problem when signing in / checking out on half.com -- connection problem?

[chunkstyle]

hi guys

i've been having a problem lately with half.com & think it may be something having to do with my internet connection (dialup, wal-mart connect (administered by aol, i believe)). i'm trying to buy a cd there, but when i try to go to their checkout page, i get that "page currently unavailable" notice. this has been happening since late last week. i get the same message when i try to sign into the site with my username & password.

i have norton's internet security 2005 installed, and have tried disabling it when in half.com, figuring that it might be part of the problem (i keep getting all these dialog boxes asking me about the security certificates from half.com when i'm there -- don't understand what that's all about). disabling it, however, seems to make no difference in how half.com functions for me. and those security cert notices come up whether norton's disabled or not, as well.

other sites seem fine, although a bit slow in loading.

any ideas? i've already got that wal mart connect/aol sp2 fix installed, if it matters here.

thanks!

[zelira]

What browser are you using? Have you cleared the cache in your browser? How much space on your harddrive is reserved for cache. It might just be loading the page from cache. Try to clear the cache and set the cache size to 0mb or 1mb. That will force it to load the page from their server instead of your harddrive

Also what other programs besides Norton's internet security are you running at the time? Zonealarm?

[glc]

Are you using the AOL browser or a 3rd party/IE? AOL runs everything through their cache, you have to bypass it, I think you used to be able to do that by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the Refresh icon. You have to accept the security certificates.

[chunkstyle]

hi. thanks for the replies thus far.

zelira -- i generally just use the default browser that wal-mart connect software installed. sometimes, when that browser has messed up in the past, i've used internet explorer as a backup. in this case, they're both doing the same thing. the other computer in the house works just fine on half.com, so it's something on just this pc. just to be sure i'm understanding the cache right, is it also referred to as the "temporary internet files" folder? i've always assumed this to be the case. if that is in fact the cache, i clear it every week or two. the size is currently set at about 3500 mb -- very near the low end on the slider button, but not the 1 mb you suggested as a test.

i'm not running zone alarm. used to, but had a lot of trouble with it.

glc -- i'll try the refresh/control key thing.

could this have something to do with cookies? i think a while back, i may have changed that setting where you specify what level of cookies you'll accept (after hearing some scary stuff about tracking cookies/spyware).

i don't remember if i definitely did this or not, but may have. if so, would it be relevant to this issue?

thanks!