MS IE6 AOL connection stopped suddenly

[Craigmill]

Last February I signed up for broadband with AOL. I was familiar with
starting up my old dial up connection with XP pro - MS Internet
Explorer 6, so I set up my broadband connection the same way - i.e. I
did not use the AOL application.
The MS IE connection worked great until one morning last week when I
suddenly got an "Invalid user name or password" error. It was OK
the night before and no changes had been made.
I called the AOL help desk and they got me running with the AOL
application and their AOL dialler which is a program which seems to do
the same job as MS IE but does not start up a home window. They were
unable to get the MS IE connection to work.
Any ideas?

 

[Rob ^_^]

Hi Craig,
Don't reuse your old dial-up connection. You should be using a Local Area
Connection (check your connections control panel).

In Internet Options on the Connections tab, Never dial a connection should
be selected. The Lan settings button should be enabled and an appropiate
protocol installed.

Phone AOL support again and start from scratch or if you are using XP, the
connection wizard is excellent.

Regards.

 

[Craigmill]

Hi Craig,
Don't reuse your old dial-up connection. You should be using a Local Area
Connection (check your connections control panel).

In Internet Options on the Connections tab, Never dial a connection should
be selected. The Lan settings button should be enabled and an appropiate
protocol installed.

Phone AOL support again and start from scratch or if you are using XP, the
connection wizard is excellent.

Thanks for your reply
Using the connection wizard I
o> Conect to the internet
o> Set up my connection manually
o> Connect using broadband that requires a username and password
I then type in ISP, username and password
This creates an entry in the dial up and VPN settings box.
If I select always dial my default connection - I click on the IE icon
I get I get Invalid username or password (This was the connection that
was working from last Feb)
If I select never dial never dial a connection - I click on the IE icon
I get "The page cannot be displayed screen"
Under Network Connections I can see a Local Area Connection and it
shows that I am connected. When I clicked on the repair button it
advises that it is "renewing your IP address" but cannot be completed.
If I connect using the boardband connection that is always on, when I
click on the IE icon I get "The page cannot be displayed screen"

Any more advice?

 

[Rob ^_^]

Hi Craig,

Can you open other web pages or is it just the AOL start page that can't be
displayed? Sounds like you can open a broadband connection (the lights on
your router should flash as data is transferred).

If it is just the AOL start page then change you Home Page setting in
Internet Options to blank. The standard reply for 'Page cannot be displayed
errors' is to do a dns flush - Start>Run - Enter Command to take you to a
DOS prompt. Enter the following command at the dos prompt

ipconfig /flushdns

another possibility is that the AOL page address has been placed in your
HOSTS file. You will find numerous posts here about how to edit your HOSTs
file.

Regards.

 

[Craigmill]

When I switch on my PC the ADSL modem starts up with the Local Area
Connection and sits in idle.

Right now when I want to connect to the internet I click on the AOL
dialler (which has my username and password) in the systray - this
advises me that I am connected to the internet - (the AOL dialler is
only a connection, it is not an internet application and does not show
any internet pages). I can now click on the IE icon and I am up and
running and able to view any page.

I used to be able to click on the IE icon and immediately view any
page. IE must have had the ability to use my username and password to
connect me with directly with the internet. This connection was set
using the procedure in my pervious message and ran without problem for
6 months. Now I get an "Error 691. Access denied because the username
and/or password was invalid on the domain." I know that this is not
the case because the AOL dialler makes the connection using the same
username and password.

I think something has changed in IE but don't know where to start!

Maybe a de-install re-install would help - is this possible?

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

(cross-post added to XP Networking)

Last February I signed up for broadband with AOL. I was familiar with
starting up my old dial up connection with XP pro - MS Internet
Explorer 6, so I set up my broadband connection the same way - i.e. I
did not use the AOL application.
The MS IE connection worked great until one morning last week when I
suddenly got an "Invalid user name or password" error. It was OK
the night before and no changes had been made.
I called the AOL help desk and they got me running with the AOL
application and their AOL dialler which is a program which seems to do
the same job as MS IE but does not start up a home window. They were
unable to get the MS IE connection to work.

What did they try?

Any ideas?

They should know what the correct configuration for the client side is.


I had a similar symptom a few months ago on my dial-up connection.

Dial-up uses PPP so I can test my logon using Hyperterminal with
my ISP's dial-up phone numbers. Usually I get a login: prompt.
Then if I reply to that and to the following password: prompt I get to see
the initial PPP packets come in.

This time there was no prompt! It appeared in fact that the initial PPP
packets were coming in as if I had already been authenticated.
So I changed my connection to say no authentication required.
I was able to use it like that for months! <EG>

Eventually I guess somebody else must have complained or somehow
the ISP's operators figured out requiring authentication might be a good thing
(e.g. for their bottom line, though I don't know how public their dial-up
numbers are. <eg>). So then I changed it back and started authenticating
again. <EG>


The point for you is to realize that the message may not mean exactly
what it says. E.g. try interpreting it to mean more loosely that there
was a problem authenticating. That could mean that you are using the
wrong authentication method, including, as in my example, not using
no authentication required, if that is really what the server you are connecting
to "wants". Depending on how the authentication is done I think it could also
mean that you aren't even using the right protocol to get there but
there might be a different message to indicate that case after all.


BTW basic connectivity questions such as this are slightly off-topic
for the browser newsgroup. You may find better assistance in a newsgroup
which specializes in networking for your OS.

I'm cross-posting this reply to such a newsgroup because I'm
curious to see how this incident will be resolved.

In case we don't get any replies from there here is a troubleshooter
which can lead you to the same newsgroup if you need more help:

http://www.michna.com/kb/


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
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