Can't access hotmail, gmail, and firefox update

Hello.

I've just noticed that I'm unable to sign into my hotmail account, though I'm able to reach the login screen. After attempting to log in I receive the message "Unable to connect
Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at login.live.com.". I don't necessarily check my hotmail account everyday, but the last time I would have checked it couldn't have been any more than two or three days ago at the most.

It turns out I can't access my gmail account either. In this case I can't even get to the login screen, instead I receive the message "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.google.com.". I can access google.com itself though, but it looks unusual. The field(?) where you enter text is black, and so is a large rectangular portion of the screen - approximately the bottom 2/5ths of the screen. I don't see the google page very often but I'm sure that's not what it was supposed to look like.

I am able to access both email accounts from another computer in this house.

And finally, I can't update firefox from within, through the help menu. I was able to download the update directly from the site. It is up to date but I don't get a message about it being up to date, I get a message about there being "problems checking for, downloading, or installing this update. Firefox could not be update because: Connection Refused". I can't update the extensions from the mozilla site either.

As far as activity is concerned I've recently removed some unimportant programs through the program manager or whatever it's called. I've also installed Secunia PSI and Winpatrol, but that was maybe two weeks ago.

While installing some windows updates, which included windows live essentials 2011, I was being prompted by Online Armor about various things and I told it to not allow some aspect of the windows live essentials portion of it. In the end the update was considered a failure (by windows update). I couldn't come up with a way to reinstall it or uninstall it. I did download and install windows live essentials 2011 directly and install it but that never changed the status of the update. I'm not even sure if that matters.

I'm not completely sure if this was my first attempt to access hotmail or gmail since the update issue, but I don't think it was.

This is on Vista Home Premium. I've run Avast, SAS, MBAM, and Spybot. Now that I think about it I also defragged the hard drive but not in any connection to this incident. Oh, and like I put in the topic description field, as far as I can tell I can access anything else on the internet.


I'm certainly at a loss as to where to go from here.

Thanks,

C.

Hello, did Avast, SAS, MBAM find anything? can you psot their logs? Is this XP ??

Since you at least have the net try this....
Reboot into Safe Mode with Networking
How to enter safe mode(XP)
Using the F8 Method
Restart your computer.
When the machine first starts again it will generally list some equipment that is installed in your machine, amount of memory, hard drives installed etc. At this point you should gently tap the F8 key repeatedly until you are presented with a Windows XP Advanced Options menu.
Select the option for Safe Mode with Networking using the arrow keys.
Then press enter on your keyboard to boot into Safe Mode.


>>>> Download this file and doubleclick on it to run it. Allow the information to be merged with the registry.

RKill....

Download and Run RKill

• Please download RKill by Grinler from one of the 4 links below and save it to your desktop.
  
  Link 1
  Link 2
  Link 3
  Link 4
  
  
• Before we begin, you should disable your anti-malware softwares you have installed so they do not interfere RKill running as some anti-malware softwares detect RKill as malicious. Please refer to this page if you are not sure how.
  
• Double-click on Rkill on your desktop to run it. (If you are using Windows Vista, please right-click on it and select Run As Administrator)
  
• A black screen will appear and then disappear. Please do not worry, that is normal. This means that the tool has been successfully executed.
  
• If nothing happens or if the tool does not run, please let me know in your next reply

Do not reboot your computer after running rkill as the malware programs will start again. Or if rebooting is required run it again.


If you continue having problems running rkill.com, you can download iExplore.exe or eXplorer.exe, which are renamed copies of rkill.com, and try them instead.



Next run Superantisypware (SAS):

[*]To retrieve the removal information after reboot, launch SUPERAntispyware again.

• Click Preferences, then click the Statistics/Logs tab.
• Under Scanner Logs, double-click SUPERAntiSpyware Scan Log.
• If there are several logs, click the current dated log and press View log. A text file will open in your default text editor.
• Please copy and paste the Scan Log results in your next reply.

[*]Click Close to exit the program.[/list]If you have a problem downloading, installing or getting SAS to run, try downloading and using the SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner instead. Save the randomly named file (i.e. SAS_1710895.COM) to a usb drive or CD and transfer to the infected computer. Then double-click on it to launch and scan. The file is randomly named to help keep malware from blocking the scanner.


Rerun MBAM (MalwareBytes) like this:

Open MBAM in normal mode and click Update tab, select Check for Updates,when done
click Scanner tab,select Quick scan and scan (normal mode).
After scan click Remove Selected, Post new scan log and Reboot into normal mode.

Please ask any needed questions,post logs and Let us know how the PC is running now.

Hi boopme,

thanks for your reply. I'm using Vista home premium. Only SAS found something during a scan:

SUPERAntiSpyware Scan Log
http://www.superantispyware.com

Generated 10/30/2010 at 12:34 PM

Application Version : 4.45.1000

Core Rules Database Version : 5786
Trace Rules Database Version: 3598

Scan type : Complete Scan
Total Scan Time : 00:48:46

Memory items scanned : 789
Memory threats detected : 0
Registry items scanned : 13671
Registry threats detected : 0
File items scanned : 52438
File threats detected : 3

Adware.Tracking Cookie
media.ign.com [ C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\U8E6RV8S ]
statse.webtrendslive.com [ C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\h1yrtpg1.default\cookies.sqlite ]
.dmtracker.com [ C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\h1yrtpg1.default\cookies.sqlite ]


Now for the good news: earlier in the year I was being helped with a problem from someone on this site. When we reached a point where using safe mode was advantageous I found out that this computer has an issue with safe mode. Once in safe mode, the desktop is frozen. The only thing I can do is ctrl+alt+del, which allows me to reboot at least. When we went through this last time it turned out that the problem was somewhat intermittent, and we left it at that. I believe the alternative was an OS reinstall which sounded unappealing to me.

Soooo, I tried safe mode four times this morning and had a 100% success rate for it being unusable.

That's where I'm at.

Thanks,

C.

Try Disabling third party cookies and see if they open.

No they did not open. The link to mozilla didn't function; I had to go to the site and find it. This had actually happened a day or two ago but I can't remember why I was attempting to get to the mozilla site in the first place. When I clicked on the link I saw "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at support.mozilla.com.".

Thanks,

C.

I think your firewall is confused. Not being able to connect is due to your software Firewall or antivirus/security etc that is blocking the new firefox.exe from connecting.

Cannot connect after upgrading Firefox

Edited by boopme, 02 November 2010 - 09:02 PM.

That seemed to fix the problem. Relatively painlessly too.

Thank you!

You're welcome!!

Would it be best to start looking into the issue of being unable to use safe mode? Do I start a new topic?

SUPERAntiSypware has a built in "Repairs" feature to fix policy restrictions and certain Windows settings which are sometimes targeted by malware infection. To use this feature, launch SUPERAntiSypware.

• Click the Preferences button.
• Click the Repairs tab.
• Click on (highlight) "Repair broken SafeBoot key" and then click the Repair button.
• You may be asked to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

OR USE'
SafeBootKeyRepair.exe
Let us see if we can get Safe mode to run.

Please download and run SafeBootKeyRepair.exe.

Once it has completed, please try booting into Safe Mode.

"Repair broken SafeBoot key" wasn't an option in the repairs tab of SAS, and SafeBootKeyRepair said that the OS was unsupported and that it only ran on Windows 2000 or XP. I've got Vista.

Can you get in to safe mode with command prompt?

To open Command Prompt

Hold down the Shift key and Right Click anywhere on the desktop.
In the box that comes up, click on Open Command Window Here and command prompt will be displayed

type C:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe in to the command prompt and press return




If still no joy, we do not want to force safe mode with the msconfig method .. so I think we need you to ask in the Vista forum.

To be clear, I can get INTO safe mode but for the most part it is frozen. Ctrl+alt+del allows me to reboot or shutdown, but the desktop itself is frozen.

I opened the command window and entered the text, and what came up was system restore asking if I wanted to continue. Is this correct? Will this change/remove anything on the computer?

OK, I thought you had no safe mode. But now you still need to go to the Vista forum so they can use different diagnostics.

Ok that's what I'll do then.

Thank you for all your help, I appreciate it.