Strange Browser Problem

[BRL]

Hi all. My browser stops working roughly after about half an hour of being online and it freezes. What I have to do then is reboot my computer and when that has happened, again the browser will freeze after 30 mins or so.

I have tried using IE and Firefox but the same thing happens. (am using Opera)

Does anyone know if I need to tweak something to stop this from happening, I have already reinstalled all my browsers and it still continues.

Outlook Express is not affected and will check for emails even when the browser freezes up.

Using Vista with Zone Alarm and Avast. Virgin Cable Broadband.

[preduk]

This may be a basic question, but have you done an antivirus/spyware check on the computer? These weird issues are usually down to them.

[BRL]

Yep, spent a few hours yesterday monitoring the scan. Nothing came up at all.

[Keef]

Is there any message about it in the Event logs?

Take a look - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Event Viewer.
Look particularly at "Application", but any in there may reveal something.

[BRL]

Thanks Keef. I have just had a look but it means nothing to me I am afraid

In applications I see that Avast has loads of errors.

[Keef]

Hmmm. Could be related to an Avast hiccup, I suppose.
What's Avast unhappy about? Is ZoneAlarm blocking it from accessing the Internet, or is it more serious?

I find that sorting the things that cause errors to appear in the logs can solve a lot of problems. Some errors are just down to poorly written software (like the Jeppesen GPS card writer software, that spawns an error message whenever the PC is started, if the card writer isn't plugged in - even if it's not the day to do the new card). Most can be Googled and solutions found - you're not likely to be the first person to have this problem.

The error log is probably one of the better sources of information about what's wrong, so take a look at anything in yellow or red in any of the logs.

When the browser freezes, can you stop it with Ctrl-Alt-Del, then TaskManager, then Applications, then right-click it and "End Task"? Does Task Manager tell you anything about its status?

[BRL]

Hi. I can't close it using the Task Manager. It just says 'Running' next to it. What I have to do is restart the laptop.

The odd thing is that when it freezes and gets stuck, I can open Outlook Express and check my emails fine, no problem with the connection, just the browsers stopping and freezing.

I have looked again at the list in Applications and there are a lot of entries but nothing makes any sense!!

[Saab Dastard]

BRL,

Some services (applications can run as a service so they function even if no-one is logged in) cannot be stopped via Task Manager, but can be stopped using the Control Panel / Admin Tools / Services applet.

If they still don't stop, change the service to "disabled" and then reboot to stop it from starting.

To re-start, simply mark as Automatic / Manual as appropriate and Start the service.

It does look like it could be a firewall / AV problem.

Remember that Outlook uses different ports for email (pop3 110 / smtp 25) to those used by browsers for web traffic (http port 80, https port 443), so it's not so strange that email is OK.

Try running (briefly) with one or other (firewall / AV) disabled to see if you are still getting the same problems.

SD

[Gertrude the Wombat]

The odd thing is that when it freezes and gets stuck, I can open Outlook Express and check my emails fine, no problem with the connection, just the browsers stopping and freezing.

OK, so it's a HTML protocol specific issue, not something more generally wrong with DNS, routing or the IP stack.

Assuming that you're running a home PC connected direct to an ISP it's not a problem with you office proxy. If it's a problem with your ISP's proxy you're unlikely to be the only one affected, and one might have expected them to fix it in a day or three. Maybe check that your proxy settings are correct anyway (in most cases "off" will be correct).

Something mangled in the browser cache? Delete everything you can find. But this is unlikely to be the cause if it affects more than one browser.

Which leaves a more local proxy or other protocol specific issue. Such as

• A proxy running on your machine
• A virus checker running on your machine
• A virus or other malware running on your machine
• A firewall running on your machine

I'd feel inclined to find and clobber as many of those as possible. But first, if it were me doing it, I'd run a network sniffer to see what is actually going in out out of your box, both generally when browsing and specifically at the point of failure, as this might give some clues as to which of the above is the problem.

[stealth117]

I have the same symptoms on my laptop running Vista with AVG and ZoneAlarm, using Virgin broadband.
I have switched off ZoneAlarm and enabled Windows firewall and everything has been running normally for several hours now.
I will give it a few days then uninstall/reinstall ZoneAlarm and see if the symptoms return.
Hope this helps.

[BRL]

Thank you for the replies guys.

What I have done for now is remove the Avast from here and have installed AVG instead. Just waiting to see what happens!

[BRL]

Just to update, I have been online for a few hours now and all is well.

I took Keef's advice and looked at the Application/Event logs and there were lots of entries to do with Avast, loads of them in fact. Going on this I have taken Avast off my laptop and installed AVG as a test and so far it works no problems.

Thanks to all that have taken time to post replies here