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Internet Explorer 8 is Released – Diagnose Connection Problems!!

Please Note I posted a follow up article to this one in June. Please read on how I resolved the issue. 

Today Microsoft released the Release version of Internet Explorer 8 (I would provide the link here but I am waiting for it to load in my browser.. ), which is great there are some cool new features surrounding microformat support, etc. I started used the Release Candidate of version 8 three months ago. Since ‘upgrading’ I get the following friendly screen greeting me about 10% of the time. At least another 5% I get only partial page loads. I have to say I am very frustrated because for the first time I have to honestly say FireFox is performing better for me than IE. I am also finding many pages take forever to load, then work just fine, even with a primed cached.

For the record I have yet to get a diagnosis from clicking the button. Typically if I hit refresh the page loads. I hope this issue gets resolved soon, but today after downloading and installing IE 8, no luck….

Posted: Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:36 PM

by Chris Love
Filed under:

Comments

Ed said:

It is just amazing how much work goes into a program like internet explorer and it still doesn't work on release date. I found this page while trying to ascertain if ie was the problem. I am so tired of microsoft.
# March 22, 2009 3:16 AM

Chris Love said:

While I still am not sure what is causing this issue I have a gut feeling right now. I think sites that inject ads on their pages using JavaScript, as opposed to doing it on the server as the page is created, have some scripts that simply fail to work. This leads me to believe that IE 8 may conk out like this if a JS file fails to work. This sort of makes sense since browsers are supposed to block until a script has fully been processed. I am leaning this way because I started blocking some ad generating sites at my router this week and the problem is slowing improving. The sites I blocked ads for no longer are having issues. Others still do and if I continue seeing a correlation I will report back.

# March 24, 2009 9:50 AM

Christian Rothe said:

I am experiencing the very same problem: My IE8 refuses to display existing webpages and suggests to diagnose connection problems. If I hit F5 everything is fine. It is very frustrating.
# March 25, 2009 9:41 AM

Jason said:

I am having the same problem after installing IE8. Both my IE and FireFox didn’t work for http. And https worked fine. After I uninstalled IE8, now any web pages cannot be displayed. Did anyone find a solution? I have Win XP with sp 3. Thanks.
# March 26, 2009 12:10 PM

Jason said:

Solved: Reset Winsock catalog and solved the problem by running 'netsh winsock reset catalog' on command line. Note: it should be used with care because any previously-installed LSPs will need to be re-installed. Now I have IE7 and it works without any problem. I will stay with IE7 for a while.
# March 26, 2009 8:59 PM

Jeff said:

I just downloaded Internet Explorer 8, when I go to connect it just sits there with the little icon on the tab spinning and that is all it does no matter if I use a favorite or type in the url. My FireFox is working fine.
# March 29, 2009 1:15 AM

Chris Love said:

I started blocking a few more sources of ads and the issues seems to have stopped. I had already blocked domains like doubleclick.com, etc in my NetGear router a while back. I started looking at the source code on a few sites and blocking their ad services too. So I think ultimately what was going on was the ad servers were simply overloaded, but IE was trying to get their content because it was an AJAX requested add. So the entire page was timing out. I hope that makes sense.
# April 21, 2009 3:02 PM

Mark said:

I never had connectivity problems with my laptop pre IE8 but since I have installed it my network connection seems to somehow fail whenever my computer sits idle for a while. If I disable my wireless and re-enable it, connectivity is restored. I have no idea why an IE8 install would affect my network stack but there you have it.
# May 12, 2009 8:45 PM

Chris Love's Official ASP.NET Blog said:

Back in March I posted a quick announcement about the release of Internet Explorer 8 and a common problem

# June 3, 2009 8:03 AM

Gayle Carter said:

I have determined it just takes longer to fully install IE8 (it ain't over till it's over.) "Done" and "finish" take on new meanings with Microsoft...I thought I was "done" with them too, but I keep on giving them more rope to hang themselves! They've got immeasurably long necks.
# June 29, 2009 8:36 PM

eric said:

IE has always been a poor performer IMHO. IE7 failed to load any pages even though the IE/MS network diag came back 100% ok...and now after installing IE8 to skip the IE7 idiocism, IE8 opens & shuts instantaneously. erm...yeck. Hence why I have been an FF man since 03' ;)
# August 13, 2009 9:26 AM

TerjeP said:

I've installed IE8 on my work PC and on my home PC. In both cases I get websites failing to load on a regular basis with the "Diagnose Connection Problems" error message. Very, very annoying.
# August 17, 2009 12:06 PM

JohnM said:

I have been experiencing the same problems as Mark and TerjeP. Keep getting the 404 Code Unable to Display Webpage. I also reboot my DSL modem to get the webpage if it reoccurs. Sometimes clicking on the connect button that pops up enables the connection. Never had this problem with the other IE versions. Microsoft doesn't seem to have addressed this yet.
# August 24, 2009 9:21 AM

StanL said:

I am getting the same behavior with my Google Desktop, which does not have ads, so I don't think its that. It may be an overly fast timeout.
# August 24, 2009 3:12 PM

gsoClarke said:

It might be too early to celebrate, but Winsock XP Fix, freeware, seems to have solved my browser problem, which, by the way, showed up with IE7, IE8, Chrome, and Firefox! If you're running the "new & improved" WinOS, look for something to fix/reset your winsock.
# September 1, 2009 7:57 AM
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