Unable to browse the Web

Hoping someone can help with this one.

Customer has a machine in here, that can connect to the net and can ping IP addresses with no trouble. But it can't display any websites, with IE giving a "Cannot find server or DNS Error" and Netscape Giving a "Netscape was unable to create a network socket connection. There may be insuffiicient system resources or the network may be down. {Reason: )"

Obviously it's not resources, and I have tried going into the network properties and removing/reinstalling the TCP/IP Protocols.

My boss can't think of anything here either. I know I've seen this problem before, but for the life of me, can't figure it. Can anyone help, please?

I had this problem a few months ago with my own personal machine. You can see the original thread on the topic here with all the things that were suggested and attempted.

I mucked around with it for two days straight, then gave up and reinstalled Windows. I couldn't live without WinDrivers, ya know.

If you find a solution, please let me know as it drives me crazy to this day that we couldn't figure it out!

Is the DNS server you're using down? See if you can point the network to a different DNS server. Sounds like it's a pretty classic example of broken DNS.

Any address at all. Not a single one comes up.

Got a little progress, of sorts. Backwards, of course. I tried removing the dial up adapter and the TCP/IP protocols together, then had the system reinstall the dial up adapter. Reinstalled the TCP/IP protocols and tried again. Now the system says the dial up adapter can not connect to the server.

Like I said, progress, of a sort....

Ummm... did you check the DNS server? Can you ping it? Do you have static of DHCP for your DNS resolution?

Checked the DNS server. Could ping it no problem. Checked it with a couple other machines as well, logging into the same ISP with the same user account. Website came up fine. ISP uses dynamic IP's. It's only this machine, and it happens regardless of browser or ISP dialed.

After you connect and log on, does you client get a DNS address from the server? You can also try adding it manually to the TCP/IP dial up adapter. Try going to a website by its IP address instead of a name also.

Also run winipcfg (win9x) or ipconfig /all (nt/2k from DOS) and see if all the settings are correct. You can also try a release/renew and see if that solves your problem.

I also had the same problem. I tried everything i knew to do. I reinstalled DUN and checked for viruses. I ended up having to extract a fresh copy of wsock32.dll and that fixed the problem. Hope this helps.

Well, there are a couple of troubleshooting steps I didn't see suggested.

Have you tried nslookup? If you have connectivity, try querying the DNS server through nslookup. If you need more info about how to use nslookup, let me know.

If the DNS server resolves the IP's address correctly, then most likely it is one of two things. You either have a corrupt DNS cache, in which case, you should type

"ipconfig /flushdns"

(no quotes). The other possibility is that you aren't using domain devolution. You can check this by looking in your connection's TCPIP property settings, click the advanced button, DNS tab. Since this is a dial-up network connection, you most probably get issued an IP from DHCP. Make sure that "Append parent suffixes of primary dns suffix" is checked. This would only work if your ISP's DHCP issues a connection specific suffix in the scope option for your computer. Should this not work, or even if it does, but you want to make sure it doesn't happen again, type ipconfig /all at the command prompt while logged on to get the connection specific suffix, and enter this in the corresponding box in tcp/ip properties for the modem. Make sure "append primary and connection-specific suffixes" is selected. After you do this, you will definitely want to do a "ipconfig /flushdns " to restart the client side dns cache, and you should be good to go....let me know if this doesn't work. Good luck!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Ron Prestenback:
<STRONG>Well, there are a couple of troubleshooting steps I didn't see suggested.
</STRONG>

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I am experiencing extremely simialr problem with internet connection through a modem. I'm keen to know a bit more about the stuff posted here...

Mainly - how can you flush the DNS cache on a Win9x system? Will winipcfg /flushdns work? I don't have the option for flushdns when I type "ipconfig /?" at command line.

Problem seems quite similar - cannot connect to internet and can't connect to mail servers to send/recieve mail. But from a command window can ping "www.yahoo.com" for instance. My next step was to uninstall and reinstall the TCP/IP but that is not looking like it will work after all.

The flushdns sounds good, but how do I make it work on a Win98 system....?

As an update:

The customer wanted the machine, and they wanted it immediately, and told us to format and reload.

Well, it fixed the problem at least....

For the future, Thundervamp, you may want to keep this website on your list of good resources for troubleshooting:
Common errors in IE - Knowledge Base on microsoft.com

It can be hard to find the correct terminology to use their knowledge base search feature effectively, but this page should give a nice jumping off point.

I was just reading over this thread again, and I seemed to recall a thread I read a loooooooong time ago where there all these people having a problem where they had network connections in DOS, but not windows. I couldn't remember exactly what they did, but my memory was jogged by another post I read somewhere else today, so here it is.

This is a winsock issue. It is usually due to incorrect registry entries in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Winsock2 key. Reinstalling TCP/IP will not work, unless you first delete the winsock key in the registry!!!!!! You must delete this key first, then reinstall TCP/IP. If you don't do these two things in this order, no amount of troubleshooting will work. It should be noted however, that before you reinstall TCP/IP, you can try only extracting a new winsock set from the CD, as this alone has been known to fix the problem on a small number of systems. If only extracting these files (winsock.dll or wnsock32.dll) doesn't work, you will need to reinstall TCP/IP. The only alternative is a full system reinstall (which *would* delete the winsock key <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0"> )

To MacGyver and ThunderVamp: Sorry I couldn't remember in time to help you guys out. I know how frustrating it can be to try everything and nothing works...have you ever gotten to the point where you had to have "The Talk" with the computer?

"Now listen here computer, if you don't start working here pretty soon, you see that window over there......"

To Gutted - ipconfig /flushdns is a feature only available in W2K's implentation of TCP/IP. This (stronger and more adaptive TCP/IP) is one of the reasons that Win2K is known as an NOS [network operating system] whereas Win98 is not. But the winsock reference above should fix the problem you're having as well.

To Everyone - What causes this? Well, it really hard to say, because there are SO MANY things that can. But we narrowed it down to at least a general category - programs that access the internet. LOL

That seems a little pre-inclusive, but any program that you install that accesses the internet may put its own version of winsock (which could be a 16-bit version, something known to cause the problem when Win98 first came out) on the system, or it may put its own entries into the Winsock2 key in the registry. Something goes wrong, or you uninstall a program that says "All components could not be deleted....blah blah blah". Well, that blah blah blah sometimes tells you that keys were created in winsock2 but weren't deleted. (probably because you were connected to the internet at the time)

You will see this problem again, so look out for this combonation (usually):

can ping in DOS
have both DUN and NIC
reinstalling TCP/IP doesn't work
occured out of the blue
all network setting are correct
This exact message in netscape: "Netscape was unable to create a network socket connection."

When you see this combination of symptoms, yell at the top of your lungs "DELETE THE WINSOCK2 KEY!!!!"

<IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0"> <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

Quote:

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Originally posted by Ron Prestenback:
<STRONG>To MacGyver and ThunderVamp: Sorry I couldn't remember in time to help you guys out.</STRONG>

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Don't worry about it. It was 6 months ago that it happened. And it gave me an excuse to finally dump Win95 and upgrade to Win98SE. <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0"> But I will keep that tip in mind, thank you very much.

Delete Winsock registry key, delete winsock registry key, delete winsock registry key....

Also - under win 9x go to the ws2backup directory and run ws2bckup.bat file from both windows and DOS to restore the correct winsock version and regestry key.

Ron,

Excellent advice, and I've already got the page you suggested bookmarked on our back room machine for future reference should this one rear its ugly head again. I'm only sorry I missed this before the customer gave us our orders...

Thanks again!

Guys,

This is all quality stuff. Thanks all the info here - hopefully I can get my problem sorted too. Am off to visit the offending PC tomorrow so will print out this entire thread and take it with me for reference <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

I don't want to be too optimistic just yet, but I've gotta say it's looking better than it did yesterday.

Thanks again!

I didn't see a post from "gutted" here to let everyone know the outcome of his problem, but he did send me a message to let me know that the solution (winsock2) did work.

Usually when you resolve a problem after using a solution provided, it's always a good idea to post back to the thread and let everyone know it's fixed. This serves a two fold purpose:

1 - Anyone who had offered solutions in the thread can finally go to sleep knowing that your problem is solved. (at least they know the thread is closed anyway <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0"> )

2 - More importantly, anyone who reads this thread in the next week, month, or whatever and has the same problem will know that the solution worked for someone else. Very rarely do I ever post a problem to a forum, because when I have a problem, I always read the back-logged posts, and there is usually someone else who has had my same problem before. It's very helpful when going through these old posts to know if a particular solution, especially if it's a very drastic one (such as reinstalling) solved the problem or not.

Ron,

Wanted to let you know, we got another machine in with the same problem this week. Quickly ref'd your post and had them back up and surfing in minutes!

Thanks for the advice!

That's great to hear Thundervamp!

It is a very nice feeling to get a machine in that isn't working and fix it with the first couple of things you try. I don't know about you, but it seems every time I encounter a problem with my computer (which is about twice a day <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0"> ), the solutions keep getting more and more complicated.

Anyway, it's great to hear that at least one computer on one day didn't give you too much trouble. <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0"> Glad I could help.

Now, what would one of my threads be without a Knowledge Base reference? <IMG SRC="smilies/tongue.gif" border="0"> I saw the KB article that referred to this just yesterday, but I can't seem to find it again. As soon as I see it again, I'll let you guys know!