tips on regarding Help and Support issues "Did you know"

[Teri Sauriol]

Hi All,
Just to pass the word on to all those who have been having issues with "Did
you know" in Help and Support not working properly with the updates.

After running different tests with MS tech support to try and solve this
issue on my pc - it is now being looked at on the server side. (Help and
Support server)

If you are having this issue and are not sure if the problem is on your pc
or H & S's server, try the following:

1.Clean up IE:
Click "Delete cookies" and "Delete files" on the General tab.
Click "Clear History" in the History area, and then click OK in the dialog
box that appears.
Click Settings, click "View Files", delete all files there, and then close
the window.
On Security tab, please click "Default Level" button. (if the button is gray
out, please just skip this step)
On the Connections tab, click the LAN Settings button, and then uncheck all
the boxes.
On Content tab, click "Clear SSL State" button, and click OK to confirm.
Click OK.

2.Internet connection test:
While in Help and Support, try searching for something.
If you receive any hits under Microsoft Knowledge base, then your internet
connection is working fine.
If you don't you could then consider testing the next step.

3.Local Settings test:
Create new user account with admin rights and try Help and Support again.
If the problem still exists then it is not related to local settings issues
and I would consider rebuilding the Help and Support as per the instructions
offered through out the newsgroup. Or creating a new internet connection.

In the meantime, here's hoping it will be a short wait for them to look at
the server side.

Good Luck and when or if I hear back I will pass it on
Teris

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Teri,

Thanks for the feedback. Based on my test, the "Did you know?" section
updates fine if I use a dial-up connection to the internet. Here is my
experience with this feature:

I've observed the problem always happens with broadband connection. When I
connected to internet using dial-up, Help and Support could connect to the
internet and download the news block XML files (2 XML files will be
downloaded, and then merged based one some criteria) and the "Did you know?"
updated correctly. "Did you know?" actually reflects what;s in the XML file.

When using broadband (ADSL), I changed the value "EnableAutodial" to 1 in
this key:

[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]

This works sometimes, but not consistently.

 

[Teri Sauriol]

Hi Ramesh,

We have discovered that it is in fact affecting pc's that are dialup as
well - that it doesn't update fine on some pc's with dialup (even with
enable autodial set to 1) and also on some pc's with broadband, it updates
fine. Then for no apparant reason and without any pc changes, it stops
displaying updates. After researching it on the net in multiple newsgroups,
people are also noticing intermittent updates appearing and then nothing for
weeks. So I am inclined to believe that it is server side and intermittent.
According to MS, the Help/Support's server has been taking a heavy load
since approx Jan. MS has stated to me that they believe the problem to be
on their server side and they have a team looking at it now.

Also thanks again for the tip, you did reply earlier to my other email with
the same info and I had tried the tip without success.

Teris

Teri,

Thanks for the feedback. Based on my test, the "Did you know?" section
updates fine if I use a dial-up connection to the internet. Here is my
experience with this feature:

I've observed the problem always happens with broadband connection. When I
connected to internet using dial-up, Help and Support could connect to the
internet and download the news block XML files (2 XML files will be
downloaded, and then merged based one some criteria) and the "Did you
know?" updated correctly. "Did you know?" actually reflects what;s in the
XML file.

When using broadband (ADSL), I changed the value "EnableAutodial" to 1 in
this key:

[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]

This works sometimes, but not consistently.

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User
http://windowsxp.mvps.org

Hi All,
Just to pass the word on to all those who have been having issues with
"Did you know" in Help and Support not working properly with the updates.

After running different tests with MS tech support to try and solve this
issue on my pc - it is now being looked at on the server side. (Help and
Support server)

If you are having this issue and are not sure if the problem is on your
pc or H & S's server, try the following:

1.Clean up IE:
Click "Delete cookies" and "Delete files" on the General tab.
Click "Clear History" in the History area, and then click OK in the
dialog box that appears.
Click Settings, click "View Files", delete all files there, and then
close the window.
On Security tab, please click "Default Level" button. (if the button is
gray out, please just skip this step)
On the Connections tab, click the LAN Settings button, and then uncheck
all the boxes.
On Content tab, click "Clear SSL State" button, and click OK to confirm.
Click OK.

2.Internet connection test:
While in Help and Support, try searching for something.
If you receive any hits under Microsoft Knowledge base, then your
internet connection is working fine.
If you don't you could then consider testing the next step.

3.Local Settings test:
Create new user account with admin rights and try Help and Support again.
If the problem still exists then it is not related to local settings
issues and I would consider rebuilding the Help and Support as per the
instructions offered through out the newsgroup. Or creating a new
internet connection.

In the meantime, here's hoping it will be a short wait for them to look
at the server side.

Good Luck and when or if I hear back I will pass it on
Teris

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Hi Teris,

You're welcome. And yes, it could be a server side problem.

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User
http://windowsxp.mvps.org

Hi Ramesh,

We have discovered that it is in fact affecting pc's that are dialup as
well - that it doesn't update fine on some pc's with dialup (even with
enable autodial set to 1) and also on some pc's with broadband, it
updates fine. Then for no apparant reason and without any pc changes, it
stops displaying updates. After researching it on the net in multiple
newsgroups, people are also noticing intermittent updates appearing and
then nothing for weeks. So I am inclined to believe that it is server side
and intermittent. According to MS, the Help/Support's server has been
taking a heavy load since approx Jan. MS has stated to me that they
believe the problem to be on their server side and they have a team
looking at it now.

Also thanks again for the tip, you did reply earlier to my other email
with the same info and I had tried the tip without success.

Teris

Teri,

Thanks for the feedback. Based on my test, the "Did you know?" section
updates fine if I use a dial-up connection to the internet. Here is my
experience with this feature:

I've observed the problem always happens with broadband connection. When
I connected to internet using dial-up, Help and Support could connect to
the internet and download the news block XML files (2 XML files will be
downloaded, and then merged based one some criteria) and the "Did you
know?" updated correctly. "Did you know?" actually reflects what;s in the
XML file.

When using broadband (ADSL), I changed the value "EnableAutodial" to 1 in
this key:

[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]

This works sometimes, but not consistently.

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User
http://windowsxp.mvps.org

Hi All,
Just to pass the word on to all those who have been having issues with
"Did you know" in Help and Support not working properly with the
updates.

After running different tests with MS tech support to try and solve this
issue on my pc - it is now being looked at on the server side. (Help and
Support server)

If you are having this issue and are not sure if the problem is on your
pc or H & S's server, try the following:

1.Clean up IE:
Click "Delete cookies" and "Delete files" on the General tab.
Click "Clear History" in the History area, and then click OK in the
dialog box that appears.
Click Settings, click "View Files", delete all files there, and then
close the window.
On Security tab, please click "Default Level" button. (if the button is
gray out, please just skip this step)
On the Connections tab, click the LAN Settings button, and then uncheck
all the boxes.
On Content tab, click "Clear SSL State" button, and click OK to confirm.
Click OK.

2.Internet connection test:
While in Help and Support, try searching for something.
If you receive any hits under Microsoft Knowledge base, then your
internet connection is working fine.
If you don't you could then consider testing the next step.

3.Local Settings test:
Create new user account with admin rights and try Help and Support
again.
If the problem still exists then it is not related to local settings
issues and I would consider rebuilding the Help and Support as per the
instructions offered through out the newsgroup. Or creating a new
internet connection.

In the meantime, here's hoping it will be a short wait for them to look
at the server side.

Good Luck and when or if I hear back I will pass it on
Teris

 

[frodo]

Ramesh,

I've researched this too, and here's what I see:

1) I'm dialup; xp pro english

2) if you open H&S and click Home it'll refetch the news files,
Newsver.xml, which points to newsblock1.xml and newsblock2.xml.

3) newsvers.xml comes down fine, gets processed, and the other two are
fetched.

4) however, they come down empty (zero length). If you look in the
temp-internet-files folder using explorer (which is a filtered view made
by processing index.dat) the files simply are not there. If you look at
that folder branch w/ a standard file tool (like ztree) the file's
directory entries are there, but with zero length.

5) if you place the url to either newsblock.xml file into ie and press go
it'll display just fine (weird!); you can clearly read the DYK headlines
in the xml text. And both newblock.xml files show up in the cache now,
non-zero length, using either viewer. The xml looks just fine to me, tho
I didn't try to parse it through anything.

6) now repeat step 2: return to H&S, click Home again, and poof, the
cached files are gone, again replaced w/ zero length items (exactly like 4
above).

------------------------

So, something is doing some sort of filtering of those xml files.

At one point Zone Alarm was implicated. I was once (just once) able to
get DYKnow to update by clearing H&S Center and H&S Service from ZA's list
of "allowed applications", and clicking H&S Home, forcing ZA to reprompt
for permission. Clicked Ok and voilia, DYK updated! But I've never been
able to reproduce that again! If you shutdown ZA totally (not recommended
for long of course), it still does not update; so it's not some explicit
action of ZA, tho that doesn't rule out some unintended interaction.

--------------

So, who/what does XML filtering on the system? IE security-related code?

BTW, I _DO_ have the IE Local Computer Zone enabled, and I did relax
those zone settings after SP2 tightened them up. I tried fussing w/ them
but found no solution.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

That's excellent feedback (No. 2). Though I faced the same symptoms that you
explained, never realized ZA being a cause. I was thinking to design a tool
that'll fetch the newsblock XML files (that would be a easy task), but on
what criteria they're merged. I'll have to study that again in depth.

Thanks!

 

[frodo]

That's excellent feedback (No. 2). Though I faced the same symptoms that you
explained, never realized ZA being a cause.

ZA _MAY_ be implicated, but not convicted! The evidence is
circumstantial, I can't reproduce anything well enough to determine it
exactly. FWIW, I us "regular" ZA, the free one, I haven't activated the
"Pro" features.

My gut says this is some IE security filtering issue. Why else would the
file that was requested, which was already in the cache with a recent
hit-time [ie, fresh], get flushed from the cache and replaced w/ nothing?
Must be the IE web component doing that deliberatly.

 

[frodo]

and upon further consideration....

and of course (duh), it could be that the server simply served up an empty
file because it was so busy. Served it up, as opposed to refusing the
connection.

But why would it NOT do that when IE itself requested the file from the
address bar? Could H&S be appending some sort of parameter that ID's
itself as the requestor, or as a low priority request - maybe the
filtering is on the server side (tho it's not an asp page being
requested).

I don't have a packet snooper to see the actual traffic, that would be
useful.

 

[Teri Sauriol]

I am also suspicious to the date scenerio being around Jan of this year with
some pcs and Feb with others.
Patch related as well???

Teris

 

[frodo]

FWIW, mine's stuck at Feb 17th

Had been stuck at some date in December until then.