First - I have a network behind an SMC Barricade cable router. In particular, I have two machines with W2000 OS SPK4, and both have IE6 SPK1.

Second, both browsers have the same security settings and cookie settings. However, with one, I get a message saying that "cookies are not enabled" when I visit some sites. I'm unable to visit certain sites with it, and some sites where I must login, the login process rejects my login, taking me back to the login screen with no error message.

The PC with the problem also has IIS, PHP and Apache installed, although I can't see that these differences would cause the problem.

Does anyone have some insight, suggestions or comments? Any hints would be useful, as I would follow-up them by testing and checking.

Thanks, and a Happy New Year to all - Jimbeau

Hi,

Can you check their privacy setting the same? Tools>Option>Privacy tab

Cheers,

Cheers,

Dat

Programming and creating plugins and templates
Blog

Thanks for your reply, Dat (Tandat?)

Both are set to medium; I tried the next 2 weaker settings on the problem (second) machine, and it had no effect. Later, after this post, I installed Opera 7.23, and guess what - I get the same problem with it! It appears to different sites that cookies are not enabled, either for IE6 or Opera.

One site where I encounter the cookie problem is www.highbeam.com - but only on the second machine, not the first. The second machine has Visual Studio.NET on it, as well as the .NET Framework, versions 1.0 and 1.1, in addition to IIS 5.0, Apache and PHP. Another site, where I login to a private service, just returns me to the login screen after visiting the server. There are no such problems on the first machine.

I have done numerous Google searches, but can find anything like this problem. I also have a third, duplicate machine (identical hardware as the second, problem machine) running W2000 Advanced Server, and it has no such cookie problems.

As before, I will be grateful for any suggestions as to where to look. Jimbeaux

Try downloading Firebird and the live http headers plugin and you can see if your browser is sending and receiving cookies properly.

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Alex - many thanks for your suggestion. I downloaded Firebird, installed the HTTP Headers plugin, and was able to get to the site www.highbeam.com without problems. From this I conclude that Firebird is indeed sending cookies.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to make some sense of the mass of data presented in the HTTP Headers plugin window, especially to see what is happening with cookies.

That private service also just let me login with Firebird - the only problem now is that Firebird is substituting Times New Roman for Arial in some places, causing some (minor) difficulty in the work I have to do.

Does the fact that I can login give you any insight? Assuming that my conclusion is correct, that Firebird is sending cookies, how do I get IE6 to behave? [The same private service that I was able to login with Firebird has rejected Opera as an "unsupported" browser, and Opera failed the cookie test when trying to access "highbeam".]

Making progress - thanks! Any more comments/suggestions/observations? - Jimbeau



This is a later addition to the above post: I've been looking through the output from the HTTP Headers plugin window, and Firebird is clearly sending cookies - what's up with IE6?

Perhaps I'll adopt the name Dumbeau for a while, flagellate myself and then finally seek forgiveness. Is this too extreme???

Problem solved - I had been experimenting with Ghostsurf, and had forgotten that it was still active in the background - shows that it works effectively, in any case. I hope that I haven't wasted anyone's time. In any case, I've learned a great deal about cookies as a result. [If you see black lumps, don't assume that these are the chocolate chip variety!]

Here's a useful site to get an instant view of what your browser is up to: http://www.cyscape.com/showbrow.asp

Alex - thanks for your help - it kickstarted me to look elsewhere for the answer. Jimbeau