Horizon's start-up page and Istaria Support unaccessible?

[Casyle]

For the past couple days I've been unable to log into HZ. I get an error page for both HZ's start-up and Istaria Support.

Is anyone else having this problem? I am at a loss as to how to fix it....

[Casyle]

Could you copy and paste the link for the HZ's start-up page? Maybe the one I have got corrupted or something....

[Helcat]

Horizons Login

[Casyle]

Blast it! It doesn't work! :( I wonder what in the world is wrong... Am I going to have to try and re-install Windows XP? *Gulps*

[Vizharan]

That is odd..try clearing your cache/cookies for the site. Something might of gotten screwy in your browser. I'm sure somebody else will have another good suggestion too.

[Casyle]

I already do that religiously :( *Tools, Internet Options, then Delete Cookies, Delete Files, and Delete History*

Or is there something else I'm missing?

[Telpeloci]

Not sure if you've tried it or not, but perhaps restart your computer? Also might want to try clearing your DNS cache. Click on start, run, and type "ipconfig /flushdns" minus the quotes of course. Usually one of those two things clears up any issue I'm having. Also...probably a stupid question, but...have you tried using the stand-alone patcher?

[Casyle]

I'll try that flush thing now.

As to the patcher, no. I don't know where or how I'd access a stand alone patcher for HZ.

[Casyle]

No luck :( I copy/pasted that into RUN, and something, looked like MS-Dos, appeared then disappeared. I then restarted the computer and tried opening Internet Explorer, and no luck. *HZ's main page is my default Home page*

*Sighs* Thanks though. It's better than nothing! At least I can say I tried it... I really would like to play HZ, so this has me seriously bummed :(

[imported_tjl]

just the horizons page is failing to load? or do you have this issue with other websites. if the problem is not just with the horizons site, try a spyware scan in the off chance there is a browser hijacker messing with the urls.

[Telpeloci]

The Horizons launcher can be found in the Horizons folder. Should be HorizonsLauncher.exe.

[Casyle]

The launcher doesn't work either.

"The underlying connection was closed: Unable to connect to remote server"

I am so frustrated. I did a scan with Norton Anti-Virus and SpySweeper, and NOTHING was found!

If I try to go to either of those pages it's just a "This page cannot be shown" error page.

I can surf the internet fine, I just can't go to either of of the above sites! Or run the launcher.

[HAG]

As you are using XP, it could be the native XP-Firewall that is blocking the HZ-site.

I dunno how to shut that down or to allow the HZ-site to load. But if you can surf fine and only HZ is messed up, this sounds like a firewall-prob to me.

[C`gan]

Try this, too.

In Internet Explorer go to Tools>Internet Options Security tab. Select Trusted Sites and click on Sites button. Then add the Horizons website there. Also, uncheck the "Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone. Then hit ok and ok and try again. IE has it's own little hangups with an internal firewall of sorts and one of the recent Microsoft "fixes" suddenly caused it to happen more frequently.

I had to do this for CNN, if you can believe it.

[Casyle]

*Is so frustrated* You know what, I'm wondering if that power surge/outage we had 3 days ago isn't connected to this problem.

Before that happened I could play HZ fine. After it neither of those two pages will load. Not only that, my Norton Internet Security disables itself everytime I log off. So I wonder if that isn't all connected somehow....

Thanks for all the ideas... I'm thinking my only choice is going to be to re-install Windows XP and upgrade my Norton Internet Security 2004.

[Varangaard]

On the off chance that you still want to check for possible infestations, I recommend the following programs. They are all free.

ad/spy/etc-ware removal: ad-aware
trojans/dialers/spyware/etc removal: ewido
spy/adware, misc remover: spybot S&D
browser hijackers: hijackthis (scroll down - warning, advanced windows users only, you can wreak havoc on system with this if you don't know what you are doing)

I use all four to have best chances of catching anything that gets into my system.

[Casyle]

Thank you all for trying to help!

I used SpySweeper and HijackThis first, since I have those installed. Then I downloaded the others, one by one. No luck :( Evid/Evild found 3 non-cookie infected items, so that was cool, but nothing that helped my problem :( I'm becoming more sure and sure that I need to re-install my Internet Browser.

[Tympest]

Hmm, you mentioned a power surge/outage. It's possible that some files were corrupted if your computer was on when that happened. Try running scandisk on your harddrive(s) to check them for errors.

[Casyle]

OOO, I'll try that! I defrag all the time, but I completely forgot about ScanDisk!

[Casyle]

Well, it was a good idea, but no go :( Ugh. Going to re-install Windows XP tomorrow. If that doesn't do it, then I don't know what will...