"This page cannotbe displayed" - unless I insist

For the past couple of weeks I've had an intermittent problem that's similar to others I've looked at on this forum: often (maybe one in three sites) I'll get the classic "Page cannot be displayed" error. But the difference to other folks' problems I've read here is that if I insist with F5, after anything between five and 15 tries the page will finally load. (I've also tried Ctrl-F5, as I'm not really sure whether I should be using the Ctrl version or not - I can't spot any clear correlation as to which version is the more successful.)

I've looked at the advice offered to others and tried all the suggestions I felt confident with (I'm no expert, and some suggestions looked pretty scary to me, like registry edits), but without success.

I'm not aware of any installation or other major change around the time this started happening.

I'm running IE7 on XP HE SP2, connecting ADSL via a Netgear modem router. Don't know whether I should be looking at the PC settings or the router settings.

Very grateful for any comment/advice.

 

Hi g.watson

When a problem like this occurs there could be several possible causes and inorder to pin-point the contributing cause, a process of elimination is one of the better ways to find the cause...For now can you make sure that the box next to "dial whenever a network connection is not present" is not enabled and make sure the box "never dial a connection" is...Then check your internet connection again to see if "the page cannot be displayed" appears.

Thank you and keep us posted...

 

Hi Master Green and thanks for that.

Yes, confirm both settings are the way you suggest, and in fact already were before/when the problem started occurring. (They were among some of the less scary options I found among the advice given to other forum users with similar problems, so I had already checked them.)

 

Hi g.watson,
There's a possibility what is known as a "corrupted Internet Explorer cache" is what's happening here...Even though the following suggestion is not always the fix all for a situation such as yours, it is however mentioned as one of them things to do...Can you clean out your temp Internet files, etc...One of the programs I always use is called ATF Cleaner (www.atribune.com), unless you prefer the manuall method...Then re-try your Internet connection again before posting back here...Thanks

 

Hi again. Magic - that really appears to have fixed it! I've successfully connected to 20 sites without a single case of "Imopossible to load... ". It's way past my bedtime and my eyes are going square, but this quick test looks completely positive. I'll check some more tomorrow and post again if the problem returns.

ATF Cleaner is certainly powerful - it removed over 10 mega of junk I've built up over the months. Just hope I can find all my usernames and passwords again for all the sites I've registered on (like here) and just relied on the "Remember me" box when returning...

BTW, I found ATF Cleaner at www.atribune.org rather than at ....com, which offered me vacuum cleaners with 5 year guarantees when I searched for "cleaner" ;-)

Many thanks again for the excellent advice.

 

Hi g.watson,
Well that's great news...Thank you for keeping us posted...Also, thanks for the little chuckle on .com instead of .org (re; the vacuum cleaners)...Gotta give you some credit for realizing something wasn't right...Happy Holidays.

 

Here we go again...

Master:

Hate to say this, but I think I gloated too soon. The problem is back, and very strongly. Cleaning out with ATF Cleaner does help to some extent, but doesn't take the problem completely away.

And of course it is annoying to lose all that useful browsing history, saved passwords and User IDs, etc., every time I clean out.

Any other steps you can recommend I try?

Thanks again for patience and advice -

geoffrey

 

Hi g.watson,
I'm going to see what other steps are suggested when a problem like this arises and will get back to you (unless we are more fortunate to get one of the staff personal to intervine with their expertise)...

However, in the mean time can you please go to start - run - type: cmd...Then at the next screen that pops up, type:ipconfig /all (notice space between ipconfig and the slash). Then post back here what you see for an IP address...For security purposes you won't have to post the exact IP address just the fact that you have one listed is what I am looking for.

Out of curiosity, if this problem is happening with your router hooked up, can you try by-passing the router...If you need information on the steps to do so give us a shout here when you post back with the other requested info. What I am aiming at here is to see if your router is the problem before we journey on...

 

Hi and thanks for getting back on this.

Yes, the ipconfig command did report an IP address, along with a whole pageful of other data. I can post that here, with the IP address x-ed out, if that would help.

As for bypassing the router, well, it's a combined router/modem, so it would need to be a software bypass, because a physical bypass would leave me without a modem, right? And yes, if that's what you'd like me to do, I would need help on how to do it. It's a Netgear DG834G v3, and the firmware is up to date.

Finally, last time I tried to post this reply, I got a vBulletin "Database error" page and was unable to go anywhere without logging out of Windows BBS and back in - don't know whether that's relevant, but I mention it just in case. Asa you see, this time it's worked...

Geoffrey

 

Hi,
If you are getting database error message(s) than the problem you have been posting primarily here about, may very well be related...I recently have been trying to repair a computer with database corruption error messages and trying to find a fix for it has been like trying to pull an impacted wisdom tooth...From what I am able to piece together so far is, registry corruption will bring on those error messages.

The router idea I had, may now not apply to the thoughts I was entertaining so we can pass on by-passing it...If there is "any" registry corruption going on here, I have no particular fix to provide you with...You may be facing the problem of having to reformat your hard drive to correct everything...If I am able to come across information that I can pass it onto you will...Keep us posted.

 

Thanks for that (and for previous guidance!), Master!

Having suffered from impacted wisdom teeth myself in the past, I'm not willing to go through all that again unless absolutely necessary ;-) So I'll live with the problem, annoying as it is, although not the end of the world.

To recapitulate, I need to clear out all temp files, cookies, temporary internet files, prefetch data and Java cache each and every time I want to access internet, using ATF Cleaner, and accepting that it helps somewhat but doesn't totally solve the problem. Great! Many thanks, Bill Gate$!

Sorry to sound bitter; I really do appreciate the time and effort you've put into this query. Just hope somebody else reading this might have experienced similar problems and can come up with a suggestion.

Have a good weekend!

geoffrey

 

Hi g.watson,
Don't worry about sounding bitter because I know what your talking about when it comes to situations that appear to have no light at the end of the tunnel...I will not give up on you, just may take a little extra time trying to find the answers...As for the ATF Cleaner, you can do the cleaning that it does manually if you prefer...Hang in there, and before you put that computer out on the yellow line at your nearest highway, check back with this forum...