Possibly Corrupted Wireless Router

[ArtShapiro]

I've been fighting an unusual problem with two of my laptops for a couple days. The main symptom is that major search engines (Google & DuckDuckGo) come up with blank pages. Obscure engines such as Dogpile seem OK.

At first I thought it was the brand new Windows 10 14942, as the problems started when I updated all my machines to that release. But after numerous reloads of a several-days-old backup from my Windows Home Server, I'm convinced that the problem only occurs when I connect wirelessly to my home network. My wired desktop has not been affected, and as long as I connect the laptops via wire - I now have a 100 foot Cat5 cable snaking through the house - things seem OK. And no problems with wireless externally, such as at a coffee shop.

AdwCleaner, Panda Cloud Cleaner, and Malware Bytes don't find anything.

I had a weird problem several years ago with the wireless router, which turned out to be some rogue DNS addresses somehow getting installed into that router's configuration. Clearing them remedied the problem, and that is not the issue this time. Everything I can see in the Cisco E3000 configuration screens seems shipshape.

I haven't yet done anything to the router other than a couple reboots.

Has anyone ever encountered similar failures before? Any advice from knowledgeable network gurus?

Art

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do you have any sort of "internet security suite" installed? I would try to un-install it. It may have "latched onto" either your wireless or wired NIC driver, or be configured to intercept one or the other.

This may be especially true, if you just updated your windows build, as the security software may not have been updated to cope with the OS changes.

Is that build a release channel build, or an insider build? If it's an insider build, I would file a bug report, and optionally roll back.

 

[ArtShapiro]

Thanks for the quick response. This is the latest fast build cycle (14942). No suites installed - one runs Avira, and the other I believe (it's out in the car) happens to use AVG. Just plain old AV.

Not trying to be argumentative, but the fact that I've used both for several hours at three different external wireless sites seems intuitively to point to my router, rather than anything suspicious about the new Windows build. I'm only rolling back to a previous build - several times - because those backups safely predate the problem. Obviously feel free to chastise me if there's something obvious I'm missing. And the wired desktop, updated to that same new release, is completely free of problems.

I'm about ready to do a factory reset of the router, but can't spare the time for a couple more days.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Possibly your wifi router giving different (and wrong) DNS information?

 

[Ketchup]

What browser are you using? Have you tried a different one? Try one you have to download (in other words, one you don't have now).

 

[ArtShapiro]

Well, after fighting this for the better part of a week, I may have solved it.

The problems got worse and worse - various bizarre SSL errors, blank pages on HTTPS sites, no images loading on primarily-graphic sites (eBay, etc.) giving grotesque text-only pages, and even corrupted downloads.

"They" released a new Windows 10 today, and I hoped it would magically fix the problems. It didn't. Same failure mode on the two computers, yet the desktop and one other Thinkpad updated fine and work without incident.

I went back to the previous version many times this week.

Then it occurred to me that the two working computers were only using Windows Defender, whereas the two failing ones were using Avira and Avast. Out of utter desperation, I removed both AV programs from the respective machines and re-re-re-re-tried the update.

Bingo! They're working just fine.

I know AV programs sometimes prevent proper downloading and installation of various programs. I've never encountered it for a Windows installation itself. And this is after working without incident for over a year.

Who woulda thunk it?

Art

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do you have any sort of "internet security suite" installed? I would try to un-install it.

Then it occurred to me that the two working computers were only using Windows Defender, whereas the two failing ones were using Avira and Avast. Out of utter desperation, I removed both AV programs from the respective machines and re-re-re-re-tried the update.

Bingo! They're working just fine.

I think I suggested that... :whist:

 

[ArtShapiro]

I think I suggested that... :whist:

Then I'll apologize for the misunderstanding! I took that term to mean something more than a mere antivirus program.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not trying to rub it in. Sorry if I mis-lead you by saying "Suite". What I meant by "Internet Security Suite", is any software program that is an A/V, with a network-scanning or firewall component. Which most "plain A/V" programs these days have too. So they qualify as "suites" in my mind.

Anyways, great trouble-shooting deduction, noticing the difference between the machines that had the problem, versus the ones that did not.