Default SM Web Login page will not load

Problem reported by Todd Graf - 3/23/2016 at 3:06 PM

Resolved

I have a client who uses webmail to check his email. Today, his computer is refusing to load the login page. He can login from other computers. Other users logged in on his computer can not access the login page. I have tried FF, IE and Chrome. I have turned off AV and Firewall. I have removed updates for the last week. I have tried going to mail.smartertools.com - that page won't load. It seems this computer will not load any smartermail server web page. I did enter his information into Outlook on his computer and I was able to get mail that way.

Has anyone had this problem, or have any ideas on how to fix it, or where I might look to find the problem?

27 Replies

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Bruce Barnes Replied

3/23/2016 at 5:32 PM

Clear the,browser cache - it's become corrupted.

Bruce Barnes

ChicagoNetTech Inc

brucecnt@comcast.net

Phonr: (773) 491-9019

Phone: (224) 444-0169

E-Mail and DNS Security Specialist

Network Security Specialist

Customer Service Portal: https://portal.chicagonettech.com

Website: https://www.ChicagoNetTech.com

Security Blog: http://networkbastion.blogspot.com/

Web and E-Mail Hosting, E-Mail Security and Consulting

Gerardo Sobarzo Replied

3/24/2016 at 4:26 AM

Yesterday I spend the same on various terminals with Windows 10. Delete cache and not fix.Probe also restore the computer to a previous state without result. The home page is blank.

Rober Gadwood Replied

3/28/2016 at 6:57 PM

I have exactly the same problem. I'm using Windows 10 and I cannot get to my company mail web site (which uses SmarterMail). Nor can I load pages from SmarterTools. (I'm using a different computer to post this.) Deleting the browser cache, cookies, history, etc. does not help. Every browser I have tried (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Edge) does the same thing on my laptop.

I have found that I can access the sites if I boot into Safe Mode, so there must be something loading at startup that is interfering with the Smarter web sites. Any help in identifying the problem would be appreciated.

Gerardo Sobarzo Replied

3/31/2016 at 5:01 PM

Someone SmarterMail team can review what happens with this issue?

Nathan Replied

4/1/2016 at 12:32 PM

SNI enable SSL server side but old browser? Or perhaps TLS 1.1 server side but WinXP client?

Scarab Replied

4/1/2016 at 12:40 PM

I too have experienced this problem this past week. Google Chrome gives a 500 Error "An unexpected condition was encountered while the server was attempting to fulfill the request" but no such error is logged in IIS (all other browsers just give a generic "could not load"). However, in all instances for us clearing the browser cache *AND* restarting the browser fixed the problem.

Gerardo Sobarzo Replied

4/1/2016 at 3:11 PM

I tried to delete all navigation data and restart google crhome no results. Download I install firefox and is the same. this happens to me in 4 different computers. Any idea that can be ?

Employee Replied

4/1/2016 at 3:55 PM

Employee Post

Hello,

We have a laptop running Windows 10 here that is experiencing this issue so we are looking into it. Something on the system seems to be interfering with the HTTP traffic but we haven't been able to narrow down what.

Here is what we have tried so far:

1. Shutting down all security software - AV, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall, etc.

2. We installed Fiddler on the laptop and set a mac to proxy through that, and our webmail refuses to load on the mac in that scenario. So that case doesn't involve using a browser on the problem machine.

3. Disabling wireless and going through a wired connection.

4. Different user account on the laptop.

5. Rolling back Windows updates.

So nothing so far has worked or really helped us zero in on the issue.

I will update you when we know more.

Derek Curtis Replied

4/2/2016 at 12:16 PM

Employee Post

We're still looking through this, and we're slowly narrowing down the potential issues. However, we'd ask that anyone experiencing these problems please give us the following info. You can put it in this Community thread or email us at sales@smartertools.com and use "Community Issue Details" for your subject line:

1. Whether you're on a desktop or a laptop

2. Operating System and build number.

a. If you're running a preview build, we'd like to know that as well

3. Network card details, including driver version and date.

Thanks.

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

John Gurhy Replied

4/2/2016 at 2:21 PM

Hi Derek,

I don't know if this helps but the issue does not effect MAC's e.g. El Capitan or Windows server OS (2012, 2012R2 Standard)

We are seeing issues with Win 7 and 10. My Windows 10 PC with the issue is Pro Version 1511 Build 10586.164 - Desktop with a Qualcommn Atheros AR9038x ver 3.0.2.182 driver

Gerardo Sobarzo Replied

4/3/2016 at 6:13 AM

Hi Derek,

Desktop

Windows 7 Pro build 6.1.7601

Intel(r) Ethernet Connection (2) i218-v driver version 12.11.96.1 build by WinDDK

Gerardo Sobarzo Replied

4/4/2016 at 4:53 AM

Desktop
Windows 7 pro build 6.1.7601
Broadcom Netlink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet Driver version 15.6.0.14

John Gurhy Replied

4/4/2016 at 5:28 AM

Hi, Could it be an AV issue>

One of our users reported resolving the issue uninstalling Eset Anti-virus (I am trying to confirm the version.

On this laptop I am running Mcafee Enterprise AV 8.8.0 and I don't have any problems

Rober Gadwood Replied

4/4/2016 at 6:17 AM

I'm using Windows 10 on a Thinkpad T410s (version 1511, build 10586.164). The LAN card is an Intel 82577LM Gigabit Network Connector. Turning off ESET does not help in our case, but booting into safe mode does. In safe mode, we can access all of the Smarter websites (SmarterMail and SmarterTools) including this one.

Todd Graf Replied

4/4/2016 at 6:29 AM

Our computer is Windows 7 Pro, we have corrected the problem by rebuilding the computer. ESET version 5 is currently installed on that computer. We had tried several browsers, so clearing the cache did not do anything to resolve the issue.

Windows 7 Build 7601

Driver Intel 82579LM

Desktop

Employee Replied

4/4/2016 at 8:45 AM

Employee Post

We also had ESET on our laptop with this issue. We tried disabling ESET which didn't fix the issue. Since John mentioned that one of his users uninstalled ESET to fix the issue we tried doing that and it fixed the issue for us as well.

So the issue is with ESET but disabling it doesn't do the trick, you have to uninstall it. It must leave some proxy code running that interferes with HTTP traffic even when it's disabled.

Derek Curtis Replied

4/4/2016 at 9:47 AM

Employee Post

Hi, all..

First off, thanks for posting/sending info as requested. Our initial thoughts were that there was something in the Qualcomm chipset that was causing issues. However, the NIC types and driver details were all over the board.

The post from John Gurthy about ESET set off a hunt on that. As Bryon mentioned, uninstalling ESET resolved the problem. However, as the laptop we were using to test was mine, keeping ESET uninstalled wasn't an option :)

I did some digging and I may have found the issue: It looks as though ESET has some issues with their SSL/TLS scanning as there are a lot of posts from people having problems with it and how pages are unresponsive, etc. So I tried a few things. Here's how I was able to fix the problem. Mind you, I'm running ESET Smart Security 9.0.375 with all current updates to the app as well as my virus signatures..

1. In Advanced Setup, Under Web and Email, I turned off "Enable SSL/TLS protocol filtering".

2. I then closed all browsers, then opened up Chrome.

3. I went into chrome://settings/clearBrowserData and cleared out all cookies, Download history, Cached images and files and Hosted app data.

4. I then went to https://portal.smartertools.com/main and things worked normally. (Usually, the page would just spin and not load.)

5. I then logged into SmarterMail in Chrome.

6. I then went to our website. (Usually, the page would load but the live chat icon would NOT.)

7. Everything was working just fine.

8. I went back into ESET and turned Enable SSL/TLS protocol filtering back on and repeated steps 4 - 6. Again, all worked just fine.

9. I then repeated steps 4 - 6 in Firefox AND Edge, and they both worked as well.

So, my guess is there was something in an update to ESET in the past week or 2 that borked the SSL filtering.

As mentioned, this was using ESET, but if there are other security suites installed on these computers, they could be causing similar issues. This would explain why uninstalling fixed the problem whereas simply disabling features did not. I hope this helps some folks...

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

Rober Gadwood Replied

4/4/2016 at 10:54 AM

Thanks for the suggestions, Derek. I had played around a bit with the SSL/TLS Protocol filtering but had not been able to fix the problem. In fact, turning this off still does not fix the problem for me. However, if I turn off all protocol filtering, then Smartermail works. (I'm using the same version of ESET as you.) I tried to exclude the IP address of our mail server from filtering, but this did not work. (I used the IP address that showed up when I pinged the server.)

Any other thoughts?

Bob

Derek Curtis Replied

4/4/2016 at 11:51 AM

Employee Post

Did you try clearing the cache with everything turned off, then revisiting the login page and logging in before you turned filtering back on?

That said, I DID do all of this after I had uninstalled ESET, checked the sites then reinstalled. Not sure if that had anything to do with it. I also did a reboot after reinstalling ESET as I was getting an error, but the reboot fixed it.

NOTE: One thing I did notice was that I had the login pages for both SmarterTrack and SmarterMail as default home pages in Chrome. HOWEVER, I had the URL as a standard HTTP and NOT HTTPS. I noticed that things would hang whenever I opened Chrome. So I changed those to HTTPS links and everything opens just fine.

We have an automatic redirect set up for non-https requests, so perhaps ESET was messing with those as well? Not too sure, but it may be worth checking on your end.

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

John Gurhy Replied

4/4/2016 at 1:50 PM

Hi,

We are a ESet partner in the UK, I have emailed support to open a ticket pointing them at this Thread.

I will post back when I hear anything.

John

Rober Gadwood Replied

4/4/2016 at 3:09 PM

Yes, I did the steps exactly as you listed them. Since this seems to be an ESET issue, I'm going to contact their tech support next so see if they can diagnose the problem.

Gerardo Sobarzo Replied

4/4/2016 at 5:13 PM

Hello,
In advanced settings, protocol filtering , you can exclude the IP corresponding to the mail servers with this problem is solved.

Rober Gadwood Replied

4/5/2016 at 5:59 AM

Tried that but it didn't work for me.

Rober Gadwood Replied

4/5/2016 at 6:40 AM

Update: This worked on at least one computer in our domain. Will keep trying with others.

Rober Gadwood Replied

4/5/2016 at 12:58 PM

Update 2: This does indeed seem to be the solution. It has worked on all the affected computers. Not sure why it did not work when I tried it last week. Thanks for the suggestion.

Nathalie V Replied

8/15/2016 at 6:50 AM

I incurred the same issue today in Chrome after installing the latest Windows Updates.

I confirmed it's ESET as everything is fine with ESET off.

I used Gerardo's temporary solution above (to exclude our Smartertrack IP address) but this can only be very short term as this reduces the AV protection, and we do get malicious attachments sent to the ticket system sometimes.

SmarterTools - please look into this issue asap.

Thank you

Paul Blank Replied

8/15/2016 at 5:32 PM

Important to note that some A/V software is not completely disabled even if it's set as "disabled". Results can be confusing. Case in point: Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.6, and previous versions as well - otherwise quite a solid and reliable product. If you experience a problem such as is described in this thread, try completely uninstalling the A/V on one computer, rebooting and trying again. That should tell you plenty.

FYI Symantec has worked hard on this; the program's footprint is smaller than previous versions, and impact on system performance feels quite low. Ain't competition a beautiful thing?

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