South Africa Info Forums

I'm at my wits end with this and am not sure how to progress any further. In desperation I've posted here hoping that somebody has an answer. I would appreciate any help with this.

Two days ago, I suddenly couldn't access my Hotmail account Inbox using webmail.

- I sign in entering user id and password, for a long time I sit with a white page, and then I get a "Cannot Find Server" page that comes up with "The page cannot be displayed" DNS Error.
- I run MSN Messenger as well. I can log into this.
- I can access my hotmail account and all folders through Outlook Express to receive and send mail
- I have this problem on three different computers
- I can access two other hotmail accounts on the web, but not this one. Incidentally, this hotmail account was the only one out of the three I have that was upgraded to 250MB. The other two still only have 2MB storage.
- I currently use IE Browser 6, with Cipher 128 bit, and SP2. Although, I have tried to open the hotmail account with Netscape and Mozilla.
- OS is Windows XP Professional
- I have run all the necessary spyware (S&D, Spyware Blaster, Ad-aware) and am clear.
- I have Norton Anti-virus, updated and scanned
- I have a Firewall
- I am connected through a broadband connection
- The most recent change that I have made to my computer is setting up a scanner and installing the software (however, the hotmail account worked fine with this change).
- I don't really want to go the route of having to uninstall and reinstall the current OS I have. Please don't offer suggestions that I need to switch to another operating system (Linux and the like). This is not a viable option at the moment.

I have a current log from HijackThis which I can post if it'll help any.

I presume that you have tried several times to log in and you have contacted hotmail ?

The page may be down and they don't know it...

Doesn't sound to me as if there is anything wrong with your pc....

Natalie the fact that you get both a server error and a DNS error suggests to me that the mail server that your account is on has been taken out of service. Hence why the other accounts are all fine. Contact Hotmail and find out from them whetehr they are doing any maintenance!

Thanks for your help Jangar and Picanin

There is no maintenance being done on anything with Hotmail.

I have contacted Hotmail, and have had no response or fixed account.

Nataliiie....

I have lost my Pegasus mailbox like this. I minimised it, went out, came back and it is missing. Just missing!!!! Lost all my emails, addressbook and files. Someone promised to look at my computer again, but 3 other guys looked at it too and couldn't find anything! Very strange!

I am starting all over again.

Oooooooooh just sqaw you are using the evil service pack 2. We ahve a machine that was foolishly upgraded to SP2 and it has suddenly - this weekend - started doing all sorts of odd things. On further investigation I have discovered that this was due to the service pack corrupting........................... Might be an idea to investigate the link. MS are all too well known for handing buggy software to the punters.......................

Evil Windows! Evil Microsoft!

However, I have tried opening the account on a computer with just Windows 98, and have still had no success.

Quote:Originally posted by nataliiie
Evil Windows! Evil Microsoft!

However, I have tried opening the account on a computer with just Windows 98, and have still had no success.

That rules that one out then! Just one more question, all three of these machines are they connected to different ISP's? Who is your ISP?

Home with ntl, and not sure about the other two at work.

Quote:Originally posted by nataliiie
Home with ntl, and not sure about the other two at work.

OK if you are with NTL I have an idea what the problem is. We use transparent web caches which sometimes go for a loop. They will then keep offering stale content to browsers even though a page may have been updated. We also cache DNS requests so that the same thing can happen. So lets say that jsut once your mail server was offline, the web caches will have kept a copy of that offline page and everytime you try to access your hotmail account it will keep popping the error page back up. Ditto if they have cached DNS and your account is on a server that was faulty. The DNS cache will not do a lookup from hotmails DNS when you request that web page be fetched, instead it look at its own cache and says "ooh that page doesnt exist - send an error message."

If you want me to take a look from here - PM me the details of the account and I will see if I can get into it for you from here - especially if it has anything tasty like credit card details, naked pics etc etc (joking!)