

Here is a summary of that comparison (by subtracting the changed
statistics and reporting only non-zero results):

Packets Received = 36
Received Packets Delivered = 36
Active Opens = 1
Segments Received = 36
Segments Sent = 30

Note: for some reason my first attempt was dropped before I had
had a chance to type the GET command.

Make sure that you minimize the number of other Internet applications
to make your results comparable. Do more than one capture
if necessary to prove that your results are repeatable.

Note that this procedure bypasses the use of DNS.
Your ping test showed that your DNS seems to be working fine
but if the above test works try it again with the symbolic address.
In order to bypass the dnscache and ensure that you do a real lookup
you should first do:
ipconfig /flushdns
(After that I would also do:
ipconfig /displaydns | find /i "microsoft"
just to be sure that no unexpected entries are being added by your
HOSTS file.) Then if you do the same kind of comparison of before
and after statistics you will probably see some indication of the lookup
being done (e.g. with changes in Datagrams statistics).

If it turns out that these tests are successful we will have proved that
connectivity is not the problem. Therefore, it would have to be something
particular that IE and that site are both doing together.
</excerpt>

In your case Gemma you would substitute in the above telnet command
whatever address (symbolic or numeric) that you used for your tests.
(Or you could use the same address that the other user was trying.
It's just an alias of www.microsoft.com.)

....

im not sure what ethereal is, and i dont know a lot about my
configuration, but if there is anything you need to know, then i will
find out for you. I used to have Norton installed, however i found
this slowed down my internet, so i turned it off. i was wondering if
this was the problem?

If you only "turned it off" or didn't successfully uninstall it completely
that could be very similar to the other user's problem that I mentioned.
Unfortunately I don't know anything about such products. I don't even
know if traces of them would have to appear in the Task Manager's
Processes tab but FWIW I guess that that is where I would start looking.

Thanks for the help. bye!

Good luck

Robert
---

the diff.txt for IE was:

....

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

I keep getting the 403 error message appear on my internet explorer

every time i try to open a page.

Gemma,

I have suddenly realized that I have been making an assumption
about the meaning of the above statement which may make the
diagnostics that I am suggesting less necessary.

When you say "every time I try to open a page" is that a statement
about a *particular* page or about *all* pages? If the former it just
means that some authentication problems are occurring. Perhaps
all you would need to do then is delete any Cookies associated with
that site or even just re-enter that page via a link at that site's home page.
If it is a public site post a link so someone else can give you comparable
diagnostics.

It could still be useful in that case to capture the exact request being
sent and the exact message being received (e.g using the tools
I mentioned) but not as necessary as for understanding a more general
problem.


HTH

Robert