Unable to Open Sites in IE

[gkamieneski]

My work laptop fails to find certain sites in IE8. This is only when connected by the ethernet adapter on the office network. When running wirelessly from anywhere publicly or when connected through the ethernet adapter to my home network, it does not have a problem.

Back at the office, running Chrome, Safari and Firefox all deal with the sites without problems. Even when I set Firefox as my default browser, sometimes not all pictures are visible or will they will not load in Windows Live Mail messages. Still IE8 will open some sites just not the ones I need at the time. It may open Xerox.com but not IBM.com.

I've tried running in Safe Mode, Flushdns and avoided dns with the IP addresses, but no luck.

 

[thiggins]

Check Windows Internet Options, Connections, LAN settings and see if you are being directed through a proxy.

 

[gkamieneski]

Thanks, Tim.

That's one of the first things I checked. I believe I checked all the "usual suspects", but the fact that it works everywhere but on my office LAN, puzzles me. Wish I could find a wireless node on my office LAN to test there, but I'm not sure where in the building they have it.

I do agree it must be something with the IE settings, because Firefox, Chrome and Safari have no problem at all.

 

[thiggins]

Or perhaps your office has implemented some sort of IE-specific site blocking?

 

[gkamieneski]

No. I thought maybe there was some filtering going on at the router, but that wouldn't explain other users not having a problem, and me not having any problems with other browsers. Now the other users are running IE6 and me IE8, but I backed down to IE6 for testing and still had a problem.

Worst part is, I need a vendor's site in IE because their menus were only written for IE and don't work in the other browsers.

 

[gkamieneski]

...a little more info.

Sometimes IE8 will not open a site without www., while other times it will. Also the vendor site that I require IE for, although it will not open the site, if I hit the browser's back button, I can see the site I am trying to get to flash by me. It is as if IE tries to load it but moves on.

 

[thiggins]

Could be that this isn't a networking issue but something is broken in Windows / IE.
Can you try a system restore?

 

[gkamieneski]

Tim, you're quite likely correct on the broken IE. The "flashing" website is one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

I'm reluctant to restore because I'm up for a refresh soon anyway. If my vendor wrote his code to work with other browsers, I wouldn't even be considering complaining about this. thx