Hi TechSupport people,
I'm running Windows Vista on a HP laptop. I use a wireless connection with a TalkTalk router which I started using a couple of months ago. My AV is avast! and I'm also running Lavasoft Ad-aware and Windows Security Centre (Firewall, Defender, etc.)
When I switched to TalkTalk back in April/May I initially had some issues...it's a bit hazy now but I had some poor guy from their tech support on the phone for over an hour while he tried to get my laptop to connect wirelessly (worked fine with the cable plugged in). But eventually it got sorted out and everything seemed to be working fine.
But now I'm having a really irritating problem with most of my web browsers. I have four installed (IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari), for situations like this and also to check how coding looks in different browsers etc. I'm pretty sure that all of them are the latest versions.
My problem is that all of them except Opera (which I hate using, because sometimes it doesn't load pages fully/properly) are refusing to load any pages that begin with https:// so I can't log into most websites (Facebook, eBay, etc.). They start to load and then within a second I get some sort of Page Cannot Be Displayed message, e.g.:
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at {website}.
Safari can’t connect to the server.
If I click 'Diagnose Connection Problems' in IE, I either get a message saying that there are no problems or, occasionally, something about a DNS error.
OTHER PROBLEMS THAT MIGHT BE RELATED TO THE ABOVE:
- It seems that I can no longer upload items using those 'faulty' browsers, although I can in Opera.
- Video link websites such as Omegle Video etc. no longer seem to be working, in any browser, including Opera. My own webcam loads just fine but I don't get a connection to the other party and I don't see their webcam. It just stays on 'Loading' or 'Entering' or similar. I haven't tried a video call e.g. over Skype yet so I don't know if that works.
- Someone suggested installing Chrome but the installer for that won't work either. I've downloaded and saved the installer but when I run it, it behaves as though I'm not connected to the Internet.
- Non-browser programs that require a connection to the Internet are behaving as though I'm not connected, so they won't update. For example, avast! (AV) says 'Cannot connect to server' when I'm trying to update the software, and games with auto/manual updaters such as The Sims 3 don't seem to be able to tell me that my game is out of date; my EA Download Manager thinks I'm offline. As for Windows Update, it seems that some stuff is getting through but some isn't.
HOW/WHEN IT STARTED:
Not entirely sure. With some things, like the EA Download Manager thinking I'm offline, I'm semi-sure it has always done that, but I installed it just before/after I switched to TalkTalk, so if the problem is with my ISP/router/something then...yeah.
I was messing around with online proxy servers not long ago, but I don't think the problems started immediately after this. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure.
I actually thought it started when Firefox installed its latest update and suddenly stopped loading pages altogether. My other browsers then stopped loading pages too, all except good old (!) Opera. But after a day or so they all started working again...with the exception of not loading https pages.
WHAT I'VE TRIED: (willing to try any of the following again because I'm desperate now!)
- Clearing the cache, via each individual browser
- Virus and spyware scans (came back clean)
- Reinstalling Firefox
- Going back to using a cable connection directly to the router (didn't make a difference)
- Trying different proxy settings in Firefox (I've actually tried it on all the different settings even though I'm pretty sure I never touched them in the first place)
- Just deleting the 's' from https addresses and trying to reload them! (lol, doesn't work)
- Checking the Exceptions list in Windows Firewall. As far as I can tell it looks like all of the programs that I'm having trouble with are on the Exceptions list, and I've tried removing them and adding them again. I've never had to manually add anything to this list before, in the past I've just clicked 'Allow' when the dialogue box comes up asking if I want to allow the program to connect to the Internet. But that isn't coming up with, e.g. the Google Chrome installer. The installer just says it can't connect, but it's on the firewall Exceptions list.
- Disabling the firewall temporarily
- Disabling avast! shields temporarily
...nothing worked! I'm out of my depth here but brief Google searches have led me to believe that it's either a firewall issue or a proxy issue. I've checked and checked the firewall (and didn't mess with it in the first place, so I don't know why it would suddenly start being a jacka**), and I really know nothing about proxies!
I hope I've given you enough info here. If there's anything else you want to know, anything you'd like me to post or screencap, just let me know. The most irritating thing is not being able to use my regular browser (Firefox).
I don't know if the other stuff (software not updating, etc.) is related. It's still annoying for sure but I can live with it for now...but if anyone has any ideas, please let me know.