Very, very strange problem with IE

Hello folks

I’m experiencing a very odd problem.

We have a site powered by Oracle/IAS, with a logging screen, followed the
site itself.

Since about January/February, many people trying to access the site get a
“404-page not found� error right after the login screen. They place the
user/password, click “ok� then the error pops up. This only happens to some
people. In fact, I have reports that 2 people in the same PC can experience
the following:
-person A logs into PC, turns on IE, logs into site, enters site normally;
-person B logs into PC, turns on IE, logs into site, gets 404.

The reason I’m posting this here, in a Microsoft group is this: this problem
only happens with Internet Explorer. If the user tries with Firefox or Chrome
in the same PC that failed with IE, no problems occur and he/she enters the
site normally.

This happens with both Windows XP and Vista. My best guess is that some
update of Windows or IE (or one that affects both) is causing this. All users
with the problem reported it after having run Windows update. Both the fact
that there have been dozens of updates since then AND the fact that the
problem doesn’t happen to all IR users is complicating the resolution of the
problem. During this time I’ve installed (from scratch) over 20 windows xp+IE
8 PCs, all with no problem...

Has anyone heard of similar problems, or have any idea what I might test?

"Joao Luis Rita" <JoaoLuisRita@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:20BE947D-D3F9-41D4-A2FD-36B368F2E3B8@microsoft.com...
> Hello folks
>
> I'm experiencing a very odd problem.
>
> We have a site powered by Oracle/IAS, with a logging screen, followed the
> site itself.
>
> Since about January/February, many people trying to access the site get a
> "404-page not found" error right after the login screen. They place the
> user/password, click "ok" then the error pops up. This only happens to some
> people. In fact, I have reports that 2 people in the same PC can experience
> the following:
> -person A logs into PC, turns on IE, logs into site, enters site normally;
> -person B logs into PC, turns on IE, logs into site, gets 404.
>

> The reason I'm posting this here, in a Microsoft group is this: this problem
> only happens with Internet Explorer. If the user tries with Firefox or Chrome
> in the same PC that failed with IE, no problems occur and he/she enters the
> site normally.


Possibly irrelevant but it would give you a point of comparison and testing.
The only difference that would imply is that the server does different things
with different User-Agent strings.

To compare what is happening you could trace both cases using an HTTP
tracer such as Fiddler2. To make your comparison more relevant you
could try either make Firefox send the User-Agent that IE8 sends or vice
versa. The latter may be easier to do using the UA Picker tool.

Check here to start:

http://www.fiddlertool.com/ua.aspx


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---


>
> This happens with both Windows XP and Vista. My best guess is that some
> update of Windows or IE (or one that affects both) is causing this. All users
> with the problem reported it after having run Windows update. Both the fact
> that there have been dozens of updates since then AND the fact that the
> problem doesn't happen to all IR users is complicating the resolution of the
> problem. During this time I've installed (from scratch) over 20 windows xp+IE
> 8 PCs, all with no problem...
>
> Has anyone heard of similar problems, or have any idea what I might test?
>

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:

> To compare what is happening you could trace both cases using an HTTP
> tracer such as Fiddler2. To make your comparison more relevant you
> could try either make Firefox send the User-Agent that IE8 sends or vice
> versa. The latter may be easier to do using the UA Picker tool.
>
> Check here to start:
>
> http://www.fiddlertool.com/ua.aspx
>
>
> Good luck
>
> Robert Aldwinckle

I'll try to check it, but I don' think it's related to a version problem. If
it was, it would stop working for anyone that tried to use IE...