Secure connection failed on winxp? [closed]

Question

I experience this strange behavior on WinXP, I could use IE to access any https sites, but I cannot use FireFox to access anything https, all of a sudden.

I thought it is FireFox, then my Visual Studio stopped being able to access https connections.

The message I got is "Secure Connection Failed" in FireFox. This is my work computer, so I haven't restarted for a few days. It was all working fine, just all of a sudden this started happening. Remember IE still working fine with https sites.

I googled without luck on what might be the cause, could someone please help on how to fix this?

Thank you so much,

Ray.

Answer 1

Well, it's Windows.

1) Reboot , and if that fails 2) reinstall

Snide comments out of my system, you might consider running Firefox with a test profile. From the Run command:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -ProfileManager

and define a new, clean, profile. This would separate configuration from corruption issue.

Next, try a stand-alone configuration of Firefox, such as a USB installable version, to see if your firefox installation has become corrupted.

Answer 2

Perhaps there is a firewall on your network blocking outgoing https unless it goes through a proxy? You might need to configure the proxy in your browser. Firefox doesn't use the same proxy settings as IE, I am not sure about visual studio.

Try using telnet to connect to port 443 to a https server and see if the connection is allowed. If you cannot connect through telnet, then something is broken about your network. If you can connect with telnet, then something is broken in your browser.

Answer 3

See if IE is using a proxy, ie. your company has it setup that way. Also, if ur computer has some sort of rootkit/spyware, it could cause similar behavior. Though I haven't seen one that messed with port 443, yet.