Another weird one...

[charlesr]

Was using IE8 and the following started happening.

I'd click on a link and it would just sit there with the spinning thing in the tab as if I had no connection. However if I clicked it again, it would often go straight to target. Alternatively if I clicked it to open in new tab it would go straight there, but the request in the original tab would still sit there and get there 30 seconds later perhaps.

I downgraded to IE7 in case it was that. Same thing. This never happened before. I don't seem to have the same problem in Opera.

Any ideas?

[charlesr]

Any clues? This is still happening.

[Strolls]

There's a button under Internet Options > Advanced to reset Internet Explorer completely to all defaults. Clears out Temporary Internet Files and (supposedly) all extensions. Worth a bash - it completely fixed problems for a customer of mine yesterday (but not for another customer today).

[Matt]

I'd try turning off the firewall for a minute and see if that cures it. Er.... strange one....

Could be DNS I suppose.

[charlesr]

Thanks. Found I'm now also having the problem in opera. Could reach google, but not youtube for a minute. Then it recovered. I'll try changing my DNS provider. Firewall is in the router.

[3x3cut10n3r]

Not sure if you're still having this problem but it sounds similar to a problem I've had in the past.

When I opened IE it would take ages to go to my homepage and even when I opened tabs it would freeze, as in the tab was blank but I could click on it, then finally load.

Found out what the problem was and oddly enough it seems it was Java spooning around in the background for some reason, uninstalled Java and it solved the problem.

Might be worth a go if you still got problems, remove Java and see if it still happens.

[charlesr]

lol. I reinstalled windows. This is totally fresh. Same damn thing. Tried changing DNS to opendns. Same.... Has my ISP gone down the toilet? I'm paying good money for uber reliable nildram business package. I think they just got bought out by someone else though ffs. Bet they switched to a different network of rubbishness.

[charlesr]

Oh bloody hell, it's Tiscali. Anyone reckon it's their fault? Or am I being paranoid.

[charlesr]

Oh cock, looks like Tiscali are going tits up.

[Friction]

I get a problem like this too - with BT. Often I have to open explorer 4 or 5 times to get a working window, and if I open things in new tabs or windows it often sites there spinning away and needs a few goes.

This too started happing once I made the change to IE8, and a reformat didn't fix things either.

On an unrelated note I think we are having probs at home with your router/switch set up, because often on booting my machine (or another in the house) won't be able to go online because of 'limited or no connectivity' and needs a router restart to fix. Most curious!

[charlesr]

Jesus. Am I part of Carphone Warehouse now?

[charlesr]

OMG. I am.

[charlesr]

I think this is router related....
Switched to my belkin and it's fixed (apart from it not working with wireless properly which is why I stopped using it).
I'll try reflashing the firmware on my 3com, but since it has the same firmware as my old 3com, I doubt it will help.

[charlesr]

Nope totally confused. Switched back to my 3com without any changes and it's now super speedy. Sigh.

[randombs]

I have Tiscali too and sometimes I find it does the same thing (clicking the first time doesn't do anything, yet clicking again works fine). It will also happen with Youtube videos where they won't start unless I refresh the page.

I wonder if it's to do with packet loss or something like that. I'm on wireless so I'm not sure if that's got anything to do with it. It comes and goes but hasn't been frequent enough for me to ring them up and ask. Also, I'm not sure if just rebooting the router is what solves it (it hasn't happened in a while so I can't really remember).

When it happens, try running

ping -n 100 www.google.co.uk

and see if all 100 pings are successful. I suppose you could try even higher numbers, but I find when it starts happening I see packet loss within 10 or so pings.

Also I'm not sure if it's good internet practice to just excessively ping websites willy-nilly like that (maybe they'll confuse you for a hacker)