IE7 Randomly doesnt load web sites

[techie08]

HI

 

Im getting an isssue on serveral computers in one room that sometimes will not load websites or partially load websites when IE7 is run.

 

It will eventually work when the user is logged off or IE7 is closed and re-opened.

 

The only thing that i think it could be is the Policy Central client software that is loaded on 22 of the machines. (we previously had securus, uninstalled the client and installed the PCE client)

 

The weird thing is that its very intermittant, sometime we will have the problem, sometimes not.

 

Has anyone else had this problem with PCE? or seen it in another instance

 

Many Thanks

[Michael]

Yes we seem to have that exact issue where I am today and I also have exhausted all other possibilities. It also appears to be creating real problems with e-portal with page time outs, or pages constantly attempting to load.

[techie08]

DO you use Policy Central as well?

[Michael]

Yes, version 3.0.0.7

[techie08]

Have you spoke to Forensic about this? if so, what have they said? have you tried taking the client off to see if that sorts the problem?

[bmdixon]

We're having the exact same problems. We've spoken to Forensic but it's very hard to demonstrate an intermittent problem like this.

It is definitely a issue with PCE and we have resorted to removing the software from staff machines as it was causing way too many problems. It's still on machines that pupils use as it is necessary from a child protection point of view.

[ChrisJ]

There is an update to Policy Central coming out in the next few days that is claimed should improve performance.

 

Pretty much every Birmingham school seems to be having issues with ePortal on machines with Policy Central installed.

[techie08]

I have just phoned support so i will see what they have to say!!!

[Michael]

Interesting update for you all -

 

Speaking with the ICT co-ordinator, we're going to proceed and remove Policy Central from machines which e-portal is used, but leave it on other machines which pupils use to see if this makes any difference.

 

In the meantime (interestingly), IE7 crashed on me (with Policy Central installed) and once I reloaded IE7 it was incredibly slow. I then opened up Task Manager and the CPU use was at 100%. One of the svchost processes was using 125MB of memory and rising. It appears Policy Central may possibly be triggering a memory leak in the Automatic Updates service.

Stopping and starting the Automatic Updates service appears to return the CPU and memory use to normal levels. Something very strange is going on...

[techie08]

Just got off the phone to Forensic and they said it was to do with the June IE7 Cumalative updates. This then caused the PCE client to have trouble. Apparantly the IE7 Updates in June were causing issues with IE7 without PCE loaded.

 

There is going to be a new client released which should should address these problems.

[Michael]

The problem is this could be an on-going thing as Microsoft release security updates every other month, Policy Central could keep breaking IE

[L_Smith]

I am having the same problems too. Im in the proccess of talking to Lnk2ICT about it. Would it at all be possible for who ever is having this problem to report it to Link2ICT? I think its a problem with them, could still be PCE but they should still we working to resolve it.

[stevenlong1985]

Hi, I'm having problems where users can not open up IE7 or IE8 says something like disk Space is full?? shortcuts to e-portal brings up printer properties, its happened around June / July time around the same time we got PCE installed?

[techie08]

Im still having issues with what seems to related to PCE. Sometime IE7 will work and some it will crash, or freeze. They said its because sophos web scanning addon is causing problems with the PCE client and to disable sophos addon in IE7.

 

This causes us issues as dont know how to centrally disable this add on. And i have found that when the user logs off, it doesnt retain the disabled setting.

 

Im now resorting to taking the client off complete to stop users getting annoyed!

[L_Smith]

I've heard that Link2ICT will be ditching PCE because of the problems it is causing, i dont know how true it is though. 80% of the machines that PCE is installed on wont update via windows update. Forensic Software has even tried to trouble shoot it and supplied me with a vbs script to deploy but it doesnt work still.

[burgemaster]

Has anyone any progress?

I was told that 3.0.0.9 would be out last week, still nothing

Cheers

Tim

[djh]

We've had exacly the same problem with both IE8 and IE7, with random websites crashing. Namely Sam Learning and other random sites. We've tried disablign PCE, installing EVERY SINGLE update from Microsoft, Upgrading to IE8 etc etc. The network engineer has tried disabling Sophos add-on through group policy (find the classID for sophos inside IE7 - something like:

 

Name: Sophos Web Content Scanner

Publisher: Sophos Plc

Type: Browser Helper Object

Version: 7.6.10.0

File date:

Date last accessed: 25 September 2009, 09:01

Class ID: {39EA7695-B3F2-4C44-A4BC-297ADA8FD235}

Use count: 9898

Block count: 0

File: SophosBHO.dll

Folder: C:\Program Files\Sophos\Sophos Anti-Virus

 

Put the classID into group policy addons and it will disable.

 

We're just in the process of testing it out with teachers....

[techie08]

Keep me upto date on how it goes. I spoke to Forensic and they said a patch is due any time soon,

[burgemaster]

Ive been told its a sophos/pce problem,

 

They said there is a patch in testing. Fingers crossed it will be tested and released soon !!

[L_Smith]

I hope so. I'm getting grief left, right and centre.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Any news on when this new version is coming? Getting so narked off with PCE!

[DevilsAdvocate]

For those interested, it looks as though it will be another 2 weeks before the new version is available.

 

Rob

[burgemaster]

Another 2 weeks !!!

 

We made the mistake of rolling out IE8, and the problems seem much worse with IE8 over 6/7

Weve been waiting over a month now !!

 

The problem apparently is also Sophos related, I have had this before where 2 companys software conflict. They both throw it back to each other and it never ends.

 

Apparently you can disable all the users in the PCE console, but ive only found a way to do this one by one !!

[andy_b]

I've tempoarily disabled PCE by adding this as a computer startup scripts until issues are resolved.

 

reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /f /v "PCE Client"
reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{8F26EAA1-D8B4-41A2-994F-704AEEE25536}" /f

 

and can then just re add the keys when it's fixed.

[Michael]

I've heard that Link2ICT will be ditching PCE because of the problems it is causing, i dont know how true it is though. 80% of the machines that PCE is installed on wont update via windows update. Forensic Software has even tried to trouble shoot it and supplied me with a vbs script to deploy but it doesnt work still.

 

I'd be very surprised if that was the case as typically Link2ICT would of signed agreements over a number of years. I'm not saying it would never happen, but probably not in the short term.

 

I can confirm over the past week I've been running a custom Firefox 3.5.3 build I developed on machines with IE7 or IE8, Policy Central 3.0.0.8 and Sophos AV installed. The speed/performance is much quicker and my support queries with regards to internet connectivity/availability are almost zero. It also works perfectly with ePortal too.

 

There's already a BGFL final build I have uploaded and I'm willing to do custom versions for proxy, exceptions and homepage settings only