posted on March 26, 2001 10:02:01 PM
I have had no problems "browsing" until about 30 minutes ago. I went to eBay to do a little shopping and I noticed that there were empty "boxes" where letters should be. I noticed it in the Titles to start, but a few of the auctions had so many "missing" letters just blank boxes that I could not read the ads. I thought it was maybe just a glitch on eBay. I went to Yahoo and the same thing! So now I am pretty sure there is a problem with my browser. I use IE 5.5.
Does anyone know what could be causing this and how I can fix it??? You'll need to explain it to me like I was a slow 2 year old. When you get past point & click, I'm lost!!! Thanks for any help you can give me. Sulyn
posted on March 27, 2001 05:37:06 AM
As always, 80% of such PC problems are fixed by shutting down the system, rebooting, and running a scandisk. By now if either the net in general or your ISP was having problems that may have somehow contributed to your problem, they should be fixed as well.
If that doesn't work, you most likely have a corrupted copy of your browser, and should try the repair option mentioned above, and/or upgrade to the latest copy of IE/netscape via downloading.
Other possibilities include bad video driver and/or failing hardware, but then you would notice strange behavior in other programs (do you?).
The only other suggestion:
"When in trouble, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!"
It doesn't really fix your PC to do this, of course, but sometimes it makes you feel better.
PS - I've had a similar problem when windows started running out of resources, such that it started dumping fonts or something to conserve memory (and you end up with "boxes" ). Or else the fonts got corrupted. In either case, the shutdown/reboot generic fix-all would cure this problem.
[ edited by captainkirk on Mar 27, 2001 05:43 AM ]
posted on March 27, 2001 07:57:24 AM
Thanks Blanche and Captainkirk! I followed the link from siddielou and discovered I apparantly didn't have IE 5.5! I was so sure I had already upgraded, but it didn't appear on the list. I went over and downloaded it and after 1.5 hrs (I have a slow connection), and a reboot I was back up and running. So, I'm not sure if it was downloading the 5.5 OR the reboot that fixed the problem, but everything is working today! I checked out siddielou's "how to" this AM and IE 5.5 is now showing in my list and sure enough there is a pop-up that says "repair" so now I know what to do if it starts acting quirky again!
posted on March 27, 2001 12:47:10 PM
Hello sulyn1950. I'm glad you have things up and running again. If you ever decide you want to go back to an earlier version of IE5 I just wanted to let you know that IE5.1 has a repair tool as well. However, I think you have to choose the download that says "Microsoft Internet 5 and internet tools". If you have IE5 and don't have the TOOLS you can download them separately and they will automatically be added to IE5.
