Help desperately needed - MVP required - "page not found" for 1 in 3 pages - why?

[Dave Smithz]

Hello there,

For every 1 in 3 web pages I visit I now get the error message "This page
cannot be displayed". It's driving me absolutely NUTS!!
When it occurs I have to press the refresh button (sometimes a few times) to
get it to display page.

Note that it is not an ISP problem as I have other PC's on the same network
connected to the same router that have no problems. Only my laptop. I have
also tried another browser (firefox) and I have the same error, it just
gives a different message (On form posts when the error occurs it says "This
document contains no data" and other times it acts like I have not clicked
on the link).

I have tried many things including:
Full up to date Virus scan (Norton security 2002)
Hijack this: - nothing unusual
Spybot - only tracking cookies - all removed anyway (but some do reappear
like Doubleclick)
Microsoft Spyware removal tool - nothing found.
Disabling firewall and anti virus software.
I did once have "Wildtangent" spyware found but I removed this.

What on earth could be happening as it has been for a few months but seems
to be much worse now.
Also note in some cases a page can be downloading and many of the images
will show as broken links so it is like every HTTP request has the potential
for this problem.

Kind regards,

Dave

PS: Does a Windows Pro licence allow me to raise a support call with
Microsoft?

 

[Ricky]

You can go here.. http://www.dslreports.com/tools and run the tweak test and
see if you just need to change some settings.

 

[Malke]

Hello there,

For every 1 in 3 web pages I visit I now get the error message "This
page cannot be displayed". It's driving me absolutely NUTS!!
When it occurs I have to press the refresh button (sometimes a few
times) to get it to display page.

Note that it is not an ISP problem as I have other PC's on the same
network connected to the same router that have no problems. Only my
laptop. I have also tried another browser (firefox) and I have the
same error, it just gives a different message (On form posts when the
error occurs it says "This document contains no data" and other times
it acts like I have not clicked on the link).

I have tried many things including:
Full up to date Virus scan (Norton security 2002)
Hijack this: - nothing unusual
Spybot - only tracking cookies - all removed anyway (but some do
reappear like Doubleclick)
Microsoft Spyware removal tool - nothing found.
Disabling firewall and anti virus software.
I did once have "Wildtangent" spyware found but I removed this.

What on earth could be happening as it has been for a few months but
seems to be much worse now.
Also note in some cases a page can be downloading and many of the
images will show as broken links so it is like every HTTP request has
the potential for this problem.

I can't answer the question about MS Support. As for the problem, is it
random? What hardware in the laptop are you using? Is it a built-in
ethernet adapter or an external one? In either case, first see if there
are updated drivers for the device. If this is internal, check on the
OEM's website for your specific laptop. If an external device, check on
the device mgr.'s website.

If updating the drivers doesn't help, test using a different (obviously
external) ethernet adapter and see if that makes a difference. If it
does, your original adapter may be failing.

Malke

 

[Dave Smithz]

I can't answer the question about MS Support. As for the problem, is it
random? What hardware in the laptop are you using? Is it a built-in
ethernet adapter or an external one? In either case, first see if there
are updated drivers for the device. If this is internal, check on the
OEM's website for your specific laptop. If an external device, check on
the device mgr.'s website.

If updating the drivers doesn't help, test using a different (obviously
external) ethernet adapter and see if that makes a difference. If it
does, your original adapter may be failing.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5150 which has both
Wireless and wired adaptor. The same problem occurs when connected via
either connection. I assume this is good enough for testing two
alternatives.

I also tried the website the other poster mentioned but this was no help.
Note that when I am doing a download or something there is no problem once
it has started. On my 2mb connection, if I download a big file from
Microsoft, once it starts it is fine. It's just that I have to refresh a lot
to get it started. I have not gone to Dell with this problem yet because I
have assumed it is software related.

Please, please please can anyone help me with this. Doing a complete
re-install would be a nightmare.

Kind regards

Dave

 

[Dave Smithz]

If anyone has any clue what is going on with my connection then please
please help. I have spend the entire day trying to resolve this and I keep
hitting brick walls. Even in safe mode with networking the problem still
occurs.

What else should I be trying?

I feel like I am going to cry.

 

[PA Bear]

When all else fails, HijackThis
(http://aumha.net/downloads/hijackthis.zip) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. **Post
your files to http://forums.spywareinfo.com/,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html or http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30
for expert analysis, not here.**

 

[Enkidu]

If anyone has any clue what is going on with my connection then please
please help. I have spend the entire day trying to resolve this and I keep
hitting brick walls. Even in safe mode with networking the problem still
occurs.

What else should I be trying?

I feel like I am going to cry.

How is your DNS set up?

From a command prompt try

nslookup <some-site>

and try it for various sites (replace <some-site> with a
real site name of course).
Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Dave Smithz]

How is your DNS set up?

From a command prompt try

nslookup <some-site>

and try it for various sites (replace <some-site> with a
real site name of course).
Cheers,

OK I played with DNS before, both having automatically provided and phoning
the ISP to get the IP addresses of the DNS servers and entering them
manually. Never made a difference either way. The output from what you
suggested is as follows:

Note 192.168.2.1. is my Netgear router (therefore Gateway)

***********START OUTPUT******************
C:\Documents and Settings\David>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [216.239.39.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=239

Ping statistics for 216.239.39.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 97ms, Maximum = 99ms, Average = 97ms

C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.google.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.google.akadns.net
Addresses: 66.102.11.99, 66.102.11.104
Aliases: www.google.com


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup news.bbc.co.uk
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: newswww.bbc.net.uk
Address: 212.58.226.53
Aliases: news.bbc.co.uk


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.egg.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Name: www.egg.com
Address: 217.145.227.179


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.example.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Name: www.example.com
Address: 192.0.34.166


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.microsoft.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
Address: 207.46.244.188
Aliases: www.microsoft.com
***********END OUTPUT******************

Does this tell you anything? Any more assistance appreciated. I still want
to cry.

Regards

Dave

 

[Enkidu]

How is your DNS set up?

From a command prompt try

nslookup <some-site>

and try it for various sites (replace <some-site> with a
real site name of course).
Cheers,

OK I played with DNS before, both having automatically provided and phoning
the ISP to get the IP addresses of the DNS servers and entering them
manually. Never made a difference either way. The output from what you
suggested is as follows:

Note 192.168.2.1. is my Netgear router (therefore Gateway)

***********START OUTPUT******************
C:\Documents and Settings\David>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [216.239.39.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.39.99: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=239

Ping statistics for 216.239.39.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 97ms, Maximum = 99ms, Average = 97ms

C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.google.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.google.akadns.net
Addresses: 66.102.11.99, 66.102.11.104
Aliases: www.google.com


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup news.bbc.co.uk
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: newswww.bbc.net.uk
Address: 212.58.226.53
Aliases: news.bbc.co.uk


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.egg.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Name: www.egg.com
Address: 217.145.227.179


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.example.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Name: www.example.com
Address: 192.0.34.166


C:\Documents and Settings\David>nslookup www.microsoft.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
Address: 207.46.244.188
Aliases: www.microsoft.com
***********END OUTPUT******************

Does this tell you anything? Any more assistance appreciated. I still want
to cry.

It tells me that DNS doesn't seem to be your problem, sorry!

This bit just means that your router does not have a Domain
Name, which is OK:

*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1:
Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available

All else is fine.

My thinking was that an intermittent DNS problem was the
cause. But that has proved not to be true.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Dave Smithz]

SOLVED IT SEEMS - (touch wood)

At last, after months of misery I finally seemed to of solved it. I was
going to send my Hijack this log when I read the posting rules. It said do
not run Hijack this from the desktop. So I ran it again.

Then I noticed a proxy server entry that I assumed was removed a long time
ago. Checking IE I notice that the use proxyserver was unchecked so it
should of not been using a proxy, however the proxy that I was once using
was still greyed out.

Could this be causing some confusion I thought? Particuarlly becuase Hijack
was was indicating a proxy server was in use. Aslo all of the other
computers on the network would of not had any proxy infomration in them.
Well first I tried it with the proxy enabled and Eureka - thins started
working.

I have been to scarred to try it without. So it seems that the problem was
that I had a value in the proxy server, but had it unchecked. Other pc's on
the network are working without any proxy information and they worked fine,
now mine works with proxy information provided. But when mine had proxy
information but the box was not checked to use it - it did not work
properly. Is this a bug?

I use XP SP1 with all updates accept SP2.

Thank you for all your assistance on this matter. Hopefully it will not
re-occur.

Kind regards

Dave