Very unusual behavior

orangecat · September 25, 2018

So I've been having this weird issue where sometimes Chrome won't load pages and it times out for what appears to be no reason at all. I've made a post about this before but nobody seems to know what the issue is but recently I noticed something I can't explain. So whenever Chrome starts to time out and not load pages I can fix it by launching Edge. I have no idea why this happens because I've double and triple checked everything. Only other thing I can think of is that Microsoft is doing something sketchy to try and get people to use edge but that's kinda unrealistic.

Any ideas?

Also Chrome works 95% of the time and loading edge fixes it immediately until it happens again. Not sure why this is.

Old Post:

r2724r16 · September 25, 2018

Uninstall and reinstall Chrome

orangecat · September 25, 2018

14 minutes ago, r2724r16 said:

Uninstall and reinstall Chrome

Tried that. Didn't work.

kirashi · September 25, 2018

16 minutes ago, Kilobytez95 said:

Tried that. Didn't work.

Clean Chrome's cache by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE and choosing cache from the Advanced menu, starting from "all time". If that doesn't work, let us know the exact error that Chrome shows when it times out, as it could be a DNS issue that needs pinpointing.

orangecat · September 25, 2018

1 minute ago, kirashi said:

Clean Chrome's cache by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE and choosing cache from the Advanced menu, starting from "all time". If that doesn't work, let us know the exact error that Chrome shows when it times out, as it could be a DNS issue that needs pinpointing.

If you read the old Post I linked you can see what I've tried so far. I have cleaned Chrome's cache about 1000 times already. I've even tried disabling all my extensions and just about everything I can try. Seems like it's unrelated to Chrome at this point.

kirashi · September 25, 2018

6 minutes ago, Kilobytez95 said:

If you read the old Post I linked you can see what I've tried so far. I have cleaned Chrome's cache about 1000 times already. I've even tried disabling all my extensions and just about everything I can try. Seems like it's unrelated to Chrome at this point.

Sorry about missing that post - I've read over it now though.

On 9/8/2018 at 8:39 PM, Kilobytez95 said:

11. Used a different computer. Seems to work fine.

12. Used my phone. Works fine most of the time.

13. Reinstalled Windows. Didn't change anything.

What has me puzzled is that it works fine on another computer, which points to this computer being the problem, but then you tried reinstalling Windows, so that points to hardware on this computer. However, you mention it "works fine most of the time" from your phone, which leads me to believe it's also possibly the router. Can you connect your computer directly to the ethernet coming from the modem to bypass your router? This will rule out the router as a potential cause, helping us troubleshoot.

Also note that networking equipment can do weird things that affect only certain devices. For example, prior to bridging my modem so I can run a router that isn't a complete potato my Epson printer would randomly lose connectivity to DNS, requiring a reboot of both the modem and the printer. Other devices connected to the modem's wifi were unaffected though, so at first I figured "well it can't possibly be the modem's wifi" and blamed the connection. Turns out that the wireless chipset in my particular printer model had a known firmware bug with certain wireless router chipsets, causing it to fail DNS lookups after a random amount of time. Fixed it by bridging my modem and getting a Netgear R7000 flashed with AdvancedTomato firmware.

orangecat · September 25, 2018

3 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Sorry about missing that post - I've read over it now though.

What has me puzzled is that it works fine on another computer, which points to this computer being the problem, but then you tried reinstalling Windows, so that points to hardware on this computer. However, you mention it "works fine most of the time" from your phone, which leads me to believe it's also possibly the router. Can you connect your computer directly to the ethernet coming from the modem to bypass your router? This will rule out the router as a potential cause, helping us troubleshoot.

Also note that networking equipment can do weird things that affect only certain devices. For example, prior to bridging my modem so I can run a router that isn't a complete potato my Epson printer would randomly lose connectivity to DNS, requiring a reboot of both the modem and the printer. Other devices connected to the modem's wifi were unaffected though, so at first I figured "well it can't possibly be the modem's wifi" and blamed the connection. Turns out that the wireless chipset in my particular printer model had a known firmware bug with certain wireless router chipsets, causing it to fail DNS lookups after a random amount of time. Fixed it by bridging my modem and getting a Netgear R7000 flashed with AdvancedTomato firmware.

I have my PC wired directly into the back of my modem (it has a built in gigabit router and AC wifi). I've tried using wifi and the issue still persists. I could bridge the modem and hook up an old router I have but that's a pain in the ass and from what I can tell it won't fix the issue as it seems to be a software issue related to either Windows, ethernet drivers or Chrome. I also thought it coudl be a hardware issue but I'm inclined to believe it isn't as it also happens when I use my wifi adapter and I refuse to believe my onboard ethernet and wifi adapter have some kind of hardware fault but everything else in my system works fine. that's just too unlikely. I think it has something to do with DNS lookup or something but I can't seem to reliably point to what the actual issue is because once I think I found the problem it vanishes or directs me somewhere else.