Orange webmail

[tenniswitch]

[quote user="sid"]

I've tried rebooting the Router... no change! [:(]

I don't understand how this works! If the login info is stored in my router, and entering www.orange.fr automatically logs me into orange then surely anyone using my wireless network (or LAN cable connection) would also get the same page and would have access to my mail? That doesn't sound very secure.

AND if I remove the details from my router then I won't be able to access the internet at all (or will I ???)

Surely there's something on my pc too?[/quote]

I've wondered about that, too.  I don't actually think that the messagerie login info is stored on the router- at least, I'm certain that I didn't have to enter it to get a connection.  I'm sure that the account login info is all that was required.

That would imply that all the messagerie stuff is stored somewhere in your Internet Explorer files- as a cookie or icon or some other kind of file, temporary or not.

But, if that were the case, clearing your cookies and history should have taken care of it.  You did also clear your history, didn't you?

If you really want to fiddle around with this, you could follow Ernie's advice and save copies of your cookies and history somewhere, then delete all those again, reboot and see what happens.

Have you tried googling your problem to see if anyone else has experienced the same thing? 

You have my sympathy because it drives me nuts when things aren't working right on my computers.  I'm pretty compulsive about at least figuring out the problem.  (Sometimes the solution doesn't seem worth the effort, however.)

[Danny]

[quote user="ErnieY"]

You could try Protected Storage PassView

This will display all user names and passwords stored on your PC plus all auto complete fields and you can delete any or all at will.

NOTE: See HERE as apparently some AV programmes, (definately Norton)  flag it up as virus or trojan but it is a false positive.

 

[/quote]

Ernie, I followed your links and just in case you did not notice/know:

About Internet Explorer 7

In the new version 7.0 of Internet Explorer (IE7), the Protected Storage is not used for saving passwords anymore, and thus after installing IE7, this utility won't display new passwords that you type in IE7 browser.
For more information about passwords in Internet Explorer 7, read this.
A new utility that can extract the passwords of Internet Explorer 7: IE PassView

Danny

[Danny]

Sid,

I don't have Orange messagerie but just a suggestion:

if you want to see if it is something stored in IE7 settings or on the modem/router, you could make a new user account in control panel. Once you are logged in to this new account  - it will have no history or cookies yet in IE7  - and if you type www.orange.fr and you are already identified on the website, there must be something in your modem settings or something stored by Orange.

Or get someone else to try to use your adsl just to test it to see if the same thing happens with their computer.

I can't see how this can be the case though as it would mean that it is possible for anyone to access other people's Orange mail accounts if they can connect by wifi.

My guess is that when you first access your Orange account, you sign in and give them certain info (and they may even collect info from your computer) and this stored by them and used to keep you and the particular PC connected.

If you want to access your orange mail from another computer, I presume you must log in with your name and password.

I'm curious to know what happens if you create a new account on your PC and try to access the site.

Danny

[AnOther]

Thank you for pointing that out Danny, I missed that [;-)]

[sid]

Ernie and Danny

That was an interesting link, I used the later version. Some interesting entries but nothing for Orange.

Googling for "orange" and "problems"... blimey, and I think I've got trouble!! [:D]

I don't know how I could create a new account, and my login details in the router are needed in order to access the internet. When I try to change user I get this message...

"Vous ne pouvez pas mettre fin à votre identification car vous êtes automatiquement reconnu lorsque vous utilisez votre accès Internet Orange. "

So there's confirmation! This has turned into a war of attrition, I'll find the beggar yet!. [geek]

I'm NOT going to contact their customer service, I refuse to pay for support calls!! [:@]

Meanwhile, I have at least found a major benefit of using Firefox!!

Sid

[Danny]

Sid,

when I said create a new account, I meant on your computer - you don't need to do anything to the modem.

If you have windows XP, go to start/control panel/user accounts and click on 'create a new account'. Give it a name and click 'next' then click 'create account'

You have now created a new account in windows to which you can log on to by clicking on start/log off/switch user

or you can log out of your normal account and log in to the new one. After you do this when you start up your computer, you will now have a choice of user accounts to log in to. Click on the appropiate icon

Once logged in to the new account in windows you will have internet access already set up as the modem is still connected and the computer is connected to the modem. Try going to the orange site in this account and see if you are recognised by the orange site.

You do not change anything in the modem and the purpose of this exercise is just to see if you are recognised by the website without giving the site any info. It should be the same as if another computer is connected to your modem using your connection (I think)

Anyway, if you want, you can delete the new account afterwards (if it is not logged in) by going to control panel/user accounts and click on the account icon and choose delete the account and then delete all files.

The procedure is likely to be similar in Windows Vista if you have it.

I am still very curious to know what happens when you do this.

sorry if I was not clear before

Good luck

Danny

[sid]

Sorry Danny, I misunderstood. [Www]

OK, I've created a new Windows user (it takes ages to switch users on my pc, really grinding away... but that's another problem [blink]

Logged into new user, fired up IE7, entered www.orange.fr and got the same orange username dispalyed and the messagerie still doesn't work.

I notice that I can have 5 user accounts in Orange so I created a new one of those. Logged into that fine, the new username is displayed but the messagerie still doesn't work (waiting for ..... walledgarden.... etc).

Now switched back to original windows user (another several minutes passed by).

I'm beginning to think that I'll have to live with this one!

Sid

[Danny]

Mmm....

Oh well - it is getting a bit complicated now.

no more suggestions

good luck

Danny

[AnOther]

I notice that there has been no mention of what your using for AV.

I'm starting to think this is some sort of blocking issue perhaps to do with an AV programme or maybe a Popup blocker ?

An automatic update could herald the start of such things.

Something simple to try, hold the Ctrl key down when you click on the link, this sometimes bypasses Popup blockers.

 

 

[AnOther]

Another thought.

There is a file called    hosts   (just that, no extension) which resides in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\

Without going into the realms of Geekdom this can be used to block domains and IP address etc. and I wonder if something has got in there. It's very unlikely but worth a check all the same.

Simplest way is to navigate to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ and just look at the file date. Normally (I think) it is 23/08/01 but if it is something very recent then we may be onto something.

It's just a text file and if you want to see what's in it you can open it by right clicking then choosing "Send to Notepad", don't change anything though.

You will have to set Windows Explorer Folder Options to "show hidden files and folders" to see this BTW.

[sid]

Hi Ernie

I'm pleased you're not giving up on me!

Holding the CTRL key while clicking on the link opens another IE7 tab, with the same results.

The Hosts file is interesting!! I can't find any Orange references in it but it's full of very dubious stuff!! Blimey, where have these come from?

(Edit) The list has an entry at the bottom which indicates that it comes from Spybot !)

Sid

[AnOther]

Spybot has possibly put some stuff in there as part of it's innoculation routine.

You could try something which would eleiminate hosts as a culprit.

Right click on hosts and drag it to an empty space and release. In the pop up box choose Copy here. You now have a file called, perhaps not too surprisingly, Copy of hosts !

Now open hosts with notepad and replace the entire contents with the default which is: (copy everything in bold)

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

Save this as hosts. Beware notepad trying to add .txt to the end.

Now try Orange.

If it still doesn't work then simply copy the contents of Copy of hosts back to hosts.

You might think it would be easier to delete hosts and the rename the copy but hosts is a locked file which XP will not let you delete.

EDIT: You should reboot after editing hosts. Not sure it's strictly neccessary but do it anyway.

[Danny]

I did start another reply about other IE7 settings and then got too bogged down... luckily Ernie is still there...

What was in the hosts file?

see this from Spybot help:

"Spybot-S&D can add a prepared list of web sites known for bad behaviour (installing spyware or tracking users, for example) to your hosts file. If you want to do this, we recommend you also read the FAQ about cures for possible slow-downs on Windows NT based systems (Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista). And if you should notice you cannot visit a site that worked before, you should check the Hosts file section to see if that site is on the block list."

The hosts file could be described as an address book. While the normal user is accustomed to access other computers on the internet using names (for example security.kolla.de), every computer is accessed by a numeric address at a lower level. You may already have seen this numeric addresses; they look like 127.0.0.1 for example.

Every time you try to access another computer by using his name, your computer looks up his address in an address book. First it looks into a local address book (the hosts file), and only if it cannot find the address there it looks in a very big address book in the internet.

So, if you want to block an internet web site, you could simply redirect this sites name to a place where nothing will be delivered from. Such a place would be your computer for example. The address I already mentioned, 127.0.0.1 is an address that will always point to the local - your - computer. By adding an entry to the hosts file (your local address book) that redirects an ad site to your machine, you would trick your internet browser to think that ad site would be on your machine, and as your machine does not deliver ads, it would not get the ad and it will not be displayed.

Another way of using the hosts file is if you want to access computers that are not listed in any address book yet. For example if you have a local network, you would not list your local computers in any internet address book, if only because that would be very expensive. So you could just enter them into the local address book (your hosts file).

My host file says this:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

See here too http://accs-net.com/hosts/faq.html#22 about hosts file issues

More to think about

Danny

[Danny]

He got in there first...

Danny

[sid]

Thanks Ernie

I'm off out this evening so I'll try this later and report back tomorrow!

Also, something else you mentioned... AV. I have recently renewed by AVG subscription and taken their anti-spyware too. This is new on my machine and I'll have a look at disabling it. On refelction it probably coincides with the start of my problem!

Cheers

Sid

[AnOther]

[quote user="sid"]I have recently renewed by AVG subscription and taken their anti-spyware too. This is new on my machine....On refelction it probably coincides with the start of my problem![/quote]OK Sid, rather a shame it's taken 3 days and 40 posts for this little snippet to surface, our fault though for not asking [blink]

 

[sid]

Danny

I didn't mean to sound as though you were abandoning me! I know this is a relatively trivial problem, especially as there is a workaround (Firefox).

Also, because it works in Firefox, doesn't this point to it being specifically an IE7 settings problem?

I do appreciate all your ideas and contributions!

 

Ernie

I'm sorry I didn't mention the AVG renewal earlier. To be honest, I didn't think about it as I was using AVG before I've just added Spyware at this renewal. What I'm trying to say is that it all looks the same!

I've not tried the hosts file copy/clearout yet but I have tried disabling all the AVG (firewall/AV and anti-spywware) and the problem is still there.

I'm now thinking it must be IE7 since Firefox works OK.

 

Sid

[Danny]

[quote user="sid"]

Danny

Also, because it works in Firefox, doesn't this point to it being specifically an IE7 settings problem?

Sid

[/quote]

I agree and that is why I posted the stuff from Spybot help files which addresses the hosts file and how it may affect access to certain websites after alteration by Spybot. This file is used by IE7 and nothing to do with firefox.

Try to read all the stuff Ernie and I posted if you can and this  http://accs-net.com/hosts/faq.html#22 specifically about hosts file issues and what may happen after Spybot adds a list of addresses to the hosts file.

Keep trying

Danny

[AnOther]

Sid, have you got any System Restore Points prior to when this started ?

[sid]

Danny

The penny drops... thanks! Sorry I'm a bit slow.

Ernie

The last System Restore point I have is 3 months ago. I'd rather not go back. Yesh, yeah, I should taken taken one .....

STOP PRESS -  I FOUND IT !!!

Following comments from both of you I modified my Google search criteria; just entering "webmail" and "Orange" produces too much. I included IE7 and found quite a few people with the same problem.

<< it appears that the orange.fr webmailer only works if you allow access to doubleclick.

To do this, do the following within the Internet Explorer:
* go to "tools"
* click on Spybot - Search Destroy Configuration
* in the settings tab set the SDHelper to "ask for blocking confirmation"

If you enter your orange webmailer, Spybot will now ask you block or allow doubleclick. Choose allow and you can enter you webmailer.
You can also have Spybot remember this decision , simply choose an option from the drop down menu. >>

I've marked it to remember to allow it in future.

I couldn't see anything relating to 'doubleclick' in the 'hosts' file so presumably Spybot has its own list somewhere. In any case I could remove Spybot completely as I'm using the AVG product now.

Thanks again for all you help!

Sid

 

 

[AnOther]

That's great, Sid, I don't know who's most relieved, us or you [:D][:D][:D]

I wouldn't be so quick to get rid of Spybot, it's useful in and of itself and won't affect, or be affected by, AVG

Also, 3 month's since your last System Restore Point. That means System Restore is  turned off because XP creates one on the first startup of each day. You've certainly must have rebooted many times in the course of trying to solve this problem so should have several Restore Points. Not a good idea to have it turned off, it can get you out of a lot of problems.

Are you running out of HD space ?

[sid]

duplicated post

[sid]

[quote user="ErnieY"]

That's great, Sid, I don't know who's most relieved, us or you [:D][:D][:D]  [/quote]

Yes.... quite! [:D][:D][:D]

You're right about the System Restore too, I've turned it back on. I added a new HD at the end of last year; no space problems now.

Thanks

Sid