Strange "could not connect" error

I'm getting "cannot connect" errors on some websites where Opera can't identify or open a remote website. For example it can access www.yahoo.com but login.yahoo.com is treated as "not found". Gmail has similar sometimes (https a part of the cause?). But other browsers (IE9, Firefox) are locating these sites fine.

To be clear, Opera isn't reporting failure to open a web page, it's saying it cannot find the site.

I've looked at obvious issues. Clean install with relevant settings unchanged, clean windows install, Opera cache emptied, tried "mask as", antivirus off. I just reinstalled my system (win 7 x64) and installed the latest 11.52 version. External issues (router/dns/system cache/antivirus) are excluded since other browsers on the same PC are trouble-free. And yet other browsers are consistently accessing pages that Opera is reporting it can't.


Any idea what might be up?

I believe I have a similar problem. Opera works fine when I'm logged on to my User account in Windows 7 but when I log onto my Administrator account, Opera cannot find anything. I get the "cannot find" error message regardless of the URL I try, including Opera itself.

Do you have Windows default settings, and Windows programs as default? For example do you have Opera as the default browser instead of IE? If so, I would suggest setting IE as default, including Outlook Express, etc, etc, and see if Opera continues to have the problem. Ever since I loaded back the Windows default program access in Windows XP, Opera has been loading web pages, including content fine. For some strange reason Windows doesn't like Opera being the default browser. I suggest you try it, and confirm it, so something can be done as it is needed to know the source of the problem.

Originally posted by denarii:

Do you have Windows default settings, and Windows programs as default? For example do you have Opera as the default browser instead of IE?

Seems unlikely to help, nonetheless I have changed all default programs to use IE and restarted Opera and exactly the same. Still fails, whether the URL is opened via another application or the URL bar

Potentially it could have a connection with https or certificate handling since the failing sites are https: yahoo login, android market, gmail login. But then mozilla addons and my router login page are fine, and they're both https. Certificates are set up identically for all browsers and the error isn't a cert error but a site not found error.

Originally posted by Stilezy:

Originally posted by denarii:

Do you have Windows default settings, and Windows programs as default? For example do you have Opera as the default browser instead of IE?

Seems unlikely to help, nonetheless I have changed all default programs to use IE and restarted Opera and exactly the same. Still fails, whether the URL is opened via another application or the URL bar

Potentially it could have a connection with https or certificate handling since the failing sites are https: yahoo login, android market, gmail login. But then mozilla addons and my router login page are fine, and they're both https. Certificates are set up identically for all browsers and the error isn't a cert error but a site not found error.

No, that's not what I meant. I did not mean to change your third party software to use IE. I meant you put your operating system to use IE, and Windows programs by default. On my computer, I have a menu called "Set Program Access and Defaults" where you can have custom default setting, manufacturers default settings, or Windows default settings. You go in there check on Windows default settings, put everything to Windows programs. Ever since I did this, the problem went away. Before it would get such errors frequently, not only full blown page errors, but a lot of the time certain images won't load unless I reloaded the entire web page. I don't have those kind of problems anymore, which use to occur a lot on both Opera 11.52, and Opera Next 12.00. I use both the latest versions of Opera official release, and test versions of Opera Next.

Windows needs IE to be default. You can assign other third party programs to Opera as default. Just try this simple test, when you get the error again, just open IE, no need to go to any website, then retry the web pages on Opera that has the errors by refreshing the tabs, Opera should work immediately with IE open at the same time with Opera open with the errors in mind. For some reason ISP has difficult time supplying bandwidth to a computer with a non-Windows default machine. If this test doesn't work, then you have problems that were different from mine. It's a work-around that works for me absolutely in removing the poor connection to websites, though granted Opera being default shouldn't make it perform poorly.

Originally posted by denarii:

No, that's not what I meant. I did not mean to change your third party software to use IE. I meant you put your operating system to use IE, and Windows programs by default....

I understood you before. On Windows 7 the same control panel is called "Default programs" and that's what I did, there are 2 places, you can set a default browser (what you describe) and the default handler for a file or protocol type. I set IE9 in both of these. I didn't think it would make a difference to set IE back as the default browser for the system, because I've never had a problem with Opera being the default and it's a setting that's only used when a 3rd party program opens a web link.

But i tried it and it made no difference.