Connect problems with a few websites

[jeffgson]

I'm not sure why, but without any seeming reason I can no longer connect to my.yahoo.com or to my excite or juno email account. I checked my security settings and to make sure I still had the particular cookies associated with those websites in my files.

I usually run very tight security, with ActiveX disabled, prompt for third party cookies, and I run Anonymous Cookie all the time so the cookies on my machine are invisible. I relaxed all of these but it made no difference. Besides, all of these processes are normally running and it has never prevented me from connecting to these websites in the past.

Occasionally I forget to change my proxy switcher back to my own IP address, but I verified that I was using my ISP's server through a web-based IP address detection service.

I changed some settings in Sygate Personal Firewall last night, but only to allow a couple of applications that were being denied internet access to connect. The changes I made only were to applications, and not to blocking IP addresses.

And while I cannot access my.yahoo.com, which is my normal startup page, if I go to www.yahoo.com, not only am I logged in but I can access my web-based email account through the main page.

Except for those few sites that are personal and require password verification, I'm not having any problems accessing any other websites. But I am having trouble downloading email from Hotmail using my POP3 client, Outlook Express.

I'm not receiving any invalid username/password messages when I do this. The browser just tries to make the connection until it times out.

Any suggestions on what to try next?

 

[GigaCluster]

Ping.

 

[jeffgson]

The traceroute is making the connection, but my browser still isn't. Now what?


Hop IP Address Host Name Sent Recv RTT Av RTT Min RTT Max RTT % Loss

1 10.172.108.1 [Unknown] 1 1 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms 0.000%
2 12.244.89.129 [Unknown] 1 1 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms 0.000%
3 12.244.65.42 [Unknown] 1 1 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms 0.000%
4 12.119.53.29 [Unknown] 1 1 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms 0.000%
5 12.123.137.45 tbr1-p012401.phlpa.ip.att.net 1 1 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms 0.000%
6 12.122.2.17 tbr1-cl8.n54ny.ip.att.net 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
7 12.123.3.105 [Unknown] 1 1 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms 0.000%
8 4.68.127.5 so-1-0-0.edge1.NewYork1.Level3.net 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
9 64.159.4.149 ge-2-1-0.bbr2.NewYork1.Level3.net 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
10 64.159.3.254 as-3-0.bbr1.Washington1.Level3.net 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
11 64.159.18.100 ge-9-1.ipcolo2.Washington1.Level3.net 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
12 166.90.148.10 unknown.Level3.net 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
13 216.109.120.154 vl33.bas2-m.dcn.yahoo.com 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%
14 216.109.126.22 p3.my.vip.dcn.yahoo.com 1 1 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 63 ms 0.000%

 

[rainypickles]

try a different browser? turn off the firewall completely and try?

 

[jeffgson]

I tried disabling the firewall without luck. I was just going to download Opera. Right now I use Avant, but it just has a different front end but works on IE technology. I had tried the Mozilla Firefox being discussed in the spyware thread above, but I didn't like it and moved to Avant. IE 6.0 also won't open the websites I'm having trouble with.

Hopefully Opera won't be installing adware or spyware on my machine. I spent almost an hour cleaning up all traces of the junk on my machine tonight.

 

[rainypickles]

opera is a fantastic browser, imho. i've switched and convinced three others that opera is superior to IE. (but then, thats not saying much, because IE sux =) it does not install spyware/adware; it does have an ad for the unregistered version though.

 

[ElDonAntonio]

Check you HOSTS file, maybe it's blocking these sites. If you don't know about the HOSTS file, do a quick search on google, it should help you out.

 

[jeffgson]

The problem isn't in the HOSTS file. I've verified this now.