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The OS is either M$98 or 2000 ME (2 different computers - same problem), using IE 6.0 browser. What sounds a bit odd to me is the firewall, which is actually located at his ISP provider (which is dialup). AV programs don't show any virus infections.
So, I made a couple of recommendations.
1) Try a different browser. I pointed him to Opera.
2) Install and run AdWare/Spyware removal software. Recommendations were PestPatrol and Ad-Aware. I think he's savvy enough to discover others once he moves in this direction.
3) Contact the ISP and ask questions about the firewall settings.
He's reported manually clearing the cache, history and cookies. I suggested using the Toolbar instead, since a manual removal might overlook something.
Finally, he stated this problem started about 2 weeks ago. That's about the same time I started re-inserting tables into my pages - for better rendering across different browsers. I think he's getting an old copy of my site and is not being allowed to see the new pages.
Any ideas?
It's a good idea if you upgrade pages with new CSS to keep the old stylesheet on the server, but give the new version a slight changed name, a version number for instance. That way new and old cached pages always call for the correct stylesheet.
Hope that helps.
He's on a dialup connection, but I will send a message and have him View the source. I tend to put source version names in my <head> so I can at least determine which page version he's looking at.
For the source version I use something like this:
<meta name="source_document" content="sitemap_A3.html">
Probably not a valid meta tag, but as far as I can tell it's never been a source of any problem.
Presumably, it was being cached wrongly somewhere. Clearing the IE cache won't necessarily work, but installing Opera and pressing F5 to reload the page seems to always clear the problem - that's what I have to do to after uploading site changes to check them, otherwise I commonly see a 1 hour delay (I've given up trying to work out why).
I haven't checked Firefox behaviour, but an older Mozilla does not perform this correctly - I think it demands the main page is fully refreshed but not images etc. (I haven't looked closely at this.)
Kaled.
I put a copy of the older page back on the site, renamed it, and had him navigate to that version of the page. Presto - everything works! I checked the server logs, and the requests for the stylesheets are always returned with 304. What I don't know now is why the cached version of my stylesheet (for the new page) is not working... (I'm taking bets that I re-used an old stylesheet.. no notes and bad memory make that a best guess and, if true, a bad plan).
Can I force my server to send the new stylesheet? Off to research that question
Unless anyone has other ideas, I think this thread [webmasterworld.com] is the direction I need to look.
Of course validate the page and make sure you didn't forget a closing </table> tag or something, that can sometimes cause that error too, but not usually with IE.
I also changed the stylesheet on my newly modified pages and uploaded those changes. That should be enough to get him working tomorrow.
Never did get to find out what the View Source might have shown me, but the server logs were pretty revealing...[..serve up a cache copy of a file that the old guy shouldn't have been using in the first place..]
Gracias
