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Problem accessing HTTPS with IE7

         

brotherhalo

3:58 pm on Oct 10, 2008 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I've gone over google so many times looking for a solution to this problem.

Customers are having issues connecting to any of my HTTPS links on my domain. I have the same problem using IE7, but not with Firefox, Opera, Safari, or SeaMonkey.

I've poured over several different Microsoft KBs and other various fixes to no avail.

Anybody else experience this and managed to help themselves?

Thanks in advance!

phranque

11:01 pm on Oct 10, 2008 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], brotherhalo!

i would guess that you have a security certificate-related problem.

rocknbil

12:59 am on Oct 11, 2008 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



What exactly is happening? Timeout, page cannot be displayed, cert errors?

Corey Bryant

9:14 pm on Oct 12, 2008 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



There was a root certificate update a couple of weeks ago, was that installed? Otherwise, please provide us with more information as asked to provide you a better answer.

kaled

10:30 am on Oct 13, 2008 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Definitely not my area of expertise, but when some browsers choke completely but others are ok, it's worth checking the http headers - I guess this is true of https too.

Kaled.

brotherhalo

7:31 pm on Oct 15, 2008 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



phranque:
I do not believe this is an SSL certificate problem since I do not have any issue accessing the https page using any other browser than IE7.

rocknbil:
When I try accessing the https page, IE7 shows

The webpage cannot be found
HTTP 404
Most likely causes:
There might be a typing error in the address.
If you clicked on a link, it may be out of date.

What you can try:
Retype the address.

Go back to the previous page.

Go to and look for the information you want.

More information

This error (HTTP 404 Not Found) means that Internet Explorer was able to connect to the website, but the page you wanted was not found. It's possible that the webpage is temporarily unavailable. Alternatively, the website might have changed or removed the webpage.

For more information about HTTP errors, see Help.

But it's there if I use the other browsers...

Corey Bryant:
Do you know the KB# for the Root Certificate update? I'll look into that...

kaled:
I've used Fiddler to take a look at the headers, and it seems to be alright from what I can tell. I've never had this issue until recently.

For a little background - new machine setup. Installed fresh copy Windows XP Pro, SP2 from disc. Ran Microsoft Update first thing, which prompted me to install SP3 before any other updates.

rocknbil

11:12 pm on Oct 15, 2008 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I do not believe this is an SSL certificate problem...

Maybe not, but don't give up on the idea. IE may just not recognize the cert. The way a cert works is when you request a page, the browsers have a "key" to decrypt the data. When the browser submits information, it uses the internal public key for that known cert to send encrypted data to the server, that's the whole point.

If the browser doesn't know the cert, it won't have the key, and will sit there listening to the encrypted data stream by like white noise on the beach until it times out. Query a couple items:

Who's cert is it? Verisign, goDaddy . . . ?

Are you having any troubles with other web site SSL pages?

Do you know of a web site that has the same brand of SSL as you, and does it function ok? (get on the page, click the icon . . .)

You could play around with your security settings if you haven't already. While you're in there,

When I try accessing the https page, IE7 shows ....

Locate and turn off "Friendly error messages." It may not be helpful, but sometimes it is.

brotherhalo

11:26 pm on Oct 22, 2008 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Gah. Finally fixed my problem.

It WAS IE7. First, I tried re-registering a bunch of DLLs as per several suggestions. Nothing. I tried re-installing IE7. Nada. I tried installing IE8beta2. Zip. Uninstalled IE8. Uninstalled IE7 but using method 2 as described in MS KB927177 [support.microsoft.com]. Tried accessing my HTTPS page with IE6. IT WORKED. So I ran Microsoft Update, without installing IE7. A few updates (Killbits, IE6 security update, one other). I could STILL access my https pages. Then I tried using Microsoft Update to install IE7. THAT kept failing. So I tried downloading the installer. Got IE7 installed. Tried accessing my https pages. STILL WORKED.

Talked to a colleague. He suggested it might have something to do with an IE7 update (used on both WinXP and Vista) when accessing a Win2k IIS server. We haven't been able to pinpoint it yet, though.

Anyway, thought I'd share.

phranque

11:46 pm on Oct 22, 2008 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



thanks for the update!
please follow up with more details if you ever uncover them...