IE6 SP1 locks up eventually when using a vendors site

[Padrino]

My company connects to a major company's (I'll call them Acme Inc.) online
catalog - that's how we place orders with them. Most of my users are on
Windows NT 4 Workstation 4 with SP6a, or XP with SP1, all using IE6 with SP1.
A few weekends ago Acme made changes to their internet server, with a major
upgrade to Apache, and adding TomCat (replacing an Oracle connector) to
connect to Oracle. They also moved to a Linux machine, from Solaris (UNIX).
Following that weekend, our users with the above configuration starting
having major problems when connected to Acme. While adding items (usually
after 2 or 3) to the Acme shopping cart, IE6 would lock up. If the user got
as far as submitting the order, IE would lock up when the "checkout" button
was clicked.
The cursor was not locked, and would turn into a hand when hovering over a
hyperlink. There were no error messages of any kind, and the "back" button
worked, but at this point the user was hosed in terms of placing an order.
We have a small percentage of users with XP SP2/IE6 SP2 (which we're rolling
out slowly), and none of them have the problem, so we are looking at SP1 as
the issue.
Acme claims that no other customer is having this problem. One Acme techie
said that adding items to their cart executes Javascript and causes the page
to reload, so Javascript issues should be looked into. Acme is doing some
testing on their end, including building an XP SP1 machine, to see if they
can replicate the problem.
Acme also tried to monitor their web server while we connected and froze,
but they didn't see the offending transaction - apparently our browser locked
up without sending them any data.
While Acme is researching the issues, does anyone have any suggestions on
how to determine what's happening on the browser when it locks up? (By the
way, upgrading the older configurations to SP2 is unfortunately not an
option). I looked at the IE6 SP1 settings, and I don't see anything specific
to Javascipt.
One last note - we use the online catalogs for other companies, and we have
had no problems with them, just Acme, so we know it's something they did.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

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Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

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After furious head scratching, Padrino asked:

| My company connects to a major company's (I'll call them Acme Inc.)
| online catalog - that's how we place orders with them. Most of my
| users are on Windows NT 4 Workstation 4 with SP6a, or XP with SP1,
| all using IE6 with SP1. A few weekends ago Acme made changes to their
| internet server, with a major upgrade to Apache, and adding TomCat
| (replacing an Oracle connector) to connect to Oracle. They also moved
| to a Linux machine, from Solaris (UNIX). Following that weekend, our
| users with the above configuration starting having major problems
| when connected to Acme. While adding items (usually after 2 or 3) to
| the Acme shopping cart, IE6 would lock up. If the user got as far as
| submitting the order, IE would lock up when the "checkout" button was
| clicked.
| The cursor was not locked, and would turn into a hand when hovering
| over a hyperlink. There were no error messages of any kind, and the
| "back" button worked, but at this point the user was hosed in terms
| of placing an order. We have a small percentage of users with XP
| SP2/IE6 SP2 (which we're rolling out slowly), and none of them have
| the problem, so we are looking at SP1 as the issue.
| Acme claims that no other customer is having this problem. One Acme
| techie said that adding items to their cart executes Javascript and
| causes the page to reload, so Javascript issues should be looked
| into. Acme is doing some testing on their end, including building an
| XP SP1 machine, to see if they can replicate the problem.
| Acme also tried to monitor their web server while we connected and
| froze, but they didn't see the offending transaction - apparently our
| browser locked up without sending them any data.
| While Acme is researching the issues, does anyone have any
| suggestions on how to determine what's happening on the browser when
| it locks up? (By the way, upgrading the older configurations to SP2
| is unfortunately not an option). I looked at the IE6 SP1 settings,
| and I don't see anything specific to Javascipt.
| One last note - we use the online catalogs for other companies, and
| we have had no problems with them, just Acme, so we know it's
| something they did. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!