Problem accessing forums

[Colin Moretti]

I have a laptop (Win 98) with a wireless connection to my desktop computer (Win XP) giving me internet access. Using my desktop m/c I can access the BG forums pages with no difficulty, as this message demonstrates. When using the laptop I can access the BG home page and all the resources pages except the forums home page. When I click the "Forums" link the "Opening page ..." message appears and that's all, it just sits there. As far as I can see all the security settings on the 2 machines are the same and I have BG set as a trusted site.

Can anyone advise me how I might overcome the problem?

Many thanks

Colin

[Rod Neep]

That is really weird! It shouldn't happen. But of course, you know better.

As a matter of interest, try clicking on the links below, and tell me what happens with each one:

1. http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/index.php?

2. http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/

Cheers
Rod

[Colin Moretti]

That is really weird! It shouldn't happen. But of course, you know better.

As a matter of interest, try clicking on the links below, and tell me what happens with each one:

1. http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/index.php?

2. http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/

Cheers
Rod

Hello Rod

On the desktop m/c clicking on both links takes me to the main forum page. Of course I can't try them from the laptop by clicking but typing the URLs in directly has no effect, the laptop just sits waiting for the page to download for both of them.

Colin

[Duncan Cameron]

I have a laptop (Win 98) with a wireless connection to my desktop computer (Win XP) giving me internet access. Using my desktop m/c I can access the BG forums pages with no difficulty, as this message demonstrates. When using the laptop I can access the BG home page and all the resources pages except the forums home page. When I click the "Forums" link the "Opening page ..." message appears and that's all, it just sits there. As far as I can see all the security settings on the 2 machines are the same and I have BG set as a trusted site.

Can anyone advise me how I might overcome the problem?

Many thanks

Colin

Hi Colin

Using a tracing proxy I can see that one difference between the forum pages and the other pages from BG is that the forum pages are returned using gzip compression.
On your laptop try loading another page which uses gzip compression, to see whether that is the problem.

[Colin Moretti]

Hi Colin

Using a tracing proxy I can see that one difference between the forum pages and the other pages from BG is that the forum pages are returned using gzip compression.
On your laptop try loading another page which uses gzip compression, to see whether that is the problem.

Hello Duncan
As you predicted, ebay.com suffers in the same way; I've also found several other sites with the same problem including:
www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content
www.familysearch.org/Eng/default.asp

Do you know how to overcome it?

Many thanks

Colin

[Duncan Cameron]

I would guess that the problem is either to do with the browser on your laptop or related to the wireless connection to your desktop.

As I know almost nothing about wireless connections, I suggest trying a different browser. There have been some reports about IE not handling gzip correctly, so try Firefox.

Firefox works fine on both W98 and on XP.

[Mark]

What happens if you connect the laptop directly ... via modem or broadband ... to Internet?

What version of Internet Explorer is on the laptop? Is it running Win98 or Win98se?

Is the desktop XP machine running a firewall, does this filter content and/or does the Internet Connection sharing filter content that it attempts to Share out to its shared network (via wireless)?

Mark

[Peter Goodey]

Is Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB312496 of any relevance?

[Colin Moretti]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I'll be following them up over the next day or two and will report back.

Colin

[Colin Moretti]

I've not progressed with this problem as quickly as I initially projected.

I eventually found that about half the sites I wanted to visit suffered in the same way. I tried Firefox - exactly the same. I checked out Knowledge Base article KB312496; that wasn't relevant. I managed to borrow another laptop with Win XP and make a wireless connection; that suffered in just the same way, so nothing to do with Win 98 or my laptop. I've connected the borrowed laptop via my broadband modem to my usual ISP and everything works as it should, all sites download as normal.

The only remaining idea is that it is something to do with the wireless link and/or the security settings but I can't for the life of me see where the block is occuring. I suppose that I could try a wire connection but I don't have the necessary cable and can't be bothered to buy one (see below).

I shall now admit defeat (unless anyone else has any ideas); instead I shall run a long wire from my telephone point to the modem. It's true, of course, that the simplest things are often the best. Fortunately I only need to do this on a temporary basis while I give some talks to my U3A genealogy group, but very frustrating none-the-less.

Colin