Xp, sporadic internet access

A few days ago, my wife’s computer, running WinXP SP2, started a strange behavior. Firefox is the default browser, but the problem also exists with IE7 and OE. She can click on the desktop icon or the quicklaunch icon for either browser and neither one will open her home page, which is Google. Firefox comes up with a blank page and will not accept any bookmarks nor a typed url in the address bar. IE comes up with "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage. Most likely causes: You are not connected to the internet. The websight is encountering problems. There might be a typing error in the address." And does not accept the aforementioned either. Here’s the puzzler. She can click on any of her roboform logins, when the page opens, delete the url, type in where she wants to go or open her favorites and go wherever she designates. Also, she is unable to check her email with OE 6. Thank you for your help…

 

The problem has disappeared just as mysteriously as it appeared...

 

Thanks for your update, Ol Man.

Perhaps your Internet Service Provider (ISP) had Domain Name Server (DNS) issues. Your ISP's DNS takes web addresses (URLs) you feed to it and converts those URLs into numerical addresses (IP addresses) that are used for routing Internet traffic.

For example, www.google.com currently resolves to IP address 64.233.167.147

Next time you run into the same problem, try typing http://64.233.167.147 into your web browser and see if you can connect. If you cannot connect with www.google.com but you can with http://64.233.167.147, then I would suspect your ISP's DNS might not be resolving properly (or I suppose your own computer might not communicating properly).

Roboform might remember IP addresses from previous browsing sessions or it might use a different DNS. (I am not familiar with Roboform.)

 

Thank you for your feedback, mailman. It had me scratching my head for a couple of days.

 

Steve, I think it happened originally while she was away for a bit. Normally she'll shutdown at bedtime then power up the following morning. She noticed one morning she couldn't retrieve her email through OE so we tried to retrieve it through our ISP's site. That's when we discovered that clicking the icons did not work. Thanks for your reply.

 

Thanks Steve, I looked and it was as you suggested.