01-19-00 4:55 PM CST The last couple of weeks we have had some wierd things happen with AOL.

Version 5.0: (1) Consistently thrown off. (2) "WAOL VIOLATION" pops up when "saving web page", especially at TB2000. We are then thrown off. (3) Download time is at 55-123 KB (slow). (4) Constant messages indicating error with internet explorer (5.0).

Verson 4.0: (1) About half of the web pages fail to display. (2) Usually when the web page fails to display, a message comes up stating "you have chosen to download this page, save it to disk?" (We weren't trying to download anything.) (3) Download time real fast 5.43 kb(average).

Have reinstalled both versions, and IE 4.0 and 5.0. It is the same on both of our computers, and on our friends computer. Anyone else having the same or similar problems?

Thanks. Suzy

-- Suzy (HAYSandCO@aol.com), January 19, 2000

Answers

yes, exact same problems, and I'm so sick of it, I'm changing servers. I have IE5, don't know if it's AOL or IE 5, but most of the problems started with installation of aol5. Also, was connecting at 56,000 now at 26,400 at the best. argh!

-- b (nah@rathernot.com), January 19, 2000.

They kept booting me off, and blanking me out. Today I delete Aol 5.0 am now using 4.0. On the othe 5.0 they cut me off at the very least once every thirty minutes. I spend most of my time trying to get back on line. However on 4.0 I havent been booted but once so far, knock on my head, instead of wood, just as hard. I thought I was the only one having this sort of problem.

-- Notforlong (Fsur@aol.com), January 19, 2000.

I had problems with the 5.0 so I uninstalled it and reinstalled 4.0. I have heard that 5.0 does not work well with Windows 95, (that's what I have) not sure if that is true or not, but mine is working okay right now except that my cursor seems to disappear on occasion. I also updated my Windows 95 and that seemed to help.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 19, 2000.

My 4.0 crashed utterly a few days ago and I had to reinstall the program, losing my addresses, saved mail, and bookmarks. Why did it crash? Don't know.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 19, 2000.

I had to reinstall IE 5 due to problems.

I'm not on aol.

-- Johnny (jljtm@bellsouth.net), January 19, 2000.

Don't know if this is relevant, but what follows reached me from my ISP yesterday:

"(ISP) OPEN LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Jan 18, 2000 ======================================================================

Dear Valued Customer,

As the Founder and President I am writing to apologize for our system problems over the past 2 weeks. I would like to explain what these issues are, how we are fixing them, and how we will be crediting FREE time to all dialup Internet accounts.

We have been experiencing a number of system failures where part of our internet service may have been unavailable. Most of these failures have occurred in the evening and have affected dialup Internet customers. We have suffered more outages in the past 2 weeks the we have had in the past 2 years.

These outages can be attributed to two sources : 1) Our aggressive system upgrade schedule to handle increased customer demand; and, 2) malicious attacks on our network from the Internet. In a nutshell, we have been aggressively upgrading our network services to withstand recent attempts from Internet hackers. Our upgrades are designed to improve reliability of our system." ____________________

Needless to say, there have been many problems. Not y2k-related, of course.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.

Nope:

I am running aol v 4.x on a Mac. I either use the supplied software [IE4.01 or Netscape 4.7]. I haven't had any of those problems. The only problem I've had is the 56k access doesn't work some of the time; I've just defaulted to 33.3k. No other access problems at all. I don't use the newer, independent versions of IE; I've had too many problems with them. We have talked about them before on this forum.

Best wishes,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), January 19, 2000.

Prodigy v. 5.0 works a treat. Always have access at speeds around 46,667. Never a busy signal or kick-off. Never had AOL, but from all accounts, sounds like a nightmare.

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.

I have a Windows 98 machine with the first iteration of 98. My IE upgrade and 5.0 are working flawlessly. I did spend hours with Microsoft Y2K patches prior to rollover, and don't know whether or not there were other patches hidden in all the files.

Have you worked through their helpdesk maze? Some of the people you speak with real time are pretty good.

-- Nancy (wellsnl@aol.com), January 20, 2000.