Thinkpads Forum

My folks called me up with a problem last night, that the internet didn't work.

They use Firefox per my instruction, and it didn't want to work. IE didn't work either- I played with the router settings, bypassed it, still nothing.

I decided to try IE again and out of nowhere it worked fine, and cmd pings went through as well. However, Firefox still says "Page cannot be displayed." Is there anything I should look for as the culprit? I removed and reinstalled Firefox and it still isn't working.

They asked me if IE would take them to a different internet.

Typically, if the physical connection is known good, and IE can't display a page, I look under Tools -> Internet Options -> Connection -> LAN settings. I disable everything in there. The "Automatic" setting is a sure fire way to ensure no connection as is turning "Proxy" on. Just unclick everything there (Assumes you have a known good physical connection, which I always do).

So now by analogy, is there a comparable setting in Firefox? I don't use Firefox for Windows. I set Firefox 1.5 for Linux for "Direct Connection to Internet" and uncheck Automatic in there as well. That seems to work.
... JDH

Thanks JD.

I did look at the settings in Firefox and it was set to automatic. I changed it to each of the available settings with no success (perhaps I could have shared that in my first post!)..

This is mind boggling.

Just a suggestion, did you check under Tools, Error Console - to see if anything sticks out there? What vers do they run? I'm up to vers 2.0.0.3 and I know everytime Firefox automatically downloads a newer vers into itself, my Zone Alarm firewall will not let it out because settings have changed. I just click to always let it out and all is fine. Firefox downloads the IE settings from your computer, I'm wondering since their IE didn't work for awhile, if something got screwed up there.

Good suggestion- I did notice in Add/Remove programs that there were two versions listed, however one removed itself from the list when I clicked on it. Comodo firewall has been known to do silly things...I'll pay my parents a visit tomorrow and try.

Thanks Purcy!

The above suggestions are good. Especially make sure there is no proxy settings in Firefox and make sure the firewall is allowing Firefox to access the internet.

I have a feeling it's a result of an auto-update that Comodo didn't like. Proxy settings are turned off and it's set to automatic/direct internet connection. I'm going to disable auto-updates for this program in the future, as my parents would be helpless without me. They wouldn't know to try IE if Firefox didn't work!