Vista - IE7 will not cache pages or store cookies

Hi, have done a quick search to see if this has been raised before and it doesn't appear so, so here goes...

The other day gmail started complaining that my cache was full so I cleared it and increased the size to 1024MB. This did not stop the error so I looked a little deeper and the issue appears to be that IE7 is not caching anything at all - at least, the "Temporary Internet Files" folder is empty.

This leads me to consider a permissions problem, more so as I have moved the Temp Internet folder to another partition. I have set the permissions on the drive and parent folder to give "everyone" full control. This has not resolved the problem.

Some files have appeared which I think have come from Windows Media Player but websites are not showing up, not even cookies. rss.xml files have also shown up after a reboot from sidebar news gadget (even though it's not running?!).

Is there another user/security principal that requires permission access to the drive/folder?

These symptoms exist on both the 32bit and 64bit versions of IE. I am viewing unencrypted pages even though caching of encrypted pages is enabled. "Check for newer versions of stored pages" is set to automatic.

Thanks for any words of wisdom.

Marv.

p.s. also having trouble reaching this site on my vista machine (having to use XP laptop), I get a DNS error even though the name resolves fine with PING and it won't show this site when using IP address either, is this issue related?

Hi Marvin,

Im looking into the issue...In the meantime you can try IE8 and see if it automatically corrects the issue...

Internet Explorer 8 Beta: Home Page

Try it out and let me know

(The site has been having some server issues this week, we have resolved the error causing the site not to load)

For the gmail cache problem issue, it is required to clear the cache 3 to 4 times and then reboot.
Another issue proposed by Microsoft is to clear the cache, move theTemporary Internet Files folder to another location, delete the old folder, and then (if you want to) move your Temporary Internet Files folder back to the original location:

Hi Sid.
These steps suggested by google are the ones I followed including the MS suggestion because I believed this was the problem. I now believe that the cache full message was displayed because I moved the Temp Internet Files folder to a different partition and IE will no longer write to the cache for anything hence gmail thinking it was full.

I am certain IE is not writing to the cache as it will no longer store cookies for sites. For example, I first used this site with the original temp files location and after moving the location the remember me function worked (because the cookies were copied to the new location) but since deleting the cookies Vistax64.com will not remember me. Does that make sense? essentially the temp internet file folder is empty except for files put there by media player and sidebar RSS.

I have tried giving explicit "full control" privileges to several authentication principals like Authenticated users, System, IUSR in addition to "everyone"

It might be easy to replicate should anyone feel inclined, in the mean time my workaround is to use FireFox as IE is now unusable. I will try moving the folder to different locations to see what happens when I have more time but ultimately I do want the temporary files on a partition of their own - reason being that they are a significant cause of file fragmentation so I keep them out of the way of my data.

Cheers.

Marv.

Well this just got more confusing.
I have created another user account (non-admin; one mentioned above is admin btw) and even though the temp files are in the default (C: Drive) location IE7 is still not writing anything to the cache there either. So, I guess it's not directly related to moving the location of the browser cache.
Not much has been installed to date but google toolbar springs to mind so will uninstall that (I know they say it doesn't work on 64bit but it did appear to work on the 32bit browser).
I'll let you know if that does anything.
Guess system restore is next...

Cheers,

Marv.

Hi Marv

Just to make sure, you did use the "Move Folder" option in the "Internet Options/General tab/Browsing History-Settings" to move the Temp Internet Files folder so the pointers were updated to the new location didn't you?

I have also found very strange behavior with Cookies in Vista myself. In XP, if I needed to reinstall I would copy the cookies folder over to storage and then put it back into the new installation so that I didn't have to go thru all the hassle to log into my sites all over again. That worked perfectly every time in XP, but for some reason it has NEVER worked in Vista yet and I had to do a number of reinstalls when beta testing Comodo's V3 Firewall and Eset's ESS.
I could not figure out why either...I would go to one of my sites and it would make me login again, but if I looked in the Cookies folder the proper cookie was there, it just wasn't getting recognized anymore it seems.
Fortunately tho, copying my favorite programs App Data/Roaming folder and putting it back after reinstalling Vista DOES keep my user settings for my fave programs intact. If I had to do that after all the tmes I had to reinstall during the first 7 months while beta testing, I would've gone bonkers.
Beta testing security software on a new OS with growing pains still, can cause a few corrupted installs