HMTech.ca

Sep 11 2008

“Error on Page” in Internet Explorer 7

Filed under: Technology, Troubleshooting by: brennan

There’s nothing quite as annoying as when you constantly see “Error on Page” in the status bar while surfing the ‘net with Internet Explorer. I’m talking about what you see in the image below:

When you see “Error on Page” in the status bar, it usually means that there’s been a scripting error in the code for the site. Sometimes that’s unavoidable because certain web site programmers will upload buggy code. But if you are seeing the error message at nearly every website you go to, it’s a safe bet that something’s wrong with your computer settings.

To solve this annoyance, I reset the security settings in Internet Explorer.

To do this yourself, click “Tools” in Internet Explorer and select “Internet Options”. Click the “Security” tab and then press the “Default Level” button. Click the “Apply” button and then “OK” (this takes you to “medium-high” in IE7). Once you’ve made the change, restart Internet Explorer.

Restore Security Defaults in Internet Explorer

If resetting the security settings doesn’t solve the problem, try the following:

1. Delete temporary Internet files, history, cookies, and form data

*** Note: If you delete your cookies you will have to re-enter username/password information into web services like Yahoo and Amazon. You may also lose information like stock lists (such as at The Globe and Mail). Performing this step will also delete any saved passwords you have in Internet Explorer.

In Internet Explorer, click “Tools”, select “Internet Options” and press the “Delete” button under “Browsing History”.

Delete browsing history to remove corrupt files

Click “Delete All” in the window that pops up. After the delete has completed, restart Internet Explorer and try again.

If you’re having trouble deleting temporary internet files this way, you can try deleting them manually. Under “Browsing History”, click the “Settings” button instead of the “Delete” button. Under Settings, click “View Files”. This will open an explorer window showing all the temporary internet files. Select all the files (Ctrl + A) and delete them.

Manually Delete the Temporary Internet Files

2. Remove and re-install Internet Explorer

This can be tricky because much of Internet Explorer is integrated into the Windows operating system. If you are using Internet Explorer 6, you can try running the IEFix utility before doing a re-install:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/IEFIX.htm

You can also go into the control panel, into add/remove programs, click on the “Add/Remove Windows Components” button, and uncheck Internet Explorer. Restart the computer, go back into add/remove programs, and re-check Internet Explorer. You’ll want to make sure you have a Windows XP CD, as Windows may ask you for it when you go to re-install Internet Explorer.