Websites not displaying correctly

[jeffpine]

I wonder if anyone else has had this problem?

Since the Summer holidays, we have been having problems in a couple of Schools with a number of commonly used websites, where content is not displaying correctly.

These include parts of PurpleMash, Mathletics and even the BBC.

It's quite random in that certain web pages will open OK on some machines some times, but not an identical machine nearby (You just get a blank page or window), or maybe not even on the same machine if you close down and re-open the browser.

We have tried updating all the usual suspects, Flash, Java etc., etc., and tried other Browsers (IE 8,9,10,11, Chrome), but nothing seems to work (And yes, we have allowed everything we can think of through our web filter!)

We have also tried contacting the support for some of the sites, but apart from the suggestion that it was "probably your firewall blocking something", no help.

I have a suspicion that it might be something to do with sites hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform, but can't be sure.

Any suggestions welcomed!

[garethEds]

Totally random - but does your internet connection run through a Smoothwall box for web filtering?

 

Gareth

[jeffpine]

Hi Gareth,

Unfortunately not.

One of the Schools affected uses a Palo Alto Firewall and Sophos Web Filtering Appliance, whereas two others connect through TrustNet (London Grid for Learning) where filtering and firewalling is handled centrally.

We have been through the PaloAlto and Sophos logs, looking for clues as to what could be blocked, but again drawn a blank.

[linkazoid]

Have you tried applying the root certificate updates from http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/rootsupd.exe

 

We've noticed that our clients aren't downloading this when they are meant to do it automatically on Win7. Need to find a way to deploy this manually as we don't use SCCM but try it on one of the problematic PC's.

[LeMarchand]

Had a similar problem a while ago: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/educational-software/153009-mathletics-not-displaying-correctly.html and apparently it's just reared its ugly head again. Just pushed through Flash 19.0.0.207 but not overly hopeful.

[LeMarchand]

Update.

 

Kids using machines so will have to wait to personally confirm this, but apparently it's certain Mathletics pages (to do with their avatar) that are being particularly difficult today.

[jeffpine]

Update,

 

Spent a day working on this with one of my technicians and eventually may be making progress.

 

We ruled out Filtering and Firewall issues by examining the logs, which turned the problem back as something to do with the Web Browser itself. A few anomalies showed up, which gave some clues - if we reset the IE settings from the Internet Options panel, then the Browser displayed everything correctly for a minute or two, before reverting back to blank pages.

This suggested that it might be something updating in the background or possible a policy re-applying, so We started looking at Group policies.

Eventually found a setting under Administrative Templates for Internet Explorer settings that would prevents the browser from running out of date plug-ins. It was unconfigured by default, but is one of those policies where you have to enable the policy before you can disable the setting.

After a gpupdate, everything started displaying correctly again and continued to do so for the rest of the day.

I remain to be convinced, but if that has solved the problem, I will update with more details.

 

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

[LeMarchand]

@jeffpine - is this still working? After being told that Mathletics was likely being phased out at this school I've just been told that it is now being used again, and still suffers from the same problem.

[jeffpine]

Seems to be still working, though some of the Schools where we had the problem have also moved away from Mathletics.