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Topic: Internet Explorer sudden shutdowns?? |
Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 17 May 2009 10:28 pm |
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I am running Vista Home Premium with Internet Explorer 7, with all critical and most important updates.
For the last few weeks, IE has occasionally shut down suddenly, for no apparent reason. Not freezing up, but simply shutting down as if I had manually done it.
It occurs ONLY when I click a link found on a page to go to another page or site. It all occurs within no more than 1 second of clicking a link, and I am left staring at my desktop wallpaper. The sites in question don't appear to be dodgy, amateurish, or spooky in any way.
It happened 10 minutes ago. I was on a forum concerning Art Bell's radio program. I poked a link, and IE disappears completely.
It appears to be completely random--no apparent connection to the site I am on or the destination site represented by the link.
I don't notice any other peculiar behaviour. All anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are up to date and indicate no problems.
I do a lot of web searching and this might occur every other day. I can click hundreds of links with no problem and the next one might shut the browser down.
I had never in my computing career seen such behaviour until the last 3 or 4 weeks.
Any insight appreciated. |
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Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 17 May 2009 10:53 pm
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I think I have replicated this problem.
Go here to the Art Bell related forum.
http://tinyurl.com/qg47g3
Scroll down the page slightly below the picture of Jane Seymour and you will see a post with a hyperlink to "The Creatures of the Night Site" regarding Art Bell show replays.
When I poke that link, IE invariably shuts down. Try it on your own browser and let me know if you shut down.
What does this mean? I have poked hundreds of thousands of links over 15 years and have had this issue only for the last few weeks and only on a very small percentage of links. |
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Chuck Huffman
From:
Sonora, California, Now Living in Siloam Springs, Ar. USA
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Posted 17 May 2009 11:12 pm
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Windows just came out with the new version of IE. Go to the site and downlode the new version. I was having the same problem too. So I figure they want everyone to switch like it or not. It doeen't take long for the downlode and it could be the problem.
If not you can go back to the eiarlier version. you might also try a system restore to a date prior to the problem. This should put all your settings back the way they were.
Just a thought.
_________________
ZumSteel SD-10 5-8, GFI Ultra SD-10 3+4, Goodrich V/P, Boss DD3, FenderFM, Vegas 400. Learning to play for my Savior, Jesus...... |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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James Martin (U.K.)
From:
Watford, Herts, United Kingdom * R.I.P.
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Posted 18 May 2009 10:33 am
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| Hi Mitch, I've just had a couple of weeks of IE breakdowns. I went to their problem page and followed the suggested procedure and have had no problems since . I take it you've already unplugged and reconnected your modem - that has worked for me in the past. Not very savvy with PCs so can't offer any advice - plenty of guys here who can. Wiz will sort you out. good luck Jim. |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 18 May 2009 9:22 pm
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James and Wiz:
I have just spent 4 or 5 hours trying to troubleshoot this, to no avail. I still can't get the particular Art Bell site referred to above to display. The best I can do is get a perhaps 1 second flash of a screen that shows a comcast URL before my browser shuts down completely.
What I have done:
Confirmed that I have the latest version of Flash.
Gone to Windows Update and reconfirmed that I have all critical and important updates.
Gone to Microsoft's IE site and walked through an 8 or 9 step troubleshooting procedure, which consisted of things like deleting cookies, deleting temp internet files, re-registering IE through a script, and stopping as many services as possible.
I did a complete system scan using Microsoft's Live Onecare or whatever it is called. Took a couple of hours.
None of those steps helped.
Wiz: one of the MS steps was to run a command that stopped all browser extensions. Something like iexplorer.exe -extoff. No help.
Wiz: can you please post the URL to that Art Bell link I cannot reach. I want to see if I can get there from a command line using this:
iexplore http://artbelllinkwhateveritis.com -extoff
The last step MS suggests is to do a clean boot and selectively shut down services via msconfig until the problem disappears. That didn't help. The MS troubleshooting site ends at this step.
Here is a screenshot of services I need to establish a web connection. I still have the problem with only these services running:
I can't seem to find any smaller number of services that will still allow me to access the net at all.
Any suggestions?
There seems to be something peculiar about a small percentage of web sites that causes my browser to shut down. |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Robin Archer
From:
Califon, , USA
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Posted 19 May 2009 7:45 am Sound Like Mr Virus
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Download a free copy of AVAST antivirus, update it's data, go to SAFEMODE and do a through scan for viruses.
_________________
That's a Gibson Electra Harp; four pedals, 8 string, C6th |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 19 May 2009 9:38 am Re: Sound Like Mr Virus
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| Robin Archer wrote: |
| Download a free copy of AVAST antivirus, update it's data, go to SAFEMODE and do a through scan for viruses. |
If you do this please uninstall AVG 8 first and reboot. You should not attempt to operate two anti-virus programs at the same time as they will engage in a tug of war over every file you open. The same thing applies to firewalls and anti-spyware programs that have active realtime monitoring components.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 19 May 2009 9:39 pm
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Update:
I tried to go to the Art Bell site using http://tinyurl.com/r5zdds -extoff from a command line. I got an error from tinyurl.com “Error: Unable to find site's URL to redirect to.” I assume I would have gotten the same error had I used the direct URL rather than the tinyurl equivalent. I'm not sure otherwise what that error message means.
I did NOT use Avast, but I did boot into safe mode and run a complete system scan using AVG 8.5. It scanned over 600,000 objects and found no infections.
I then went to secunia.com and attempted to run the online software scanner at http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/. I chose the red button on the left, “Simple scan, online”.
My browser immediately shut down!!!
I went back to Secunia and downloaded the desktop version from the middle red button and ran it. My score was 98%. It showed:
Insecure programs: Acrobat Reader 8 and Java 1.6.
Secunia scanner says that it detected Acrobat 8.1.3.187. In fact, I do not have that version. I have 8.1.0.137. The Secunia forums contend that this security warning is a false positive.
I updated Java and rescanned with Secunia’s desktop scanner. It no longer found a Java security threat.
I then went to Secunia and attempted to run the online scanner. This time it ran, without shutting down the browser.
I can now also successfully access the Art Bell web site.
So, problem resolved, thanks to all who helped.
Re Java: is it known to be a particularly troublesome program?? I’d like to do without it and I think I have heard that it is not as widespread as it once was. I did not know Java issues could cause browser shutdowns and found it particularly worrisome that I could not access Secunia’s online scanner.
Wiz—can you comment on Java generally, why I must have it, its weaknesses, etc?? What is it about Java that would cause a browser shut down? |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 19 May 2009 10:56 pm
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| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
Update:
I updated Java and rescanned with Secunia’s desktop scanner. It no longer found a Java security threat.
I then went to Secunia and attempted to run the online scanner. This time it ran, without shutting down the browser.
I can now also successfully access the Art Bell web site.
So, problem resolved, thanks to all who helped.
Re Java: is it known to be a particularly troublesome program?? I’d like to do without it and I think I have heard that it is not as widespread as it once was. I did not know Java issues could cause browser shutdowns and found it particularly worrisome that I could not access Secunia’s online scanner.
Wiz—can you comment on Java generally, why I must have it, its weaknesses, etc?? What is it about Java that would cause a browser shut down? |
That's good news Mitch and good detective work. Your older (outdated) version of Java was crashing your browser on web pages that may have Java applets or links to pages containing those applets. Java Applets are compiled mini-programs that do animations and interactive games and user selectable options. Secunia's online scanner uses Java to scan your PCs for the version numbers of particular files of importance to it. The inspector has definitions that are updated every time one of the programs on its list is updated.
While one can live without Java, one will not see Java content or be able to interact with pages using it. Having an insecure out-dated version of Java is a security risk, as malware is written to specifically call for exploitable version numbers and if they are found in the default Java folders, kazango; all your computer are belong to us!
Java is owned and maintained by Sun Corporation. It is not related in any way to JavaScript. They are totally diverse. Java is a compiled application that can run in a browser or on your desktop. JavaScript is a plain-text interpreted scripting language that runs in browsers that have interpreters built in. It is also now known as ECMAScript, but nobody I know calls it that.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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