XP firewall blocking access to a trusted site

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Guest

I've has Service Pack 2 for a long time, but recently one certain site is
unaccessible because (the admin people at the site claim) that my XP firewall
is causing access problems. The site is betfair.com, and is a sound
worldwide site.

My browser goes through the 'Opening site....' actions, and then finishes
with 'Done' in the bottom right corner, but the screen remains blank (no
error message, no nothing). Does anyone have any idea why, or what settings
I can change to get at this site?

Help please! Any replies much appreciated - I'm a seriously PC-illiterate
person!

Thanks and regards,

Niall O'Hare
 
Niall said:
I've has Service Pack 2 for a long time, but recently one certain site
is unaccessible because (the admin people at the site claim) that my
XP firewall
is causing access problems. The site is betfair.com, and is a sound
worldwide site.

My browser goes through the 'Opening site....' actions, and then
finishes with 'Done' in the bottom right corner, but the screen
remains blank (no
error message, no nothing). Does anyone have any idea why, or what
settings I can change to get at this site?

Help please! Any replies much appreciated - I'm a seriously
PC-illiterate person!
Click to expand...

Thanks to your excellent, descriptive post - I have the answer for you.
I went to the site and it opened a popup window. You have popups
blocked, so look under IE>Tools>Popup Blocker>Settings and add the site
as allowed to do popups.

Malke
 
Niall,

Are you using IE-SPYAD ? IE-SpyAd puts this site to Restricted Zone.

-------------------------------------------------------
; IE-SPYAD: Internet Explorer Restricted Sites List
;
; Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Eric L. Howes
; Contact: <>
; Download from: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ehowes/
-------------------------------------------------------

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\betfair.com]
"*"=dword:00000004

FYI

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User
http://windowsxp.mvps.org


I've has Service Pack 2 for a long time, but recently one certain site is
unaccessible because (the admin people at the site claim) that my XP firewall
is causing access problems. The site is betfair.com, and is a sound
worldwide site.

My browser goes through the 'Opening site....' actions, and then finishes
with 'Done' in the bottom right corner, but the screen remains blank (no
error message, no nothing). Does anyone have any idea why, or what settings
I can change to get at this site?

Help please! Any replies much appreciated - I'm a seriously PC-illiterate
person!

Thanks and regards,

Niall O'Hare
 
Malke,

You are a top man! This sorted things out perfectly - you have just brought
days of frustration to an end.

Thanks - much apprecaited.

Niall
 
Niall said:
Malke,

You are a top man! This sorted things out perfectly - you have just
brought days of frustration to an end.

Thanks - much apprecaited.
Click to expand...
No, I'm the top woman ;-) and you are entirely welcome. Thanks for
taking the time to let me know it worked.

Malke
 
Whoops - must be the natural chauvanist in me!!

You are the top woman, but.... the problem seems to have reoccured. I used
the site the night I read your reply, with no problem. I tried again today,
but it seems to be doing what it was before (I've checked where you
suggested, and the site remains in the list of allowed sites, so something
else appears to have gone awry). Any other ideas? Please? (I won't call
you a man again!!)

I also checked the reply from the other person (Ramesh) - although a little
technical for me, I don't think I am running that IE-SPYAD that he/she
mentions.

Thanks again for your help.

Niall
 
Niall said:
Whoops - must be the natural chauvanist in me!!

You are the top woman, but.... the problem seems to have reoccured.
I used
the site the night I read your reply, with no problem. I tried again
today, but it seems to be doing what it was before (I've checked where
you suggested, and the site remains in the list of allowed sites, so
something
else appears to have gone awry). Any other ideas? Please? (I won't
call you a man again!!)

I also checked the reply from the other person (Ramesh) - although a
little technical for me, I don't think I am running that IE-SPYAD that
he/she mentions.
Click to expand...
Do you have any antispyware programs running? I don't mean something
like Ad-aware, but rather IE protection from Spybot S&D or SpySweeper
or the beta MS Antispyware program. Since it is a betting site, if you
have some sort of browser protection program running it might stop you.
Here are two things to try:

1. Start>Run> msconfig [enter]

See what is on the Startup page. Anything that looks similar to what I
mentioned above?

2. Try with a different browser. I'm assuming you're using Internet
Explorer. Download and install Firefox from:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/all.html

Make sure you get the Windows version! Once you've got Firefox
installed, see what happens when you go to the site.

Malke
 
Malke,

Thanks for your ongoing help.

Re 1 below - no, it doesn't look as if anything similar to what you mention
is on the list in that section.

Re 2 - I've downloaded the Firefox browser, and the format of the problem
seems a little different but the same end result happens. When I type the
web address in the box at the top, the bottom left of the browser starts with
'Transferring data from www.betfair.com...', then after maybe 20 seconds an
'Alert' pop-up box appears with 'The operation timed out when attempting to
contact cache.betfair.com'. If I press 'OK' on this box, the bottom left
says 'Connecting to cache.betfair.com...', but the exact same box pops up
about 20 seconds later. And so it goes on....

I downloaded a 'Deepnet' explorer as well, but no joy there either.

I've used the web quite a bit over the last few days, and this is the only
site on which this happens. Unfortunately, it's also the one I'm most keen
to get at!

Thanks once again for your very useful advice.

Niall

Malke said:
Niall said:
Whoops - must be the natural chauvanist in me!!

You are the top woman, but.... the problem seems to have reoccured.
I used
the site the night I read your reply, with no problem. I tried again
today, but it seems to be doing what it was before (I've checked where
you suggested, and the site remains in the list of allowed sites, so
something
else appears to have gone awry). Any other ideas? Please? (I won't
call you a man again!!)

I also checked the reply from the other person (Ramesh) - although a
little technical for me, I don't think I am running that IE-SPYAD that
he/she mentions.
Click to expand...
Do you have any antispyware programs running? I don't mean something
like Ad-aware, but rather IE protection from Spybot S&D or SpySweeper
or the beta MS Antispyware program. Since it is a betting site, if you
have some sort of browser protection program running it might stop you.
Here are two things to try:

1. Start>Run> msconfig [enter]

See what is on the Startup page. Anything that looks similar to what I
mentioned above?

2. Try with a different browser. I'm assuming you're using Internet
Explorer. Download and install Firefox from:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/all.html

Make sure you get the Windows version! Once you've got Firefox
installed, see what happens when you go to the site.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
Click to expand...
 
Niall said:
Malke,

Thanks for your ongoing help.

Re 1 below - no, it doesn't look as if anything similar to what you
mention is on the list in that section.

Re 2 - I've downloaded the Firefox browser, and the format of the
problem
seems a little different but the same end result happens. When I type
the web address in the box at the top, the bottom left of the browser
starts with 'Transferring data from www.betfair.com...', then after
maybe 20 seconds an 'Alert' pop-up box appears with 'The operation
timed out when attempting to
contact cache.betfair.com'. If I press 'OK' on this box, the bottom
left says 'Connecting to cache.betfair.com...', but the exact same box
pops up
about 20 seconds later. And so it goes on....

I downloaded a 'Deepnet' explorer as well, but no joy there either.

I've used the web quite a bit over the last few days, and this is the
only
site on which this happens. Unfortunately, it's also the one I'm most
keen to get at!
Click to expand...
Well, it wasn't very useful advice because it didn't get the job done. I
wonder why you were able to connect once and then not again. Try
emptying your Temporary Internet Files (from IE's Tools>Internet
Options). Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm at a loss. The site does act rather
strange for me in that I can get there fine, but am then unable to
maximize the page. I'm using Mozilla on Linux, so if the site is trying
to download something unwanted (I do see a link for downloading a
toolbar), it can't of course.

Perhaps you could email the webmaster or call them. Since you can't get
there, here is the information copied from their page:

For betting and account enquires: (e-mail address removed)
For all marketing enquiries: (e-mail address removed)
For all employment enquiries: (e-mail address removed)
For all other business enquires: (e-mail address removed)

Alternatively, please telephone / fax Betfair directly:

Telephone Fax
From North America 011-44-208-834-8060
From UK 0870 0110 444 0870 0110 555
Ireland 1-800 944 000
Australia 1-800 759 354
International +44 208 834 8060

Please send all written correspondence to:

Betfair
PO Box 34467
London
W6 9WS
United Kingdom

So, I'm sorry I couldn't solve your problem permanently, but I hope this
helps a bit.

Malke
 
Malke,

You've been a star - I'll try the people in charge of the website again, and
see if they can put it right. Otherwise I'll go gamble my hard-earned cash
elsewhere!

Thanks for all your help - much appreciated.

Niall
 
Niall said:
Malke,

You've been a star - I'll try the people in charge of the website
again, and
see if they can put it right. Otherwise I'll go gamble my hard-earned
cash elsewhere!

Thanks for all your help - much appreciated.

Niall
Click to expand...

You are most welcome, Niall. If I gambled, I would frankly gamble
elsewhere because it really bothers me that their website misbehaves so
badly. There must be other legitimate online gambling sites (I
suppose).

Good luck and have safe fun,

Malke
 
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