[SOLVED] Weird web page / browser issue.

[Metanis]

Client running Win10-1703 reported Google looking flaky. When she tries to access plain 'ol www.google.com she gets a screen of what looks like executable code. maps.google.com is the same way although other Google properties like Docs work normally. All other web sites I tried render normally. Temporarily I've re-configured her browser start pages to load Bing and DuckDuckGo instead of Google while I try to research this further. I spent about 3 hours on-site trying various fixes without a solution.

The behavior is the same in each of the latest version of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Chrome was completely uninstalled and reinstalled. Firefox had never existed on the machine prior to today and looks the same.

My first clue was that Internet Explorer 11 does render the page completely normally! So I started to assume a transport issue for example with TLS 1.x so I ensured Windows updates were done and they were!

From there I reset all network components using commands like netsh int ip reset. No change.
Uninstalled her McAfee Web Adviser. No change.
Reinstalled her K9 Web Protection. No change.
Power cycled her Frontier-supplied DSL gateway. No change.
Re-installed the WLAN drivers. No change.

Here's a picture of what she sees when we click on the New tab button in Chrome which should open the default Google search page. Remember, it looks identical in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge but looks normal in IE 11.

Any thoughts?

 

[red12049]

Client running Win10-1703 reported Google looking flaky. When she tries to access plain 'ol www.google.com she gets a screen of what looks like executable code. maps.google.com is the same way although other Google properties like Docs work normally. All other web sites I tried render normally. Temporarily I've re-configured her browser start pages to load Bing and DuckDuckGo instead of Google while I try to research this further. I spent about 3 hours on-site trying various fixes without a solution.

The behavior is the same in each of the latest version of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Chrome was completely uninstalled and reinstalled. Firefox had never existed on the machine prior to today and looks the same.

My first clue was that Internet Explorer 11 does render the page completely normally! So I started to assume a transport issue for example with TLS 1.x so I ensured Windows updates were done and they were!

From there I reset all network components using commands like netsh int ip reset. No change.
Uninstalled her McAfee Web Adviser. No change.
Reinstalled her K9 Web Protection. No change.
Power cycled her Frontier-supplied DSL gateway. No change.
Re-installed the WLAN drivers. No change.

Here's a picture of what she sees when we click on the New tab button in Chrome which should open the default Google search page. Remember, it looks identical in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge but looks normal in IE 11.

Any thoughts?

View attachment 7805 View attachment 7805

Look for other web, virus, or malware "protection." Just had one like this and it was some little known, crappy web protection.

Rick

 

[Metanis]

Yeah, I knew when I was writing this that I forgot something major that I had done. I installed the latest version of Malwarebytes and it found nothing. First time I've ever scanned a system that didn't even find a tracking cookie.

 

[Tech Savvy]

Reset the HOST file(check it first to make sure their arent any necessary ones, PDs use it a lot). Check the DNS settings with ipconfig /all. Also, use more than just Malwarebytes.

 

[Markverhyden]

Did you try a new profile? Reset the browsers? New private tab? Safe mode with networking? What utilities did you run? CCCleaner? AIO? Power cycle the router and modem? You laptop on the EU's network?

I've seen that before, including multiple browsers but do not remember exactly what I did to correct the issue.

 

[Mick]

I think you can run Firefox and Chrome in 'safe mode' - might be worth a try.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Corrupted font stack?

 

[Tech Savvy]

Corrupted font stack?

^ this too, check the fonts and encoding settings

 

[Metanis]

Tried everything imaginable to fix it, but in the end I had to create a new user profile. Thanks everyone for the suggestions!

 

[Metanis]

Turns out it wasn't the user profile but a web filtering software package called Qustodio that was causing the issue. When I recreated the user profile it disabled Qustodio. Later when the customer put in their credentials to re-enable Qustodio the problem came back. They opened a trouble ticket with Qustodio, were informed to download and install the latest version, and the problem now appears to be completely resolved.

 

[red12049]

Turns out it wasn't the user profile but a web filtering software package called Qustodio that was causing the issue. When I recreated the user profile it disabled Qustodio. Later when the customer put in their credentials to re-enable Qustodio the problem came back. They opened a trouble ticket with Qustodio, were informed to download and install the latest version, and the problem now appears to be completely resolved.

As I said a few posts above...

https://www.technibble.com/forums/bookmarks/?type=post&id=609296

Look for other web, virus, or malware "protection." Just had one like this and it was some little known, crappy web protection.

Rick