Internet Explorer 6 closes on me at start-up

Here is a rather strange one.

This morning, Internet Explorer started acting like it was a pop-up meant for termination. Just as I start it, I see the page loading blue bar fill up, and then *pop*, it is gone.

I have no problem accessing my email with outlook, the connection is perfectly OK (I am now using my other conmputer to access the internet, both of them go though a router), I can access internet using Firefox on the machine with the oddly behaving Internet Explorer without problem. However, if I click on a link in an email, IE loads up and pops out immediately.
I deactivated pop up blocker programs, firewall and did complete virus scan on the computer, rebooted twice, but this problem is still there. It was working fine yesterday night when I went to bed.

If I disconnect the internet cable from the computer, IE remains on. If I reconnect the cable and request to connect to the internet, the window will then pop off.

I have Windows XP (I upgraded from originally installed ME 3 years ago), SP2 (downloaded), and am quite perplexed.

Anyone has any idea what is causing this, and how to solve this?

CBVG

 

No, as I indicated, I rebooted twice already.

 

VGoudreault--

Maybe you should not have IE as the default browser. Make Firefox the default. Or, if you really want to use IE, make Firefox the default, reboot and then again make IE the default.
If that does not help, this may only work in WinXp SP1, but there is nothing to lose by trying
http://www.theeldergeek.com/repair_reinstall_ie_and_oe_6.htm

 

Well, I don't care about the default browser, I could copy and paste manually a link into any browser (and in actual fact, my email server is the other computer anyway). The issue here is I wanted to point out that

- the problem is not linked with the way IE is launched
- it is not related to pop up program
- it is not linked with my ISP, or my modem, or my router
- it is not because of a virus, or a firewall setting that I know of

i.e. the problem is 100% with Internet Explorer, and I would like to know what I can do to check what the cause of it is, and how to fix it.

I can use Firefox on that machine, so I am not stuck. I can even reboot the machine and use under Linux. What I don't get is why a program that worked yesterday stopped working this morning, without anything being added or removed from it (unless MS automatic update messed the code).


CBVG

 

Since clicking a link in Outlook is affecting IE, perhaps you should care. Links generally use the default browser.
Have you tried the IE fixes suggested?
System Restore to a date before the problem started?

 

A link does not affect IE, it calls it. If I change the default browser and select Mozilla Firefox, basically I am switching to a tool that works rather than addressing the one that does not. What browser is the default is not pertinent in the present case.

As to the suggested approach, yes I tried it, twice. Once before I de-isntalled my pop-up blocker, and once after.

Interestingly, there is no "repair" option available when running the CD-ROM, and I get a message that my version of Windows is more up to dat than the verison on the CD (evidently, as this CD is XP, while I upgraded to SP2 through internet download).

As for system recovery, this feature has been disabled long time ago as it is a ressources hog.

Nevertheless, component re-installation, if it was to work, would still not explain the odd behavior of a program that terminates once the page is fully loaded instead of staying up.

 

Have you tried pushing the "windows" bottom while pressing the "shift" button and the clicking the "M" button? All simultaneously. This is just incase IE is loading minimized, if it is this will force it out of its shell and we can proceed to really fix the problem then.

 

OK, let me re-iterate, on more time, that IE works fine whenever the internet connection cable is removed. The application is NOT starting minimized, if it was it would still show up as an active process in the Windows task manager, as "explorer.exe ". Which it does, for about 2 seconds, when I start it.

Again, let me be VERY clear about this: if I unplug the network cable and start IE, it GOES, and it STAYS, UNTIL I request "connect ", then it DIES.
Just like it was terminated, just like if it would load until the page was completely loaded THEN ends at the end of loading the page.

Here, I just did an experiment. I accessed a page that is notoriously slow to load (complex and from a slow server). I pull the network cable and start IE, of course it comes with "page not found" for my default page. Then I paste the slow page URL in there, reconnect the cable, and click "refresh ". Then it loads (slowly) and I get my page. But if I click on anything (another bookmark, the home button, the refresh button, an active area of the page that loads another page) then IE vanishes.

 

Thanks to someone in another BBS, the solution was found: de-activate the Yahoo! bar from IE.

Now, can anyone explain how this could be so, that Yahoo! crashes Internet Explorer?

 

What "abrasive attitude "? The fact that I had to point out multiple times that rebooting did not help? The fact that I consider completely re-installing an OS as not being an optimal approach? The fact that changing the default browser fails to address the root core of the problem?

Carefully re-read what I posted. Do not put words in my mouth. Then approach this with the right perspective, that of trying to find a simple solution to a problem, when most of the obvious things were already tried, and reported as having been tried.

 

And I *do* appreciate it, don't you have any doubt about it. In this specific instance, I made extra effort to state all the elements that were tried and found not to work in the initial posting. I can understand that some people are eager to help, but shouldn't they refrain from posting hints that are known to not work, as they were tested already? Amid the clutter that would result, anyone would be having two problems: the one they started with, and the problem of finding the real solution between dozen of inneffective suggestions; I mean in my long carrer as an engineer and IT specialist (UNIX, hence my claim to only be intermediate with MS stuff), I have seen more than my share of people with a hammer, who insist on driving screws with them because hammers worked so well with nails once before. They are well intentioned, for sure, and one should appreciate their effort; but if you were in an accident, would you like to have fifty well intentioned people around you, blocking the way of the medic?

And perhaps once an issue has been posted and resolved, maybe the whole BBS stream about this problem should be cleansed of repeating and ineffective approaches; that way you end up with the original problem statement, and the few postings that moved towards a solution; it would be so much easier for whoever search for a fix to the same problem in the future to be able to home in on the solutions by looking at 4 or 5 postings rather than a couple of dozen, so that in the end the BBS will be some sort of expert system.

As for the suggestion to reinstall SP2; here is why it could not work: the download of anything from MS site would not work using anything but IE, which is specifically the one tool that did not work. Try accessing MS site with Mozilla, you'll see! Sort of going to see the doctor saying
"Doctor, I am sick; I can swallow anything!"
"Here, take this pill. "
And if I cannot download SP2, then I cannot install it (unless I order the CD-ROM, and who knows how much time this takes, and how much they charge for it)

As for your suggestion to take the re-installation of SP2 as a cure all with MS (and you properly state "wish you luck" because you probably know that it would not achieve anything) it is obvious that it is not worth the effort. And that is precisely the point: MS charges $45 for just calling them, and re-installing SP2 would not have cured my problem at all, now, would it? Unless re-installation would have wiped out the default settings that activated the Yahoo toolbar, which may be the case, but I am not going to waste time trying it out -- the point is that I would still not have known that Yahoo was the culprit, and in a couple of weeks, my wife or my kid or myself, or Yahoo for that matter, might have been re-installing the bar, and I would have the same problem again. No knowledge gained. And the next person having that problem would end up being suggested to spend hours re-installing SP2, instead of the 10 second fix that really address the root cause (and I did get suggestions to re-install the OS completely from scratch by someone else on the other BBS where the final solution was presented -- this person suggests a complete re-install including disk reformatting every couple of months, as some sort of routine procedure, as this is what he does !)


Here, for your entertaiment, are the first two hits I get when I google "yahoo bar internet explorer crash" (out of 1.6 million)

http://8help.osu.edu/1475.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060719030700AAM2Pk2

The first one says that Yahoo crashes IE, and offers the proper work around. The problem finding this site is that one already has to be aware that the Yahoo toolbar is part of the problem, as googling "internet explorer crash" returns 45 million hits, and who knows where the Ohio State University page (or another one with the right solution) would turn out to be?

The second hit is actually a dangerous one: it is a Yahoo "answer" that puts the blame on IE (upgrade IE !) voted best answer by 100% of one person (I am not kidding) with the issue marked as resolved and closed to new answers. I don't know how you would rate this one, but to me the word "worthless" is a prime candidate.

Basically, what I would hope for is that if someone googles "internet explorer crash" they would get, among the first few hits, a link to a page of this here BBS that says "Have you got a Yahoo toolbar? Try turning it off." That would make the next victim's life so much easier.