Windows Vista Browser stops working after a while

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Nzealander

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Aug 6, 2007
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Okay this issue has been banded around the internet for a while, but since we managed to solve the Vista "Black Screen with Documents folder" issue I am keen to see what we can do to solve this one.

Basically the issue is.

1. After a while of not using the web browser (or sometmes while using it), it stops working. The symptoms shown for me is that pictures will stop working first, then the pages wont load properly and finally not at all.

2. This does not effect peer to peer, MSN or online gaming.

3. It effects all browsers

There have been several theories as to why it happens but nothing seems to have solved it yet, not sure if a re-install of IE will do the trick, tweaking the register or something else will help so lets try as much of these as we can and see if we can get it sorted once and for all.

Here is what I have tried but has not worked:

1. Resetting Network Card (funnily enough even though I can peer to peer with this error, it wont allow me to access the router, does that help you guys understanding the issue?).

2. Powering down router

3. Deleting all web browsing history, add-ons etc.

Here is the only way it works for me currently.

By rebooting the PC.

Okay guys lets try to nail this one!
 
Solution
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Okay, I've been fighting this problem for weeks and decided it was time for drastic actions. I backed up my data, formatted my hard drive, and re-installed a full version of Vista. Since I'm pretty sure this all started back in November, after putting on some "recommended" Vista updates, I only installed important, security-related updates and ignored everything else except the one for SP1. I also dropped the free versions of avast! and zone alarm that I had been usine in favor of zone alarm security suite (pay version).

It's been over two weeks with the computer up and running most of the time and the problem has not recurred and I have not had to reboot the system. It's not much of a root cause analysis but it seems to be a...
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.......and less than one day later.....the problem is back, but this time with avengence. This time, my network card is disabled. And nothing I try will restart the network card. It says it is enabling the card, but it doesn't. Diagnose (A new Vista menu item) tells you it isn't working. (Really useful).

So, I give up and reboot. Back comes the network card. Everything is fine. I leave the office for 4 hours, and when I get back, a disabled network card that will not restart.

This is a 3 month old DELL Precision T7400 (a beast of a machine). DELL have no idea. I have just installed another network card. Watch this space. (Any of you guys think this could be network card drivers?)
 
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Not everything is Vista's fault. Just recently we had major problems with an "Opera Browser"update. It was poorly written in Java which caused crashes and login failure for many people. Also a lot of security conflicts as these companies struggle to modify programs. (Windows 7 is as I understand, the finishing polish to Vista) Devious people are always testing Vista for criminal reasons which causes patches and new programs to be written, and that causes conflicts etc.
 
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Celestra,

I take and support your comments about the software "catch-up" and the reasoning behind it. However (and I'm not trying to be picky here, but), to say it isn't always Vista because lots of people haven't written new software is hardly a justification that it isn't "down to Vista".

No one can argue with the requirement for MS to bring in change and that sometimes that change can be painful and slow. The problem is that MS just keep pounding out the advertising and take no responsibility for things that don't work. ("Not our problem guv, it's your software/hardware provider"). They have a moral responsibility to state clearly on their advertising that some things do not work on Vista.

Whatever happened to backwards compatibility? So, sorry, but whatever the underlying cause, this is ALL down to Vista. Afterall, all my hardware and applications worked fine....before I installed Vista!
 
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Latest: Tried an alternative network card. It doesn't resolve the problem.

In deference to Celestra, I also installed the latest drivers for my 1Gb network cards (Broadcom). I also turned off Deterministic Network Enhancer (as others have suggested this "feature" is a real liability).

3 days, more or less on the dot.....down it goes again. Reboot and up it comes again. Interestingly, this time I was using a VPN connection between a DG834 router and a remote Draytek router. In the past, this connection has been absolutely fine. This time, when Vista let rip, my router lost all it's configuration. Yep, back to default. (At least all that time backing up configurations proved to be worthwhile.)
This may be just an unfortunate consequence of having to reboot the router, but it's something to note.

Anyway, I'm back to square one. Vista is still crashing the browser. Every (third) day it is pushing me nearer and nearer to scrapping it all and going back to XP Pro. It's not just the network problems....it so incredibly slow. I have a quad core Xeon with 4Gb RAM and my Latitude Laptop with half the grunt, on XP Pro, is quicker.

To anyone out there, if you don't want months of aggrevation with no one willing to help (DELL wash their hands of it - because it's an OS problem, Microsoft want to charge you £199 +vat before they will look - because your software is OEM and it's up to DELL to sort it out ), then steer WELL clear of Vista.
 
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I have just found this on the web. It is a user's reference for buying the Netgear DG834G router. (He gives it 1 star)

"Works fine with XP. Very temperamental with Vista, keeps dropping connections and can be totally random! It is a known issue with Vista; Netgear should sort these problems out but they don't. I have a Netgear DG834G and DG834N both fail with Vista. Get a Belkin instead!"
 
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This is still driving me crazy. Every 3 days or so the browser locks up. More things that I have tried:

1. New driver for the Broadcom Network cards (Oct 2008)
2. Netgear router upgrade (Also spoke to Netgear. They deny any issues, and technically can see no reason the router can be the issue).
3. Disabled/Enabled Vista DNS client
4. Disabled/Enabled of Windows Defender

I serously think this is inate within Vista. Once the browser locks....and it can do it at any click or link change....that's it. Reboot is the only option. There are dead processes (iexplore ot firefox) on the Processes list, you just cannot kill them!
 
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Hi all, Thanks for all the suggestions to help with this issue, I haven't tried them all yet but will say that I am seeing the same (or very similar) issue on a new laptop (daughters) out of the box.

Laptop is Toshiba Satellite L305-S5884

CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0G Memory Size 3GB DDR2 Hard Disk 250GB Graphics Card Intel GMA X3100 Tech Intel Centrino Processor Technology Chipset Intel GM965 Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium GPU/VPU Intel GMA X3100 Video Memory 128MB-358MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory HDD 250GB HD Interface SATA Memory Speed DDR2 667 Memory 3GB LAN 10/100Mbps WLAN Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG (802.11a/b/g)
I removed all the "crapware" that Toshiba so graciously preloaded on the system.

I have added:
ZoneAlarm
Bitdefender
Open Office
FireFox

My issue as I see it:
After some arbitrary amount of time FireFox, and Internet Explorer will lock up, and completely stop working, but system is still online as Yahoo messenger will work. The window can be closed, but the process does not end. If trying to end it in the task manager window, it still will not end. Trying to reboot the system will then lock it up completely, as it seems to be waiting for those processes to be ended or be killed. The only solution it to do a "hard boot" of the system.

I have read all 11 pages of this post and see that some seem to be exactly the same issue and some similar but not quite the same. As far as being a network issue, I don't believe that to be the case since my daughter has had the problems at home, at work and at school. 3 different networks.

My next course of action at this point is to remove ZoneAlarm and BitDefender to see if these help, I will also have her shut off the sidebar she is using to make sure it is not using up resources.

Please keep posting possible solutions for the issue. It is extremely annouying to have to hard boot the system every X minutes.
 
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An update on my problem with this, I tried to upgrade to zone alarm pro (they were giving it away free) and it totally crashed the computer, nothing would work.
So i was forced to do a clean install (from the restore partition on the hard disk), this time i did not install zone alarm at all , and since then no problems.
 
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I had pretty much same problem as described here, that the browser (ie, firefox) would loose connection and then couldn't be restarted/terminated, although internet connection was fine with IM, skype or VPN. Only a reboot would fix it.
I tried different browsers and k-meleon seemed to work a bit longer than firefox but still same problem after a while.
Recently I got notified by zonealarm that an update is available, installed that, and since then it is all fine! (I guess I also installed some periodic windows updates in mean time so can't say 100% guaranteed that zonealarm was the problem but seems very likely.)
Using the free version of ZoneAlarm, version:8.0.065.000; HP-dv5z laptop, windows vista.

Hope that helps.
 
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I think a solution has been found.

I've followed the instructions below and so far my browser has been ok.

Link Removed
 
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I think it might be Avast that is causing the browser stopping problem.

My browser stopped working again this morning after I'd been using the PC for approx 20 mins. I right clicked on the Avast Icon in the task bar and disabled all the web checking features (can't remember the exact names of the features as I've un-installed Avast now) after disabling the web check features my browser started working again. I enabled the web check features again and the browser stopped working.

So from that experiment it looks like Avast could be the problem. I'm going to experiment today with different security software.

I've un-installed both Zone Alarm (free version) and Avast (free version).
I've installed NOD32 Security Suite 30 day trial version.

I'll test this through out the day and see if my browser continues to work all day. I'll keep you updated on how I get on
 
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Update:

2 hours and still browsing without problems

I'll see how it goes over the next day or two and report back again.
 
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Ok I posted 1 week ago and since I have removed Bitdefender from the system. Since removal we have had 0 lockups!

Looks like Bitdefender was (is) the cause of my issue.

Now I just need to find a virus scanner that won't lock the browser up.

Any suggestions? I see many have had issues with Avast so that is out of the question.

I have McAffee and CA Security Suite available to me from Internet providers.
 
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I removed Avast and switched to NOD32 (ESET Smart Security) and my browser has been working fine ever since.

NOD32 ESET Smart Security isn't free but in my view is worth buying. I'm using the 30 day trial version but will buy a licence when the trial ends.

HTH.
 
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kemical said:
AVG is free and does the job well...
Click to expand...


I had my father using AVG free version, and it did nothing to stop a MAJOR infection. Not sure if it was an email he opened an attachment on, or a website that he gave the ok for an activeX control to run on, but he was down for a couple days. I had to remote desktop in several times to get him going again.

Summary - I will never use AVG free again! Just don't trust it any more.
 
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