Issue with IE 6 on XP Home SP2.

[Guest]

Hello all,

I have a problem that has myself and others where I work slightly perplexed.
I work for a financial insitution, and we have been having some calls with
issues on our website. What has been happening is, they log into the
website, and try to access account information, and they receive the popup
box error that says the page is trying to show secure and non-secure
information, you click yes, and it gives a page cannot be displayed error.

Our web site is based on frames, where the top section of the page holds the
navigation for the site, and the bottom frame holds the information they're
looking at. We have multiple web servers, and the addresses usually start
with www3 or www2. When we first had reports of this, we didn't have a copy
of Windows XP Home to test with. We just installed it on a PC last night,
and I adjusted the IE security settings to all default, added our site to
trusted sites and turned on the Windows firewall. No other software installs
or configurations. I went right to our site and logged in and received the
error. It happens intemittantly so far, but our customers have said that it
starts out that way and goes from bad to worse. If I refresh the page, the
error goes away. I've also tried turning off the Windows Firewall which
doesn't seem to help. I also tried enabling the option for "allow active
content to run in files on My Computer" which did not help at all.

The configuration of the PC is this:

Windows XP Home, SP2
IE 6
56K dialup modem
No other software installed

This only happens for our dialup customers, broadband is not effected. It
seems that there is some sort of timeout that is happening, although I am
unable to confirm. Also, it doesn't have with XP Pro, just Home.

Looking to see if anyone has any suggestions, as I need some information to
take to support to see if we can get this resolved. Thanks in advance.

Matt L.

 

[bort]

Hello all,

I have a problem that has myself and others where I work slightly
perplexed.
I work for a financial insitution, and we have been having some calls with
issues on our website. What has been happening is, they log into the
website, and try to access account information, and they receive the popup
box error that says the page is trying to show secure and non-secure
information, you click yes, and it gives a page cannot be displayed error.

That message means that some parts of the secure https page (could be images
or anything) are being sourced from an insecure http server. To eliminate
the problem you need to check that everthing being displayed on the ssl
pages is coming from ssl server(s).

I'm no MVP but I know that one. ;-)

 

[Guest]

The reason its giving the secure and non-secure error is because the page is
coming back saying "page cannot be found" and that is not a secure page,
while the rest of the page is in fact secure. We've figured that one out.
Besides, if it that was the case, that would happen no matter what, even if
the page cannot be displayed error was not occuring.

Thanks for the assistance, but that doesn't seem to cover my original
question. Really, what the problem is on dialup Windows XP Home SP2 on our
website, when trying to load secure portions, they will receive a page cannot
be displayed error. Only happens on Windows XP Home SP2, not Pro/Corp.
We've been able to reproduce with a fresh install, right out of the box with
Windows XP Home SP2. Is there any minor differences with XP Home compared to
XP Pro/Corp that could be causing this?

 

[bort]

Thanks for the assistance, but that doesn't seem to cover my original
question.

Sorry, was more advanced that I realised ;-)

 

[Don Varnau]

Hi,
I wish I could narrow this down, but you might have to start working through
the possibilities at http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers2.htm#secure_sites

The fact that this is a new install of XP (SP2) Home on the test machine and
that no other security programs are running rules out many of the usual
(possible) fixes.

Don
[MS MVP- IE/OE]

"Matt L." wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Guest]

Don,

Thanks for the response. I've gone through everything there to no avail.
Some of the KBs said that there is a fix coming sometime in the near future
for IE, I'm just wondering when that fix/update may be coming out. Also, we
have found that checking the option for "Allow active content to run in files

Hi,
I wish I could narrow this down, but you might have to start working through
the possibilities at http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers2.htm#secure_sites

The fact that this is a new install of XP (SP2) Home on the test machine and
that no other security programs are running rules out many of the usual
(possible) fixes.

Don
[MS MVP- IE/OE]

"Matt L." wrote in message

Hello all,

I have a problem that has myself and others where I work slightly perplexed.
I work for a financial insitution, and we have been having some calls with
issues on our website. What has been happening is, they log into the
website, and try to access account information, and they receive the popup
box error that says the page is trying to show secure and non-secure
information, you click yes, and it gives a page cannot be displayed error.

Our web site is based on frames, where the top section of the page holds the
navigation for the site, and the bottom frame holds the information they're
looking at. We have multiple web servers, and the addresses usually start
with www3 or www2. When we first had reports of this, we didn't have a copy
of Windows XP Home to test with. We just installed it on a PC last night,
and I adjusted the IE security settings to all default, added our site to
trusted sites and turned on the Windows firewall. No other software installs
or configurations. I went right to our site and logged in and received the
error. It happens intemittantly so far, but our customers have said that it
starts out that way and goes from bad to worse. If I refresh the page, the
error goes away. I've also tried turning off the Windows Firewall which
doesn't seem to help. I also tried enabling the option for "allow active
content to run in files on My Computer" which did not help at all.

The configuration of the PC is this:

Windows XP Home, SP2
IE 6
56K dialup modem
No other software installed

This only happens for our dialup customers, broadband is not effected. It
seems that there is some sort of timeout that is happening, although I am
unable to confirm. Also, it doesn't have with XP Pro, just Home.

Looking to see if anyone has any suggestions, as I need some information to
take to support to see if we can get this resolved. Thanks in advance.

Matt L.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP IE/OE]

Don,

Thanks for the response. I've gone through everything there to no avail.
Some of the KBs said that there is a fix coming sometime in the near
future
for IE, I'm just wondering when that fix/update may be coming out. Also,
we
have found that checking the option for "Allow active content to run in
files
on My Computer" fixes some problems, but not for everyone. Any other
suggestions?

Make sure your firewall is not blocking port 443.

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

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

they receive the popup box error that says the page is trying to show

secure and non-secure information, you click yes, and it gives a page
cannot be displayed error.

Have you tried suppressing that prompt?
There is an option in the Security tab Miscellaneous section to do that.
Test to see how your problem symptom changes if eliminate that
aspect of it.

Another test that I would try is setting Work Offline before
replying to the prompt. (E.g. in hopes that if IE is sending a request
for some reason when the prompt is answered that being in the offline
state would suppress that or at least change your symptom in some
interesting way.) Using netstat -asp tcp 5 would be an alternative
way of finding out if anything was happening on the connection as a
result of replying to that prompt while online. Of course a packet
trace would be a definitive answer to both these questions.

added our site to trusted sites

Have you tried not doing this?

FWIW I occasionally had trouble with this option on Microsoft sites
when I tried to put it in the trusted sites list. When it happens the only
way I found to get things working normally again is to remove
the entry from the list. In my case that meant emptying the list.
YMMV.

Also, are you using the check for https: protocol box when you
do that?


Another factor which could change your symptom is an option
in the Options, Advanced tab, Security section:
Do not save encrypted pages to disk
Try unchecking this if it is checked and vice versa.
Unchecking it is known to resolve a number of symptoms,
especially ones which involve client side XML processing.

If I refresh the page, the error goes away.

With F5? What are your HTTP settings? (also in Advanced tab)
It might be useful to see the underlying requests which occur
when that happens. Less interesting if you are using Ctrl-F5.
Unfortunately, because of the https: protocol a packet trace
will be less informative than for a regular http: connection.
In that case you might be able to get more information about
what is happening on those connections by using the winhttptracecfg
utility (or equivalent registry edits). (The tool is available from the
XP RK or the PSDK.)

If you are in charge of the servers you could also activate diagnostics
on them to get their side of the story.


Also, be aware of a known problem with keep-alive connections:

<excerpt from="a recent thread">

<title>KB305217 - Page Cannot Be Displayed Error During SSL 3.0 Server Session Timeout</title>

(TechNet search for:
kbwin* "keep-alive"
)

</excerpt>

Note: I am including that reference FYI only, not because I think
that that exact problem will be what you are seeing.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle

 

[Guest]

Have you tried suppressing that prompt?
There is an option in the Security tab Miscellaneous section to do that.
Test to see how your problem symptom changes if eliminate that
aspect of it.

We have tried suppressing it, with no success. The same error will still
come up after suppressing it and then the page cannot be displayed message.

Another test that I would try is setting Work Offline before
replying to the prompt. (E.g. in hopes that if IE is sending a request
for some reason when the prompt is answered that being in the offline
state would suppress that or at least change your symptom in some
interesting way.) Using netstat -asp tcp 5 would be an alternative
way of finding out if anything was happening on the connection as a
result of replying to that prompt while online. Of course a packet
trace would be a definitive answer to both these questions.

I tried the netstat, and it seems that when connection without an issue, it
comes up under the 888 section, with our site address and shows established
as the connection state. When it gives the error, it still shows under the
888 section, and shows our address but shows a state of "closed_wait".

added our site to trusted sites

Have you tried not doing this?

FWIW I occasionally had trouble with this option on Microsoft sites
when I tried to put it in the trusted sites list. When it happens the only
way I found to get things working normally again is to remove
the entry from the list. In my case that meant emptying the list.
YMMV.

Also, are you using the check for https: protocol box when you
do that?

I have removed it, and the same thing arises. Just out of the box I tried
without changing any settings except all the zones in the security tab to the
defaults. When we add our site, we just add the wildcard in front and then
the rest of the address and uncheck the require server verification box.

Another factor which could change your symptom is an option
in the Options, Advanced tab, Security section:
Do not save encrypted pages to disk
Try unchecking this if it is checked and vice versa.
Unchecking it is known to resolve a number of symptoms,
especially ones which involve client side XML processing.

I tried this, but after setting the option and rebooting, the error will
come back.

With F5? What are your HTTP settings? (also in Advanced tab)
It might be useful to see the underlying requests which occur
when that happens. Less interesting if you are using Ctrl-F5.
Unfortunately, because of the https: protocol a packet trace
will be less informative than for a regular http: connection.
In that case you might be able to get more information about
what is happening on those connections by using the winhttptracecfg
utility (or equivalent registry edits). (The tool is available from the
XP RK or the PSDK.)

I'm just using the refresh button in the toolbar. The http setting is just
http1.1, no proxy setting. I haven't tried the winhttptracecfg utility, but
I will give that a shot.

If you are in charge of the servers you could also activate diagnostics
on them to get their side of the story.

Unfortunately, I'm not in charge of them, I'm just one of the people that
have to deal with the issues from the customers when they come in. They
won't get those people involved unless this issue gets wide spread because
its only about 20-30 customers having the issue.

Also, be aware of a known problem with keep-alive connections:

<excerpt from="a recent thread">

<title>KB305217 - Page Cannot Be Displayed Error During SSL 3.0 Server Session Timeout</title>

(TechNet search for:
kbwin* "keep-alive"
)

</excerpt>

Note: I am including that reference FYI only, not because I think
that that exact problem will be what you are seeing.

I've tried this as well, with no success.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

We have tried suppressing it, with no success. The same error will still
come up after suppressing it and then the page cannot be displayed message.

Please describe the new symptom then without reference to the
suppressed popup. What is "the same error"? The popup which
was supposed to suppressed or something which occurs before
the "cannot be displayed" message? If the latter when did it occur
in relation to the prompt when that was enabled?

I tried the netstat, and it seems that when connection without an issue, it
comes up under the 888 section, with our site address and shows established
as the connection state. When it gives the error, it still shows under the
888 section, and shows our address but shows a state of "closed_wait".

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear about what these tests were designed
to accomplish. I want to know if there is any traffic as a result of
responding to the popup. That is what the netstat -s and -p switches
give. The 5 is just an timing interval to make it more convenient to
see if there are any changes. I guess in this case the -a was superfluous
from force of habit.

There would be traffic as a result of your Refresh command.
But I wouldn't expect there to be any just from responding to the
prompt. There is no user control associated with it; so I think
it should be just informational but I was asking you to check that
assumption.

BTW I just noticed another factor in the testing that I thought we
were considering but apparently aren't: cache-checking
(I guess I'm getting confused with replies I have been making
to others which also refer to this factor. <g>)
If there is a mystery request associated with the prompt
but it is cached you may see different test results depending
on that setting. E.g. if you had a setting of Never (Alt-T,O,Alt-S,N)
then that could change both the diagnostic and perhaps your symptom
even when when you were in a Working Online state.

Again, any inferences made from these tests would be much
clearer if you had packet traces to go with them.


HTH

Robert
---

 

[Guest]

Sorry for the delay in response. Been sort of busy here post tax season.

:

Please describe the new symptom then without reference to the
suppressed popup. What is "the same error"? The popup which
was supposed to suppressed or something which occurs before
the "cannot be displayed" message? If the latter when did it occur
in relation to the prompt when that was enabled?

The secure and non-secure error goes away, but the top frame of the page
still comes up with the "page cannot be displayed" message. Nothing else
occurs, just the "cannot be displayed" message. Really, the popup is not the
issue. The reason that appears is because both frames of the page are secure
and the "cannot be displayed" message is a non-secure page taking the place
of a secure page. The real issue is the "page cannot be displayed" message.

Not sure how going into Offline would be accomplished since you can only
click on the box and not the file menu in IE. Is there another way to do
this?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear about what these tests were designed
to accomplish. I want to know if there is any traffic as a result of
responding to the popup. That is what the netstat -s and -p switches
give. The 5 is just an timing interval to make it more convenient to
see if there are any changes. I guess in this case the -a was superfluous
from force of habit.

There would be traffic as a result of your Refresh command.
But I wouldn't expect there to be any just from responding to the
prompt. There is no user control associated with it; so I think
it should be just informational but I was asking you to check that
assumption.

BTW I just noticed another factor in the testing that I thought we
were considering but apparently aren't: cache-checking
(I guess I'm getting confused with replies I have been making
to others which also refer to this factor. <g>)
If there is a mystery request associated with the prompt
but it is cached you may see different test results depending
on that setting. E.g. if you had a setting of Never (Alt-T,O,Alt-S,N)
then that could change both the diagnostic and perhaps your symptom
even when when you were in a Working Online state.

I have it set to every visit to the page. I've also set IE to clear cache
when closing out.

Again, any inferences made from these tests would be much
clearer if you had packet traces to go with them.

As far as the traces, this would be the winhttptracecfg? I downloaded it,
but it appears that it needs IIS to perform? Although I may not be looking
at the correct KB doc, but if it is correct, I'm fairly sure that IIS doesn't
run on XP Home. Is there another way to do this? Also, did you want me to
run netstat again? Just wanting to know exactly what you would like done to
help solve this problem. Thanks again.


Matt L.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

....

The real issue is the "page cannot be displayed" message.

Then it is probably a DNS problem.

A regular packet trace (e.g., using netcap or Ethereal)
would show you the circumstances of the error message,
e.g. no response to a DNS lookup request.

You could try to moderate the cause by adding a lookup entry
for the problem site in your HOSTS file.

Alternatively you could test if there is any statistical difference
by pre-loading that lookup using a ping -n 1. Doing it for that
allows you to see it occur in a cmd window as would a manual
lookup using nslookup. At the same time some of the DNS
records would be kept for a while in the dnscache which might
make less problematic the lookup request that IE would have to do.


Good luck

Robert
---