If you're having connection problems with Internet Explorer -
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vermithrax
In Internet Explorer, can you please click on the Tools menu, then click Internet Options, then click the Connections tab, then click Lan Settings (button near the bottom), and then clear any checkboxes that may be there, so that nothing is checked... Then click OK a couple of times to get out of Internet Options. Now, close out of IE (all windows, just to be on the safe side!), and then go back into IE and try to access the site.
Again, to recap what the problem is:
Shaw has implemented proxy servers on their network to try to reduce bandwidth use and to speed things up by caching some of the most frequently requested data. When you use Shaw's software to set up your computer for use with their broadband service, it sets Internet Explorer to use Shaw's proxy servers for all HTTP (web/www) requests. This means that IE contacts THEIR proxy/caching server in order to view a website. If the proxy is malfunctioning or unable to communicate with HFboards.com, it will return a 504 error, which is what IE gets back... Unfortunately, IE uses "friendly" error messages by default, which don't show that you're actually getting a 504 instead of a 404. You just get "Page cannot be displayed" without any indication as to why.
By telling IE to bypass the proxy server (which is done by removing those checkmarks that I told you about in Internet Options), you are going directly to our webserver to make the request instead of going through Shaw's proxy server, which, as we've seen... Has issues when it tries to access hfboards.com.
Anyhow, that was a bit verbose, but hey, knowledge is power, right?  |
