Access to website & back office fixed by blocking Cookies

[Vince Salese]

Can/has anyone experienced anything like this:
We are a SS 7.05 site. Hosted by Lexicon. We closed for business on Friday
evening with no apparent problems. On Saturday, I attempted to log in to the
SS back office. I was able get only as far as the menu screen, but could not
get to Products, Pages Orders etc., when I clicked on the buttons. The
progress bar on IE just hung until the session timed out. I then went to IE
and tested our website. I could get the home page - www.ahoycaptain.com, but
could not get to any pages/links beyond the home page. So I began my
analysis. My email worked fine, FTP worked fine, other sites worked fine we
continue to receive orders, etc.. I called several friends to see if they
could get in, and they had no problems. So it was isolated to our office
machines.

First I tested all the other machines (5) in the office. Three are running
Windows 2000, two are XP professional. The result was all but one machine
exhibited the same problems. The single machine that had no problem
accessing everything is the only machine that does not have Outlook
installed (it's basically our data server for the office network)

So I thought, Virus. Ran virus checks on all machines and found nothing.

I opened IE and deleted all temporary files. No change.
I then deleted all cookies. No change.
I then changed the Privacy setting in IE to Block All Cookies - everything
suddenly started working again.
I re-set the Privacy setting to High and the problems returned.
Re-set it to Block All Cookies and the problem goes away.

So bottom line is, I have to set the Privacy setting to Block All Cookies,
which was not the setting I originally had before this problem arose, to
access our website.

Question, how/what could have changed without our knowing it and why/where
are we suddenly writing cookies to visitors machines?

Any insight would be very welcome.

[loren_d_c]

Since the ShopSite backoffice does not set any cookies, I doubt that has
anything specifically to do with it. You may have just had some
corruption in your internal browser registry, and resetting some certain
settings just magically fixed your browser. Browsers aren't perfect,
especially IE.

-Loren



Vince Salese wrote:

Can/has anyone experienced anything like this:
We are a SS 7.05 site. Hosted by Lexicon. We closed for business on Friday
evening with no apparent problems. On Saturday, I attempted to log in to the
SS back office. I was able get only as far as the menu screen, but could not
get to Products, Pages Orders etc., when I clicked on the buttons. The
progress bar on IE just hung until the session timed out. I then went to IE
and tested our website. I could get the home page - www.ahoycaptain.com, but
could not get to any pages/links beyond the home page. So I began my
analysis. My email worked fine, FTP worked fine, other sites worked fine we
continue to receive orders, etc.. I called several friends to see if they
could get in, and they had no problems. So it was isolated to our office
machines.

First I tested all the other machines (5) in the office. Three are running
Windows 2000, two are XP professional. The result was all but one machine
exhibited the same problems. The single machine that had no problem
accessing everything is the only machine that does not have Outlook
installed (it's basically our data server for the office network)

So I thought, Virus. Ran virus checks on all machines and found nothing.

I opened IE and deleted all temporary files. No change.
I then deleted all cookies. No change.
I then changed the Privacy setting in IE to Block All Cookies - everything
suddenly started working again.
I re-set the Privacy setting to High and the problems returned.
Re-set it to Block All Cookies and the problem goes away.

So bottom line is, I have to set the Privacy setting to Block All Cookies,
which was not the setting I originally had before this problem arose, to
access our website.

Question, how/what could have changed without our knowing it and why/where
are we suddenly writing cookies to visitors machines?

Any insight would be very welcome.

[Vince Salese]

Just wanted to post the response I received from Lexicon. It appears to be a
Comcast issue. So if anyone else is using Comcast (especially in the NJ
area) and are or are not experiencing the same problems, I'd like to hear
from them.

Please email me at vince@ahoycaptain.com

Here's the one of the responses from Lexicon.

Hello:

This is a Comcast issue. If you use Comcast cable, read our news post at:

http://support.lexiconn.com/news/viewtopic.php?t=87

Comcast is having some severe issues with webpages, as evidenced in this
post: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark, ... ~mode=flat

Rob M.

"Loren" <loren_d_c@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cb5m44$cvl$1@support.shopsite.com...

Since the ShopSite backoffice does not set any cookies, I doubt that has
anything specifically to do with it. You may have just had some
corruption in your internal browser registry, and resetting some certain
settings just magically fixed your browser. Browsers aren't perfect,
especially IE.

-Loren



Vince Salese wrote:
Can/has anyone experienced anything like this:
We are a SS 7.05 site. Hosted by Lexicon. We closed for business on
Friday
evening with no apparent problems. On Saturday, I attempted to log in to
the
SS back office. I was able get only as far as the menu screen, but could
not
get to Products, Pages Orders etc., when I clicked on the buttons. The
progress bar on IE just hung until the session timed out. I then went to
IE
and tested our website. I could get the home page - www.ahoycaptain.com,
but
could not get to any pages/links beyond the home page. So I began my
analysis. My email worked fine, FTP worked fine, other sites worked fine
we
continue to receive orders, etc.. I called several friends to see if
they
could get in, and they had no problems. So it was isolated to our office
machines.

First I tested all the other machines (5) in the office. Three are
running
Windows 2000, two are XP professional. The result was all but one
machine
exhibited the same problems. The single machine that had no problem
accessing everything is the only machine that does not have Outlook
installed (it's basically our data server for the office network)

So I thought, Virus. Ran virus checks on all machines and found nothing.

I opened IE and deleted all temporary files. No change.
I then deleted all cookies. No change.
I then changed the Privacy setting in IE to Block All Cookies -
everything
suddenly started working again.
I re-set the Privacy setting to High and the problems returned.
Re-set it to Block All Cookies and the problem goes away.

So bottom line is, I have to set the Privacy setting to Block All
Cookies,
which was not the setting I originally had before this problem arose, to
access our website.

Question, how/what could have changed without our knowing it and
why/where
are we suddenly writing cookies to visitors machines?

Any insight would be very welcome.