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Cannot browse Internet suddenly

By Stephanie873 ·
I have seen this question increasingly online. I have an XP machine running SP2. (Actually I have 10 identically configured Dell machines and 3 of them have this problem). I have disabled the windows firewall, uninstalled Norton Internet Security, ran virus scans (the machines are brand new), uninstalled/reinstalled IE 6 per MS KB article, redid the winsock per MS KB article, reinstalled nic drivers, reinstalled TCP/IP and nothing....

I can ping everything internally. I can access everything on the network. I am receiving a DHCP assigned ip/DNS/gateway info. I can see that computer in DNS on the server. When I go to browse a webpage, it says it cannot display the page or I will get a box that pops up basically stating the same thing. I hadn't added or changed anything prior to this happening. It worked one day, came in the next day and it didn't. The user hadn't even used the PC yet. I had just set them up. Contacted MS and they gave me instructions to follow as if it were malware. It isn't. I have ran programs on it and it isn't finding anything.

I don't know what to try next. It appears many people are beginning to have this problem but I'm not finding any of their suggestions to help. any advice?
Thanks!

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by BFilmFan In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

From one of the affected systems, try the following (it appears that you may have done some or all of this, but just for other folks with the same issue):

Open a command box.
Type the command: ICPONFIG /FLUSHDNS
Then the command: IPCONFIG /RELEASE
Then the command: IPCONFIG /RENEW

Then ping the DNS server in the following manner:

PING XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX (DNS server IP address)
Then PING -A XXX.XXX.XXX.XXXX (DNS server IP address)
That will confirm that DNS is working normally.

Next ping the gateway and then TECHREPUBLIC.COM (216.239.115.14. If this works, then the issue is definetely in IE.

Just one thought, when you reinstalled IE 6, did you reapply SP 2 on the system? I have read in some cases where that resolved the issues at least in cases where the issue was with SSL.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;870700

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by willcomp In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

While it may not fix your specific problem, there is a handy little program that repairs winsock and is much more effective, not to mention simpler, than MS's posted fix. Program is winsockfix.exe.

It's worth trying simply because it's quick and easy.

You can find it here:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=257

Dalton

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by Max1 In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

Sounds like the IP config release renew. I handle these everyday and it always clears it up.

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by Aakash Shah In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

While what BFilmFan said is true, there is any easier way to clear all the IPConfig settings. In Windows XP, go to the Network Connections folder and then right click on the conneciton and then choose "repair". This is much easier to do and explain to users rather than the command line options.

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by ReWrite In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

Even though you cannot display a web page can you successfully ping a website by ip address? If so, then it would point to a DNS problem on the station or an MTU problem. Post back with results.

Cheers.

RW

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by sgt_shultz In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

do you have dns forwarding requests for address outside the lan to the internet? if you manually configure the dns servers on the workstation, can you get it to work then? if you can ping dns server and get to website using the ip numbers (not url) then you have dns problem...as previously stated by others here...

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by Stephanie873 In reply to Cannot browse Internet su ...

Thank you to everyone that responded. I wish it had been so simple to figure out. Turns out, it was my sonicwall. The # of licenses had been exceeded. Why it blocked just 3 pcs I have no idea. I got that issue resolved and all pc are back in action. I can't believe it acted that way on 3 machines but that's the answer.

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