Strange Mouse Clicks.

When I am surfing, or even here reading these posts, I hear mouse clicks that I am not making. As soon as I hear the click, the hour glass briefly appears beside the arrow, and the blue page loader indicator at the bottom streaks accross the bar as if a page is loading. Then the word Done appears like it does when you load a new page, but the page does not change of course.

I have run all of my security programs, & none finds anything amiss.

Does anyone else have this phenomanon, or can anyone tell me what is going on. I've never had this before. It just started about a week ago, or so. Happens frequently. Every few minutes in fact.

Running: W98SE, IE5.5SP2, with lastest updates.
Norton AV up to date.
Trojan Hunter with latest Database.
AdAware 5.83 with latest Ref file.
Spybot S&D with latest updates.
Pop-Up Stopper Companion fully configured.
Sygate 5.00.00.1150 Pro.

 

Don't know for sure. My first thought would be that it's probably an ad somewhere on the page that changes every so often. Don't know if you're a contributing member or not. If so, that would rule that out as you don't get any ads on this site when you contribute. I don't get the ads so I can't say for sure as far as this site is concerned. If you come across a page that does it you might post a link to it and we can check it out.

 

deloris

WAG.... check Control Panel/Sounds/Sounds Tab/Windows Explorer/Start Navigation. Set the sound to none from the drop down menu.

(clickstream may be slightly different in w98se, but you get the idea)

fingers crossed hth



mark

 

Zander,

So what you're saying is that it just may be Pop-Up Stopper companion doing it's job, but I don't hear the toilet flush sound that I have Companion set to do when it happens. I love the toilet flush.

mr.mark

That sound you pointed to in Sounds is the one I'm hearing, alright. I don't mind hearing the clicks. I just mind it when I'm not clicking it myself. It's doing it on it's own, & I'm seeing action connected with the clicking that I didn't initiate. Is Windows Explorer doing this on it's own? If so, I've never had it to do this before, and how do I stop Windows Explorer from initiating an action that I don't want. I have Sygate set to block Windows Explorer from connecting. I've always had Windows Explorer set that way, no matter what Firewall I was using, and it never caused a problem. Is WinExp somehow circumventing my Firewall?

It's a bit annoying. Not knowing why it is doing it. It just now did it again.

I just set Companion to allow Pop-Ups on this site, & it happened again, and nothing was any different than before. Same scenario.

I will watch for other sites it does it on & report back.

 

Not really. I'm wondering if there's a banner ad or something similar on the page that refreshes itself or changes to a different one every so often. If so it would make the clicking sound when it went to retrieve the new banner. The progress bar you're seeing would also show up I believe. The next time it happens pay attention to the ads on the page and see if any of them change on their own.

 

Deloris:

For what it's worth I have been experiencing similar type of behavior with my Win XP System the last few weeks. I've not noticed any sounds coming from my mouse, but I have noticed the page loader going through its paces at the bottom of the screen, the hourglass being displayed and then Done being displayed. In my system it's almost as if the page is refreshing, but the page does not actually go blank as it does in a normal page refreash. I too am at a loss as to why this is occurring.

 

I don't get this happening. My Internet Options>General Tab> TIF>settings is checked to automatic. I don't know if this has anything to do with it or not.

 

I have always had my TIF settings on Never. Which means not to hunt for & load the web page copy that exists in the TIF folder, but to load the actual page from the Internet itself, but I have never had this to happen until recently.

It will happen numerous times on the same page, but there are no visable changes in the page that is in front of me. None, nada!

This is very curious, plus annoying. Not to mention the fact that I have no idea why it is suddenly happening. This is what bothers me the most. Not knowing WHY, so that I can either stop it, or be relieved that it isn't a threat of some kind.

 

deloris

are you still having this problem?

a few other suggestions....

try uninstalling 5.83 and installing 6.0

try 'restore defaults' under advanced browser options

try running ie5.5 repair tool

note: try these one at a time, checking after each to see if any change

hth



mark

 

Yes. Still having it, but I've been paying attention to exactly when it happens, and it seems to be happening ONLY on this Forum.

If it's happening elsewhere, I haven't noticed it. It happens here on BBS so often that it is difficult not to notice it.

I've gone to other web sites, & other forums, and nowhere else does it seem to happen. Just here on the BBS.

It happens when I'm reading posts, & while I'm typing a post, & looking for a post to read.

The suggestion was made that it might be advertisements on this forum changing, but as I stated before, nothing changes in my viewing area. No ads come into view, no refreshing of the page. Nothing changes. Just the click, hourglass, & page loader indicator activity.

The only advertisement's I see are the ones that are on the next page it loads after I hit the submit post, or submit reply button.

Will continue to observe on other sites though.

 

very interesting regarding just this forum.

if it was happening to me (and it was a fairly new occurrence), i'd still try the three things i just suggested to you.

any of them might straighten you out, with a little luck



mark

 

Just the oposite Deloris. If you have this option set to never, IE will always use the cached version of the page when available and only get the page from the web when it's not available in the tif's. If you want IE to retrieve the page from the web every time you visit the page, you need to set it to "every visit to the page ". Use the "whats this" help in the settings box to see which each one does.

 

LOL.

Zander, it wouldn't be the first time I misunderstood something because of the way Windows words stuff, however, I don't think that is the reason for the strange happenings that seem to affect just this Forum. If it were the reason, then it would happen elsewhere as well.

This has got me intrigued to say the least.

Why would IE, or Pop-Up Stopper pick just this particular Forum to mess up on?

I hate repairing IE, because I have to un-install two other programs before I do it, then re-install them after I do it. Repairing IE messes up both Mailwasher & Pop-Up Stopper, so they have to be removed, then re-installed. Bummer!

 

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=64587#post64587

My remedy was to block the infinisource.com cookie in IE Privacy settings. That stopped my disk write problem. Perhaps you should try that. However, I doubt that it will work if your associated sound is triggered with the beginning of Navigation. You may have to give up the "Start Navigation" sound if you want to get rid of the irritating problem.

 

Zephyr,

The sound isn't what's bothering me. It's the unknown activity that is going on.

Most of the time when this happens, I am not navigating to anywhere. I am not even touching my mouse.

I read the thread you posted the link to & it just confirmed my suspicions that some kind of tracking was going on, since this doesn't happen on the other Forums that I visit. I don't like that idea at all.

I did as you said & placed infinisource.com in my security settings in Internet Options. It didn't work. The activities are still happening.

I always load pages individually so I can close them out without hitting the back button, and adjust the height so I can see the progress bar at the bottom of each page that is behind the one I am viewing. I can be reading something, or typing something on the page I am viewing, and any one of the pages I have open will engage in this activity several times each in only a few minutes time.

I could see them loading a new cookie when I load a new page, but not loading umpteen cookies while I'm still reading on a page I've been on for 10 or 15 minutes, if that's what's going on.

Back to square one. How do I stop it.

I have found some allowed entries in my Firewall log that don't seem to belong there. Entries that happened while I was engaged on the BBS site. They're mingled in with the BBS ones, and the time stamp is a nice clue as to when they took place. Places I know I personally didn't click & tell my computer to engage, so I will try putting those into the Security settings & see what happens.

 

you wanted suggestions, i'm making 'em <g>

so you hate running the repair tool and have to uninstall two programs to do it. i never heard of having to do that, but i'm sure you must know, and i can see where that would be a drag. but sometimes the repair tool actually does repair stuff, so maybe it shouldn't be dismissed as an option.

often, even if a suggestion doesn't work, it brings everybody closer to the eventual solution if only for the reason that we know the things that didn't work

so.... if you won't run ie repair tool, that still leaves two of the three

try uninstalling Ad-aware5.83 and installing 6.0

try 'restore defaults' under advanced browser options

you can try thoroughly analyzing the problem or you can try some tweaks and see if they work. as long as the tweaks don't involve major system changes (neither of the above do), what's to lose?

whenever i've restored browser defaults, i have either written down the existing settings or done screen captures for a record of how settings were in case i want to put them back.

also, curious to know, your first post says you have SB and TH and NAV, all with latest defs and detections, but how often do you run scans with these programs?

i agree that your problem is mysterious



mark

 

mr.mark,

I did not say I wouldn't run the repair tool if necessary. I am just trying several other things first, & yes, the repair tool does mess them both up on my computer. I have no idea why, but I've done it before, & that is what happened, every time. So why not un-install first & re-install afterward, since I'm going to have to do it anyway because of IE repair messing them up royally.

I am just leaning toward it not being IE, because it only happens on this Forum. Nowhere else. However, if nothing else works, I will try IE repair.

Now as to how many times I run my security programs. At least three times a week. Full system scans. I update all of them regularly as well. I don't slack off in that respect.

I did reset my advanced defaults in Internet Options & that didn't help. Yep, I did screen captures of the settings.

I have downloaded AdAware 6.0 & will install. So we shall see what happens.

Will report back when I have something to report.

 

Deloris,

You might give this a shot: In Internet options>Privacy Tab>Advanced> check override, first party accept and third party block and allow session cookies. Just a thought....

 

Deloris, Have you noticed any decrease in the frequency of the clicks lately? I just checked and the interval set currently for the BBS page is 300 (seconds) so that shouldn't be all that much of a bother. I don't know when it got changed but when I made the original post to complain about it, it was more in the area of 30 (seconds). If your click frequency is more often than 300 seconds, you will need to look beyond the BBS site for the answer. I would then suspect some malware would likely be at work. You're on the right track getting AdAware6 so let us know what happens.

 

Bmoore1129,

I don't have a privacy tab in Internet Options. I'm running 98SE. Don't seem to have such an animal.

Zephyr,

I installed AdAware6.0. Yes I un-installed 5.83 first. It found one thing that I thought might be the culprit. It wasn't. I removed it, and it made no difference.

Still no Joy. This evening, I got 15 or 20 such activities happening on this forum within a 30 minute period. They were not consistent in the timing either. Sometimes it would only be a few seconds between instances, & sometimes a minute or two, and sometimes 3 or 4 minutes.

Well, now I am going to try something I haven't yet. The entries that I found in the Firewall log. Putting them into my Restricted sites in Internet Options.

Will post back.

BTW, Adaware 6.0 ran just fine the first time I ran it. Since then, it will not finish a scan. It hangs up & just sits there.