Windows Vista Browser stops working after a while

[richardhsm]

I run a Macbook Pro ( joy ) ...and a Vista Ultimate ( pain ) box on same home network. MacBook Pro works perfectly. Both machines do the same uTorrent, Email, Internet. Vista machine failed to access web ( port 80 ? ) with both |Firefox + IE7. No logic to fault whatsoever. uTorrent always worked on both machines....constantly. After hours of ipconfig /all and dnsfluh etc. etc. removed NOD32 from ESET. INTERNET ACCESS back on Vista machine via Firefox + IE7. Have downloaded reinstalled ESETs' NOD 32 but DISABLED its Web AV filtering. BAD ESET. This post was correct for me ! " NOD32+Utorrent = Browsers stop working. Torrents and Skype work. I suppose the problem will still remai if I even deinstall NOD32. "! Good Luck Richard

 

[Christia]

Here is another topic

Link Removed due to 404 Error
Here they suggest to add utorretn as an exclusion in the web protection - http - browsers and mark it with a red cross...

and actually yes the problem is in the antivirus and the utorrent.

although here there are people with an antivirus different from nod32

I will keep updating if I find something else but the moment I don't run NOD32 but run NOD32+ windows vista 64 firewall and + windows vista 64 deffender everything works great, there is internet in the browsers.
The moment I start utorrent, browsers don't open anything anymore.

 

[kemical]

Much thanks to those that post in these solutions and information. This is starting to become a wealth of information concerning this particular problem.

Thanks again.

 

[dutc2006]

Thank you Christia I have had the same problem described here for weeks and have been searching for a solution, I happen to have both NOD32 and uTorrent and the solution Christia found worked for me so thank you for suggesting it. Everything seems to be working perfectly since i did the fix several hours ago.

 

[richardhsm]

Hi Christia + All Further to my post yesterday. I have reinstalled NOD32 but disabled the ' Web Access Protection ' . For the last 24 hours Firefox + IE 7 work fine so this seems to be the culprit in no browser access to internet. Incidcentally, I also run Spyware Doctor which had no effect on IE7 or Firefox operation. Thanks Richard

 

[cjbutter]

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 solution that worked....albeit a painful one...

 

[BasTyra]

Quick update.

I ended up reinstalling Avast without webshield. It's still working fine.

So I have Avast without webshield + comodo firewall and everything is a-ok.

 

[nperrins]

Glad to see you guys are getting somewhere.

Just to let you know I have been trouble free for a month now (remove Zone Alarm and replace with comodo). Not one crash. And to share these with you......

Link Removed due to 404 Error
Link Removed due to 404 Error

I have no axe to grind for Macs, but I think they say it all.

 

[Christia]

Yes, at least we narrow the problem - antivirus /webshield/ + torrent client gives this lack of traffic.
So in Nod in Web protection the torrent client you use has to be marked with red crossin other just deactivate web protection if you use torent client.

 

[IAmThatStrange]

Just thought I'd join in. Brand new HP Pavillion dv7t. Immediately started having problems with all browser's. The one thing I can't remember is if I had ZoneAlarm installed by the time it started. I also installed Avast, but it was probably after I started having problems.

- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (32-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T6400 (2.0GHz)
- 3GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
- 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
- 17.0" diagonal WXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1440 x 900)

I've installed quite a bit
ZoneAlarm (have since removed completely but just before posting this)
Avast
Adobe Creative Suite 3
Windows Office (2000 - spend my money on Adobe)
A few games (installed way after issues started)
Nero 9
I do not have torrent!

Got the computer last Tuesday by Thursday I was ready to scream, I'm a web developer. Talk about not needing this issue!!!!!

I've just completely uninstalled ZA. It's late and I have to get up early so cannot wait for the next "I'm not going to work any more" window. Will let all know tommorrow if uninstalling ZA does it or if I have to uninstall Avast too. Downloaded Comodo just in case.

The last thing I really want to do is reformat and install XP Pro. But I will if it means I can work without having to reboot every hour or so.

Thanks for all the information. I would have already reformatted and installed XP Pro if not for this forum.

Lia

 

[joko]

UPDATE: I posted #136 from a couple weeks ago - since uninstalling ZA, have had NO browser problems whatsoever. Still running on Window FW.

 

[IAmThatStrange]

Well apparently the uninstall of ZA did it for me. 2 1/2 hours and counting, this is the longest it's gone without the browsers giving up.

Thanks all!

Lia

 

[rburke]

I don't think it's necessarily a torrent problem. When I had that problem, I hadn't run any torrents in weeks. I think it's webshield regardless of what programs are running. The last time it happened, I purposedly only ran a browser. With only the regular Vista 32-bit background programs and one browser, it still did it. I rebooted and it did it with another browser. That's why I don't think it's a torrent problem.

 

[IAmThatStrange]

It's been a while now and the problem has not re-appeared.
One thing that I noticed was this:

Before uninstalling Zone Alarm, I stopped it and pulled it from startup so it was not running but was still on the machine. However when I went uninstall it, it said it had to stop the True Vector service to uninstall. I'd not know that this was still running when I pulled ZA from startup. Now I'm wondering if it was the True Vector Service that cased the problem as the problem persisted even when I didn't have ZA in start up. It wasn't untill I uninstalled all of ZA from my box that the issue disappeared.

It looks from a quick google that the TrueVector service has caused problems elsewhere too.

Thanks all.

 

[sarrob]

Un-installing ZA also worked for me. However this does not solve the problem. ZA worked fine until an automatic windows update was downloaded and installed. It appears from the letters to this forum, and other forums, that the problem can be traced to a particular windows update. It is time that Microsoft tried to sort this problem out - it has caused a lot of frustration!!!

 

[agapanthus]

I spent some time earlier in the week investigating an unrelated problem on my Vista Enterprise (desktop) box. In the process I updated Spybot and incautiously allowed the resident Teatimer function to install as well (something I've always previously declined to do). Result: browsers (IE7 and Firefox) stopped working every 30-60 minutes - an entirely new problem.

After reading the first half dozen or so pages in this thread I stopped Teatimer and have used Msconfig to prevent it from restarting. Spybot's still installed - as are AVG Free 8.5 and Zone Alarm. The browsers have stayed working. This does seem to be something to do with resident processes, but some machines keep going and some don't.

 

[agapanthus]

After disabling the Spybot Teatimer, the browser stopping problem got much less frequent but didn't completely go away. Then my husband's computer started displaying the same symptoms: all of a sudden, everything worked except web browsing. He's never installed Spybot at all, so it wasn't that.

Both machines are desktops and have static IP addresses. On comparing notes, we realised that we'd both recently upgraded AVG Free to 8.5. We disabled the AVG resident shield but the problem recurred. I then disabled the AVG Link Scanner and the browser sprang back into life - hooray, no reboot. Hope that helps someone.

We both run Zone Alarm, but that doesn't appear to be causing us any problems.

Many thanks to everyone on this thread for pointing me in the right direction. I suspect that there are a number of possible causes of this problem but resident processes should be the primary suspects.

 

[richardbill53]

In my HP system using vista when my IEbrowser web browser hangs up, after I kill it (my application tab under window manager show no processes) I still see two iexplorer.exe processes in my process tab, that I can not kill. any thoughts?

 

[kemical]

Well iexplorer.exe can be a trojan so it might be worth you running a virus scan..

 

[dw127]

At home I have 4 computers running; two have XP as operating system, two Vista. The "Browser stops problem" only occurs on the two Vista laptops, not on the XP laptop and XP desktop. Problems have started since an automatic Vista update about a week ago. What all four computers have in common is the network adapter, all run Avast AV and have Zone Alarm as Firewall. Problems occur with all browsers, Firefox, IE7 and Chrome.
On one of the VISTA laptops (an Asus F3S, CPU Duo T7500, 3GB memory, Vista Premium) I completely uninstalled ZA and reinstalled it, at first the problem seemed to have disappeared, but ... unfortunately, it hasn't. Firefox hanged again, and like one of the previous posts, I had three firefox processes running and could kill only two (and could not restart Firefox). FTP and other internet services remain available, occasionally I can still start and use Chrome, but most of the times I cannot.

Just thought I'd share this with you all, as there is quite some overlap in problems, and I really would like to have a normal internet connection again!