"the page cannot be displayed"

mistercambridge · #1 October 15th, 2003, 06:19 AM

When I attempt to go to www.cj.com, or to www.qksrv.net I get the message "the page cannot be displayed". I don't get this for any other sites, that I've noticed. I'm running Win98SE and recently used the windows update function and upgraded to IE6 amongst other things. Something happened during that process and hosed up my firewall (zonealarm) and I had to uninstall and reinstall ZA in Windows SAFE mode before Win would load fully. Dunno if that could be related, but I do have this problem even if the firewall is set to NOT load on boot and is not running. Interestingly, I now see that when I go to the install/uninstall software function within the Windows control panel, there are NO PROGRAMS listed!! (probably unrelated to my browser problem but weird nonetheless)

The only other software running is McAffee Antivirus software, and I have the problem with the browser even if the antivirus software is shut down.

I have DSL, but I also subscribe to AOL on the bring your own access plan (i.e. AOL is not my ISP). The really weird thing is that if I use the browser within the AOL software I CAN access these domains with no problem! I also have an older version of Netscape which will not access these domains either. But, just to keep it interesting, the other computers on my home network can access these domains just fine. So it's something on just this PC.

I've purged the browser cache, etc., reinstalled MSIE 6, deleted the browser index.dat file while in DOS mode. I restored the default settings in IE 6 for security, etc. I don't see where I have any domains blocked. Can anyone help? I am stumped.

**AnnMarie** · #2 October 15th, 2003, 06:34 AM

Welcome to CTH mistercambridge. I cannot view those sites either but I know why. I am running Spyblocker and it blocks them. Close your browser and run a search on your drive for a file named hosts. When you find it, open it in Notepad and look for entries relating to both of those sites similar to this:

127.0.0.1 www.qksrv.net

If you find any, delete each line that they are on, save your changes and close. Open IE and try connecting now.

mistercambridge · #3 October 15th, 2003, 07:20 AM

Very Cool! That was exactly the problem- I run Spybot S&D occassionally, to keep things clean, and it was blocking those domains by listing them in the HOSTS file. I simply opened it up in notepad, made the changes, saved it as a .txt file (the only way it would save) and then manually removed the .txt extension. I now can access those domains.

I couldn't have asked for a quicker turnaround either. Mega many Kudos!
It would have taken me a loooooong time to figure that one out on my own.

MrC

**AnnMarie** · #4 October 15th, 2003, 07:33 AM

You are very welcome mistercambridge. I'm glad we could help.