IE Locks in Hotmail

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Guest

I am using Internet Explorer v6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_2_rtm.040803-2158 on
Windows XP Professional SP2.

When I go to the Hotmail website to read E-mail, IE locks-up. I have to
do the 3-finger salute (ctl/alt/del) to end the process and exit out of IE -
none of the buttons work. I have no other problems with IE navigating the
web - it is just on Hotmail.

I also have the newest version of the Mozilla Suite installed, as well as
Mozilla Firefox. I have no difficulty navigating within Hotmail from either
of these applications - it just happens with Internet Explorer.

Any idea what might be causing the problem? I recently did a registry
cleanup (big mistake!), but I un-did the changes and successfully merged the
entries back into the registry. Even following a re-start, IE is still
acting-up.

Your professional assistance would be appreciated!

Adrian
 
Forgot to mention ...

I have done a complete system scan with Ad-Aware (SE Personal - newest
version with current updates) and also with SpyBot S&D (also newest version
with current updates), and there is no spyware/adware on my system. Also, a
full virus scan with PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 indicated no viruses.

I provide this information to narrow the "fix" options ...

Adrian
 
Hi Adrian - We may need a little more info to tackle this one. Could you
provide specific answers to the following questions/fixes please:

Do you see your Passport login happening when you try to get to Hotmail?
Do you actually reach the page before IE locks up?
Is any error message returned before/with the IE lock-up occurance?

Are you experiencing access difficulties with any other sites? Particularly
any other secure sites?

What URL are you using? http://www.msn.com/ and then click on Hotmail?
www.hotmail.com directly ?

Can you ping the following: www.msn.com (will probably time out) and
www.hotmail.com (should respond) in a Cmd Window?
Can you do an nslookup www.hotmail.com from a Cmd Window?
If so, can you reach the site using any of the returned IP's directly such
as: 207.68.172.239 207.68.171.233 207.68.173.245 ?
Can you do an nslookup login.passport.net from a Cmd Window?
If so, do you get the following returned IP's : 65.54.183.19 65.54.179.19
?

Are you using a HOSTS file? If so, have you tried renaming it to something
like NOHOSTS?

Have you tried putting Passport ( https://login.passport.net ),
http://www.hotmail.com and http://www.msn.com in your Trusted Zone? (Be
sure that "Require server verification . . ." is UNchecked.)

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Hello: Unofortunately, I don't have a fix for you. Just wanted to say that
I am experiencing the identical problem - surfaced within the past two days.
Ed
 
Hi Adrian - One additional question - Are you using any cookie control
mechanism such as that in ZoneAlarmPro or other third party programs? If so
or not, have you made any recent changes in the cookie control area?

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Hi Adrian - The following was posted in another thread by Hippo101 and may
be relevant to your problem:

"For those who still have problems with Hotmail and that have MSN
Messenger on thier computer...

Go in Tools > Internet Options>

Click on "Security", select "Internet" and then "Custom Level"
Searche for "Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins" and disable it.

Disabling this will prevent Hotmail from showing the MSN Messenger
status near your email adress on your hotmail account. If it is
disabled, MSN Messenger wont be asked to run which is most-likely the
cause of the problem.

Try it and tell if it works. It worked for me and I want to see if it
can work for other people. Thx !"


--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Hi, Jim - and thanks for your replies.

I disabled ActiveX Controls and Plug-ins and it definately solved the
Hotmail problem - everything worked fine there with ActiveX disabled. But
when I came back to these newsgroups, I was unable to browse the messages
(received an error message stating that "ActiveX controls must be enabled to
browse these newsgroups"). So it solved one problem and created another.
When I re-enabled ActiveX, my IE locked-up again in Hotmail.

This one is rather baffling! To answer your other questions, the problem
occurs AFTER I log-in to Hotmail (normally - on the Hotmail website, not via
a Passport log-in). I can log into my account just fine, but when I navigate
to my inbox, IE locks. Again, I don't have any problems with IE on any other
websites.

I'm not sure how to ping MSN - I'll need a quick lesson :-)

Thanks, Jim!

Adrian
 
My cookie settings are set to "Accept all cookies" and I'm not using any
third-party cookie controls - although SpyBot is installed on my system with
the "TeaTimer" system settings protector running resident on my system
(disabling it does not make a difference however).

I have PC-cillin 2005 Internet Security installed as well and am running
that program's firewall. I have also scanned for viruses with PC-cillin and
adware/spyware with Ad-Aware SE - no suspicious files were found.

Adrian
 
In
Adrian said:
Hi, Jim - and thanks for your replies.

I disabled ActiveX Controls and Plug-ins and it definately solved
the Hotmail problem - everything worked fine there with ActiveX
disabled. But when I came back to these newsgroups, I was unable to
browse the messages (received an error message stating that "ActiveX
controls must be enabled to browse these newsgroups"). So it solved
one problem and created another. When I re-enabled ActiveX, my IE
locked-up again in Hotmail.

This one is rather baffling! To answer your other questions, the
problem occurs AFTER I log-in to Hotmail (normally - on the Hotmail
website, not via a Passport log-in). I can log into my account just
fine, but when I navigate to my inbox, IE locks. Again, I don't have
any problems with IE on any other websites.

I'm not sure how to ping MSN - I'll need a quick lesson :-)

Thanks, Jim!

Adrian
Click to expand...

To PING a site, you click on Start - Run - Cmd.exe and it will open a
Command Window. Enter PING www.msn.com (or whatever site you are wanting to
PING) and press Enter. It will show you whether you are having difficulties
reaching the site. The only problem with this is MSN doesn't respond to
PING's so MSN won't work for this.
 
Hi Adrian - Do you have MSN Messenger installed? If so, and you don't use
it, you might try disabling or uninstalling it and then see if Hotmail then
works with ActiveX enabled. Read all of the following carefully.

1. See here to disable it: How to prevent Windows Messenger from running
on a Windows XP-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=302089 Read carefully.


2. A simpler method to completely uninstall it if you don't use it which
you may want to try (rather than messing around in the Registry to just
disable it unless you're very comfortable with that) is to be sure you Exit
from Messenger by right-clicking the MSN icon in the notification area, and
selecting Exit. Then go to Start|Run then enter exactly (I would copy/paste
it):

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %systemRoot%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

Then uninstall the leftover installation information file by going to
Start|Run then entering:

rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection BLC.Remove 128
%systemRoot%\inf\msmsgs.inf

Then reboot.


3. If you wish, you can ensure that MSN Messenger is shown in Add-Remove
Windows Components so that you can restore it at some later time if you so
desire by going to Start|Run and entering:

notepad.exe %systemRoot%\INF\sysoc.inf

When this file opens in Notepad, look for a line that starts "msmsgs="
and then delete the word "hide" if there and go to File|Save, then exit
Notepad.

Then reboot.

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Jim:

I currently have the Windows Messenger Service disabled - it has been
disabled since I reinstalled the Windows a few months ago. I disabled it
using the Group Policy Editor (gpedit), but there is a small program called
"Shoot The Messenger" that does the same thing. Through gpedit, I disabled
Windows Messenger in BOTH the Computer configuration AND in the User
configuration.

The IE problem just surfaced a few days ago for no apparent reason. I
have also discovered that I can access some Hotmail e-mail accounts with no
problem while others lock-up IE. I am beginning to think that it might be a
problem with Hotmail - although I can access ALL of my accounts through MSN
(Explorer) Premium, with Outlook, Outlook Express and by using the Firefox or
Mozilla browsers. Only when I access my 2 main Hotmail accounts does IE lock
up - and again, only with IE does the problem persist.

This is turning my hair gray ......!

Adrian
 
I currently have the Windows Messenger Service disabled - it has been
disabled since I reinstalled the Windows a few months ago.
Click to expand...

The messenger service is not related, try uninstalling MSN messenger
instead.

Wichert.
 
Hi Adrian - Wichert has it right - It's MSN Messenger that you need to
disable/uninstall, NOT Windows Messenger. Check on that please and then
post back.

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
MSN Messenger v6.2 was, in fact, the culprit. Upon removal and system
reboot, IE works like the day it was installed. No problems whatsoever.

You just 'gotta love Microsoft - even their own products aren't
compatible with each other ...

Adrian
 
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