Why can't I load the PC?

[Liagala]

My laptop at work hates the PC. I don't know why, and I'd love it if some of you could help me figure it out. Whenever I click most things on the PC, I have roughly a 75% chance of getting an "Internet Explorer cannot display the web page" error. This happens only on the PC, no other website gives me trouble. It happens only on my work laptop, no other computer gives me trouble. Downloading Firefox changes the problem, but does not eliminate it (instead of "cannot display" errors the page will load, but only the portion visible when you're at the top of the page. Scrolling down doesn't exist). Things I've noticed:


The "post new thread" button, "Go Advanced" (when replying to a post), and "New Posts" buttons almost always work perfectly.
Clicking a profile usually works, but not always.
Clicking Settings almost always loads my rep up with no problem, but then takes forever trying to load the options on the left side of the screen, with frequent refreshes of the page along the way.
Threads have a much better chance of loading properly when there are fewer posts on the page I'm attempting to look at (I have it set to 10, but if it just went to a new page and there are only 1 or 2, it's far more likely to cooperate)
Threads have a much better chance of loading properly when I'm going to the last page. Trying to click to a previous page in a thread I'm reading has an abysmal failure rate. This may or may not be part of the item above.
Sometimes clicking a link will instantly bring up the error thing, other times it looks like it's going to load (the tab shows the title of the thread, and I've even been able to click and see avatars and posts), then bounces over to error message instead. When this "haha, fooled you" behavior comes out, the next attempt usually opens the thread properly.
Clicking the "Forum" link to show all folders does the same taking-forever-with-several-refreshes that Settings does, but usually ends up at an error instead of success. It goes blank, then flashes something very quickly, then goes blank again as it tries to load over and over. I managed to screenshot it at one point during the quick flash of something. Image below.


Windows 7 Home Premium, IE9. I've tried clearing the cache, deleting temporary files, and all that other stuff Anticor spends his days reading off flashcards in a bad Indian accent. I'm not sure what other information would help, but if I left something out feel free to ask.

Edit: I've tried shutting off all avatars/sigs/images, that had no effect on the failure rate.

http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/ee346/None1414/Error4.jpg

[AnticorRifling]

I was going to help you but now.... [theE accent] "Thank you come again" [/TheE accent]

[Gnome Rage]

This has been happening to me since the change over.

[AnticorRifling]

I don't use IE9 on any machine that I've got but it looks like, from that linked pic, it's got an issue completing that image tag (not seeing the closing bracket). Can you put firefox or chrome on and try from the same machine?

[Liagala]

I don't use IE9 on any machine that I've got but it looks like, from that linked pic, it's got an issue completing that image tag (not seeing the closing bracket). Can you put firefox or chrome on and try from the same machine?

Downloading Firefox changes the problem, but does not eliminate it (instead of "cannot display" errors the page will load, but only the portion visible when you're at the top of the page. Scrolling down doesn't exist).
I can try Chrome if it will help figure the problem out, but I'm pretty annoyed with them at the moment and don't really want to.

Edit: I have other versions of that linked picture that show less of the message. The one line says "<i" or "<img src" or something. The one I pasted here was the most complete screenshot out of several.

[g++]

IE9 actually allows you to open its developer tools and emulate 8 too. So you can see if it still bugs out by trying to browse in 8.

[Gnome Rage]

this is what I got trying to load "new posts" literally 2 minutes ago (http://i49.tinypic.com/2dqk4qr.jpg)

It will half load a page and then give up, or 2/3rds load and then stop. Only on PC

Using Firefox.

[g++]

Hmmm I think I know whats going on now. Its clearly female troubles. You should both take some motrin and try to go to sleep.

[Liagala]

IE9 actually allows you to open its developer tools and emulate 8 too. So you can see if it still bugs out by trying to browse in 8.
How?

[g++]

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/discover-f12-developer-tools-ie9

[diethx]

Hmmm I think I know whats going on now. Its clearly female troubles. You should both take some motrin and try to go to sleep.

Ahahahaha I lol'd so hard.

[AnticorRifling]

Hmmm I think I know whats going on now. Its clearly female troubles. You should both take some motrin and try to go to sleep.
How?

Well first you get the motrin and some water, then put the motrin in your mouth and take a drink of water. Then go lay down.

[Liagala]

IE9 actually allows you to open its developer tools and emulate 8 too. So you can see if it still bugs out by trying to browse in 8.
I still get the errors trying to emuluate 8, 7, Chrome, and Firefox.

I'm waiting until after you fix my computer before I tell you to go to hell for being a smartass, so please continue troubleshooting. :)

[Some Rogue]

Well first you get the motrin and some water, then put the motrin in your mouth and take a drink of water. Then go lay down.

You forgot the make me a sammich part while they are going to get the water.

[g++]

Do the errors say anything or does it just not load the page? Also what anti-virus, anti-malware etc are you running. Do you use add-block or any other add on that might cause page loading to halt? This is the type of thing thats hard to guess at without being in front of the computer.

[Liagala]

The attachment shows the error page that I get. It also shows how many times I had to try to open this thread before I could get to it. This is seriously annoying. There seems to be no interaction from AVG in the process, though it could be screwing something behind the scenes. I'll try disabling it in a minute. IE's popup blocker is not enabled at the moment, and I don't think I have any other program that would do it.

If you're not at work, I use a program from logmein.com to get onto this machine from home sometimes when I need to work. You're welcome to dial in and actually control it to see if you can figure out what's going wrong. You'd just have to promise not to delete my porn stash.

[g++]

Try going to internet properties or whatever its called in 7 and hitting the reset button under advanced. If its fucking up in every browser my best guess is it has to be some sort of advanced setting for browsers in the OS layer or a program interfering or redirecting. Thats my best guess and I am actually at work.

[Liagala]

Resetting the advanced settings didn't do much. Unchecking the "enable protected mode" box in the security tab under internet options seemed to greatly reduce the number of errors, but not eliminate them (though that might have just been a lucky string of clicks. It happens sometimes). It also made IE freak out at me about how my computer is unsafe now.

Disabling AVG's firewall has no noticeable effect.

[g++]

Could try adding forum.gsplayers.com to trusted sites if you havent already and see what happens. Kind of stabbing in the dark now honestly.

Make sure display all sites in compatability mode is checked too.

[Liagala]

Further piece of odd information - I almost always open links in a new tab, instead of just clicking them (this has no effect on the frequency of errors, I checked). Most of the time, the "Internet explorer can not display" error pages do not have the 'back' button lit up. Once in a while, they do. Clicking the back button starts to load the page, then either bounces back to the error (most of the time), or finishes loading it normally (rarely). If it goes back to the error, further clicking of the back button is sometimes successful.

While I was typing this another idea occurred to me, and I went to one of the error pages with no back button and clicked refresh. Most of the time that did nothing, but a couple times it flashed the thread for an instant before going back to the error. The back button remains greyed out either way. I haven't gotten it to actually load the page.

Also, the trusted sites thing is no good - sites have to start with https in order to be added.

[g++]

Further piece of odd information - I almost always open links in a new tab, instead of just clicking them (this has no effect on the frequency of errors, I checked). Most of the time, the "Internet explorer can not display" error pages do not have the 'back' button lit up. Once in a while, they do. Clicking the back button starts to load the page, then either bounces back to the error (most of the time), or finishes loading it normally (rarely). If it goes back to the error, further clicking of the back button is sometimes successful.

While I was typing this another idea occurred to me, and I went to one of the error pages with no back button and clicked refresh. Most of the time that did nothing, but a couple times it flashed the thread for an instant before going back to the error. The back button remains greyed out either way. I haven't gotten it to actually load the page.

Also, the trusted sites thing is no good - sites have to start with https in order to be added.

Try downloading and running malware bytes and see if it pops anything.

Next step I would try uninstalling explorer entirely(which in windows 7 essentially reverts back to a different version) and seeing if firefox will work after that.

I don't really get why it would only be this site, on that computer. Doesnt make alot of sense to me so Im low on ideas.

Might want to check the host file

http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-hosts-file/

Make sure your not on a proxy, which im pretty sure we already did by resetting internet options.

Could do a trace route to this website and see if it pops errors..

[Liagala]

Malware bytes was the first option (along with spybot and AVG). I'll run it again overnight tonight, but it came up completely clean a few weeks ago. AVG did find some java-related stuff on the first scan, but it cleaned that out and I updated Java, and everything has been great since. I'll take the laptop home with me tonight and mess around with uninstalling IE, getting Firefox going, etc.

[Some Rogue]

I'll take the laptop home with me tonight and then forget to bring it with me to work tomorrow so I can't see the PC anyway.

Fixed.

:whistle:

[Liagala]

I'll take the laptop home with me tonight and then forget to bring it with me to work tomorrow so I can make SR bring it to me and then say, "Honey, while you're out anyway would you mind stopping at the store to pick up X, Y, and Z?Fixed.

:whistle:.

[subzero]

Malware bytes was the first option (along with spybot and AVG). I'll run it again overnight tonight, but it came up completely clean a few weeks ago. AVG did find some java-related stuff on the first scan, but it cleaned that out and I updated Java, and everything has been great since. I'll take the laptop home with me tonight and mess around with uninstalling IE, getting Firefox going, etc.

Update and scan from safe mode w/ networking if you haven't been.