Internet connection problem. Need help.

[Captain Howdy]

I am having trouble logging in to any type of secure page, such as the ebay login screen, hotmail, or my online bank. I get this message when I try: "The connection was refused when attempting to contact signin.ebay.com". The error message is the same with all the sites, just change the url of the place I'm trying to connect to.

I looked on a few different mozilla help pages, but no luck. My family uses Mozilla, AOL, and IE. The problem is happening on all the different browsers. We also use windows xp. This just started a few days ago, out of the blue. We didn't install any new programs or anything like that.

It has to be something with this computer, because we have two other computers that are working just fine.

Any thoughts?

 

[Darth K'Trava]

If all else fails, here's advice from Dilbert: "Shut up and reboot!!"

Seriously, when my 'net access gets flaky, I just reboot the system and it clears up whatever the snafu is.

 

[ssampier]

Sounds like a software firewall problem. Are you using Norton Internet Security, Zonealarm or the like? If so, I'd shut them down temporarily.

 

[Captain Howdy]

After trying just about everything I could, I ended up doing a system restore (which was my last resort.) Everything is working fine now. I hate to do a system restore, because now I will never know what caused the problem, even though it's fixed.

Ah well. Thanks for the help anyway.

 

[ssampier]

Moreover, for the pedantic and/or bored, it may be related to a damaged or corrupt Winsock file:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811259/en-us