Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour

Subject: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 04:29 PM

Every so often, and for no apparent reason, Internet Explorer will shut down, taking all my passwords and log-ins with it. It comes straight back afterwards when I select it, but i have to re-insert all passwords, home pages etc.
The close down is accompanied by lots of whirring and activity in my PC tower. If I have Firefox running at the same time, it is totally unaffected.
It really pisses me off.

JM

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 05:27 PM

"...whirring and activity in my PC tower."
It is digesting those tasty passwords as snacks, and sending the info to M$... ☺


That sorta makes the point of why I don't open IE more than maybe once a year.....

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 05:36 PM

I have a chat room I run Bill, which doesn't like Firefox.
J

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:42 PM

*tsk*... It is a sad thing when any programs are designed to only deal with I.E.

Even Firefox is not as compliant with Web Standards as Opera is.

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:36 PM

Help

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:57 PM

I suspect memory issues. Does it happen when you have multiple browsers or other programs running? May be worth running a system clean up anbd some diagnostics to make sure you do not have too many resident programs or a duff stick of RAM. Try keeping the performance monitor of task manger running to see what happens as and when such an event occurs.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:04 PM

Could be, but why would it wipe my passwords and hame pages?

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:07 PM

This may seem odd....but when was the last time you cleaned out your e-mail trashcan? (over 1,000? dump and defrag and scan)

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:05 PM

I do that regularly, and de frag once a week

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:16 PM

I have been unhappy with Internet Explorer for a long time. It hangs up and sits whirring, trying to load a page and never succeeding. I think I finally found the reason--I've been using the free AVG antivirus, and recently had to resolve a Blue Screen of Death problem (new monitor incompletely installed). I tidied up, de-fragged, got the monitor drivers, and because the BSOD occurred again, I uninstalled the recent upgrade to the newest free AVG. I am now using one from work (MS Forefront). That seems to have cleared up a number of the IE problems and it is loading more reliably. I have to use it for access to the most robust version of the email program they use at work, and a couple of secure sites.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 10:41 AM

why would it wipe my passwords and hame pages?

Dunno, John. Maybe by writing was is held in cache back to disk? If there are issues with RAM and the cache becomes corrupt maybe it looses some of the details? Who knows the secrets of the Micros**t magic box? :-)

Can't do any harmn to run a cleanup and diagnostics check anyway. I use Iolo's 'System Mechanic' which has a 'try before you buy' option.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 11:04 AM

Might help to have the OS, IE, FF versions stated here.

Sounds like a stack overflow, cache overflow but don't discount soft errors in your RAM.

How you deal with them I have no idea.

YouTube have stated they won't support IE6 any more. It may be a website disregarding the users' browser. If the site won't support FF then I suspect they have a NIH attitude to their design.

Does it happen without FF loaded?
Does it happen when you are using FF on the one site that needs it?
Does it happen if you don't load FF then exit?

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 12:24 PM

I dunno why your IE is shutting down, but here's one thing I would do.

Tools
Internet Options
General tab
Find 'browsing history' section
Is the box for 'delete browsing history on exit' checked?

If it is, then that's why your passwords are disappearing.

Halloween was only one month ago. It could be that some imp got in your house and checked that box in the dead of night.

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 01:07 PM

No imps I'm afraid
I'm running IE 8 on Windows XP with SP2

Subject: RE: Tech: Internet Explorer odd behaviour
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 07:24 AM

In IE, at Tools|Internet Options In the Browsing History section you'll find a Delete Files button. This is the same button you find as "Disk Cleanup" elsewhere, and it actually works better at the elsewhere.

Accessed in either way, Disk Cleanup searches for files that can be removed, and gives you the option of turning on/off the deletion of categories of files to be cleaned up. If you have turned on deletion of passwords, favorites, shortcuts, etc they may remain turned on until you re-run the cleanup search and "deselect" the categories.

It's common to set cleanup each time IE closes, but the OS maintenance will do background cleanups occasionally without being commanded.

It is possible to delete only selected files within a category, but it's a lot of work. It is possible that if you've picked up one or more "bad files" in a category, your AV, Microsoft Malware Remover, or the background maintenance cleanup that runs occasionally even if you don't ask for it - may have turned on a category for deletion, so that the files suddenly start disappearing, and continue to be deleted with each cleanup until you set the selections back.

This doesn't of course explain why your IE hangs and has to be closed. I've seen that only when I've tried to open a page that "hangs" the download so that IE "times-out" and shuts down. This usually is because of a "malformed" page, often with linked in adverts that fail to load so the rest of the page can finish; but at least once, the hang was because my AV blocked opening the page and I didn't notice the warning until just as IE closed. (I slapped my mouse finger an appropriate number of times to assure paying better attention for at least the next three clicks.)

In most cases that I've seen, IE restarts itself if it's forced to shut down; but that may not happen in all cases. I've seen it fail to restart if I attempted to jump to a new page while the one I was on was still "hung."

John