An Interesting Problem With NBC.com, IE, And Tablet PCs
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Sphere: Related ContentThis computer problem was brought to my attention and I thought I would post it on Mustech.net to see if any of you SUPER TECH SAVVY people out there could shed some light on this problem…. and help all of us with a working solution within the context of how we are trying to get this resolved.
The problem:
If you have a Tablet PC, and XP (or Vista), and have tried to access NBC.com with IE7 (Internet Explorer -I’m not sure about version 6 or prior), you get the following typical, bland, message: Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
This is only interesting because it WILL open with Opera, Firefox, and other browsers on the tablet PC. To further compound the issue, it will open fine in any of the other XP or VISTA, non-tablet, PC editions/computers.
The problem seems to be materialized only with the tablet PC and IE combination when going to the site www.nbc.com. I have not find this anomaly anywhere else. Are any of you experiencing this phenomenon with any other sites?
Now, before anyone goes off rambling and posting here on a hundred reasons not to use IE7, Microsoft, tablet PCs, etc… I am looking SPECIFICALLY for solutions that take into consideration this scenario only. The definitive solution at this point, as far as I can tell, is to use a standards compliant browser… but this doesn’t resolve the curiosity as to why this doesn’t work at all in IE7 and the curious webpage not found issue without any clue as to THE WHY…
I have replicated this problem on multiple tablet PCs from different locations and can confirm this to be a problem.
Here is some troubleshooting information:
- The IP address of NBC.com is 64.210.192.67
- Entering the IP address into the browser also results in the same problem. I can successfully ping and tracert to the above IP Address.
- I have cleared all the cache information, flushed all the dns information, added the IP address to a hosts file, and disabled all add-ons and extensions from IE7 and still cannot access the site.
- The address WILL open in Firefox and Opera
- NBC.com has failed to respond to any inquiries about this as of yet
Very little information about this problem is found on the web without serious manipulations of keyword searches but I have found others having this same issue. This confirms that this exact problem is more widespread then just a local issue with me and my immediate computer environment(s) and will most likely will be coming to other peoples attention in the near future (You’re here right?.
The following are some sites talking about this issue, at this point with no resolution either:
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/139782-what-vista-ie7-can-t-pull-up-nbc-com-2.html
http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=921856
http://help.wugnet.com/vista/Vista-IE7-pull-nbcftopic-113307-days0-orderasc-8.html
Please let me know if you have had/are having this experience and anything you’ve done to try and resolve the situation by commenting below.
Best regards,
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April 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I just (re-)ran into this problem on my wife’s tablet running XP. I thought to download the latest firefox and try it in there, and I get this message (www.nbci.com works fine in both browsers):
Problem Loading Page
The page isn’t redirecting properly
Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.
* This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept
cookies.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I am running into the exact same issue. I do not have a tablet PC, but there is a Wacom Intuos tablet being used with the machine.
It appears that it is not only the tablets that are being affected, but something in the tablet technology that is creating this issue. Interesting…
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE - if you know of any solution, post it here! Thanks!
April 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I just found this solution for those that can’t log on to nbc.com. Go to nbci.com and this site works! It appears to be the same site, so I am assuming that this is the international site. I compared it to the NBC site on my husband’s computer and everything matches up perfectly!
April 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
OMG I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! Yes-it worked!! Finally! It was so infuriating not knowing what was wrong. I was about to go on a downloading binge of possible missing programs or updates. That is not good b/c I am far froma pro.LOL anyway, You rock Joseph! Thanks for putting the ? out there.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
They’ve yet to fix this….
I did a TCP trace and found several redirections that ultimately result in “Page Not Found.” From what I can tell, it looks like their main site is not handling the User-Agent header generated by XP Tablet Ed. and Vista. I’m not sure what part of the header is the issue, but nbc.com thinks it’s a mobile device, and redirects to the mobile version of the site. However, the mobile site *does* handle the User-Agent properly and bounces back. This goes on for a little while until IE gives up.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
My wife just ran into this as well.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I have been running into this problem for quite some time now. I am on an IBM tablet, running XP and have found that nbc.com will not load on either IE or firefox. nbci.com will load just fine on both as Keith said; however any attempt to navigate away from the homepage brings us back to the initial problem because all of their links revert back to nbc.
I’ve found that if you take the time to type out the url for the link and add the i after nbc, it will work. Kind of a pain, but until they take the time to actually fix it it’s an alternative
April 25th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
same problem here. nice to see I’m not alone. safari works fine but IE7 is no good on my tablet.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:15 am
Yes, you can access http://www.nbci.com, but if you go to actually watch video or access anything that resides on the nbc.com site, you end up with the same error message. Very frustrating.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
yup, Vista ultimate same problem.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
The tablet version of xp and vista install a custom user-agent for IE that makes nbc.com think it’s a mobile device. http://www.nbc.com is forwarding tablets to nbc.starcut.us, which is a wap compatible version of http://www.nbc.com for mobile devices.
This is a band-aid but remove the following registry key, delete the IE cache, and close all browsers and http://www.nbc.com starts working again.
HKLM>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Internet Settings>5.0>User Agent>Post Platform>Tablet PC 2.0
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:20 am
What an annoying problem, thought I was going crazy but confirmed the trend with several tablets in our office so confirmed it was a tablet issue but wasn’t sure what was causing the problem. It didn’t help that there have been other mouse jumping issues with the tablets so was beginning to question the system.
I did as Dave (post 11) suggested and deleted the registry key and I can now open nbc.com no problem! Hopefully no new problems arise.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hey guys, great work! I can confirm that Dave Post Solution works!
J. Pisano
June 27th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
i dont understand dave’s post at all. can someone futher explain it?
July 4th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I have the problem with the Wacom tablet installed on my system, but I don’t find the registry key as referenced above. Anyone know of the registry key to remove if you no longer need to run the Wacom tablet. I previously uninstalled the Wacom application but apparently the registry key remained.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Thank you!!! I have been having this problem for a few weeks and when I switched to Firefox; it didn’t work at first then I went to Tools - Clear Private Data it worked.
The NBC problem happenend after I added Vista SP1.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
This sucks. The tablet was so awesome until nbc.com decided not to work on it. Guess I have to watch more abc, cbs, and fox. Those seem to work just fine and have plenty of entertaining shows. I love How I Met Your Mother now!
August 14th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Tried Dave’s registry removal sugestion in Post #11. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work in my case. Also, after a reboot, the previously removed registry entry reappears. Even if I don’t reboot and confirm the entry is gone, remove cache setting from IE, close browsers and restart IE, I still can’t get to the site. FireFox can get to NBC.Com (after Tools->Clear Private Data - thanks Marie in Post #16). So, looks like I’ll keep FireFox installed just for NBC.Com but I’m sure some others would suggest it’s the better browser anyway.
Cheers,
Wired
August 14th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
HKEY>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Internet Settings>5.0>User Agent>Post Platform>Tablet PC 2.0
Deleting this worked after an IE restart.
Very cool.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I wrote on 8/14 (Post 18):
Tried Dave’s registry removal sugestion in Post #11. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work in my case
===============
Well, I got it to work with Dave’s suggestion and this gets stranger all the time. Here’s the order I did things: 1)Cleared file cache in IE. 2)Closed IE. 3)With IE closed, went to regedit and deleted the entry. 4)Invoked IE and NBC.com WORKS! 4)Rebooted - the previously deleted entry is back BUT… IE is still able to get to NBC.com. WEIRD! Thanks again for the registry deletion help as this solved the problem even if I don’t fully understand it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:06 am
Found a similiar situation with the website for Philadelphia’s two major newspapers - http://www.philly.com.
The URL directs me to the mobile version unless I remove the “Tablet PC 2.0″ entry. Remove the entry, clear the IE cache, retart it and try the URL again and now the normal site appears.
No such problem using Firefox so I’ll be keeping Firefox around to handle sites that behave this way on my Tablet.
BTW, after a re-boot of my Tablet, the problem re-appears so the removal is only good until the next reboot.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:40 am
I’m having this problem on my desktop pc running XP sp2 and IE 7.0….its super annoying…every other URL resolves. FF 3 doesn”t even work.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
what is the registration key, and where do i find it to delete it?!
thanks guys
October 18th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Thanks a lot. I was having the same problem on my Lenovo X61 Tablet with Vista Ultimate SP1 and it was very bizarre because google chrome could resolve it without any issues.
If you copy the following text below the line into a file called “RemoveUserAgent.reg” and save it, you can then double-click on the file and it will remove the key as described above. Don’t forget to clear the cache and restart IE like everyone else says.
———————————————–
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Post Platform]
“Tablet PC 2.0″=-
October 18th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I’ve been having the same issue on my vista ultimate desktop pc. I’ve tried the above steps, but it doesn’t resolve the issue. I assume be deleting the file cache you mean delete the temporary internet files. Deleted Tablet PC 2.0 from the registry location above and rebooted my pc. The registry entry has not returned, but I’m still unable to get to NBC.com on this pc. Any more ideas?
October 18th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I also have a Wacom Tablet for use on my Desktop PC. When installed, the tablet pc functionality is enabled within vista.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I’ve had this same problem too - I downloaded Google’s Chrome - the nbc site works like a charm - no problems whatsoever! I was finally able to catch up with all the episodes from hero. go google chrome!
October 30th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I designed a website for my friends ( http://trip1610am.com/ ) using Joomla with mootools and encountered this very same problem. I temporarily resolved the issue by sacrificing the videos and rotating images plugin but I would like to know if there’s a solution that do not involve disabling the plugins that we need. Is NBC running on joomla?
October 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am
I was having the same problem. I thought that it was the NBC site until I finally did a search and found this. I have a Dell PC with Vista SP 1 and Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I never in a million years would have imagined that the tablet was causing the problem. I did as suggested and removed the registry entry and voila! I have nbc.com again!! Thanks for posting this info, it was so helpful! Now I can watch my shows I have missed over the last two days because of my satellite being out. =0)
November 11th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I also have the same problem with NBC… but i also haven’t been able to access the pier1.com site for the store pier 1 imports. Does anyone else have the same problem with that site?
I’m going to try the google chrome thing. I have the hp tx 1000 tablet and windows vista.
November 27th, 2008 at 12:53 am
So this is clearly a problem with NBC and all those sites that do not correctly implement and test for the “Tablet PC 2.0″ user agent.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I am experiencing the nbc.com issue with I.E. 7/VISTA on an HP tx2000 Tablet PC. Is anyone aware of a “reasonable” solution?
Thanks