IE 6, XP SP2 DNS(?) Error

Sean Horvath · Oct 9, 2004

I am running XP with SP2. Sometimes and very randomly, I seem to lose
connection wth the internet only in web browsers. If I open IE 6 with my
homepage set to MSN, I get Opening http://207.68.172.234 in the status bar
of IE.

I have tried to flush the DNS cache with no luck and renewing my IP address.
I am not able to ping msn.com, but I am able to ping www.yahoo.com.
However, if I try to go to yahoo in IE 6, it will not open. I only get
Opening http://[ip address].

Thought that it might be associated with IE, so I installed Netscape and had
the same issue. Some days it does not happen, some it happens about every
1-1.5 hours.

Rebooting is the only thing that takes care of this.

Any thought would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Sean.

Robert Aldwinckle · Oct 9, 2004

Sean Horvath said:
I am running XP with SP2. Sometimes and very randomly, I seem to lose connection wth the internet only in web browsers. If I open
IE 6 with my homepage set to MSN, I get Opening http://207.68.172.234 in the status bar of IE.

tracert with that shows that my DNS thinks that it is www.msn.com

I have tried to flush the DNS cache with no luck and renewing my IP address.

/flushdns will just refresh whatever you have in your HOSTS file
which you haven't mentioned. Did you try deleting or renaming it
first?

I am not able to ping msn.com, but I am able to ping www.yahoo.com.

try, instead: ping -n 1 www.msn.com

Don't worry if the ping fails. It's more important that the address
is correct. E.g., you should try to find out if the address you are pinging
is the same address that nslookup shows your DNS is returning.

However, if I try to go to yahoo in IE 6, it will not open. I only get Opening http://[ip address].

Thought that it might be associated with IE, so I installed Netscape and had the same issue. Some days it does not happen, some
it happens about every 1-1.5 hours.

Rebooting is the only thing that takes care of this.

Any thought would be greatly appreciated!

If this is XP Pro I would appreciate it if you would load ipseccmd
from its Support Tools so you can try

ipseccmd show filters

in any case I would also be interested in whether this command
shows anything when you have the problem:

netsh interface ip show type=LSP

For an interactive FAQ for XP networking issues try
http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm

E.g. check the box "Internet Explorer cannot display some web sites..."
and look at the open entries in the Results section.

Thanks!
Sean.

Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
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