I have a neighbor that has a PC running Windows Vista and they use Earthlink.net as their email provider. They normally access their mail by going to Earthlink.net and then clicking on and logging onto mail. All of a sudden, for no reason that we can think of, They cannot go to Earthlink.net on their home computer but can access their Earthlink account from any other PC. When they try to access through Google or any other way, They get a screen that says Internet Explorer can't connect. They can go to any other site though.

First thing that comes to mind, is either a Parental control got entered, or their Mcaffee is restricting the site. I have rebooted with all Windows services disabled including Mcaffee so it isn't started, and it still will not permit access. To me, that should eliminate Mcaffee. I can't find any sign that a Parental control got entered. I would appreciate any other suggestions you might have, It's driving me crazy!

They are accessing the internet via a wireless home modem.

If this isn't the right answer, I hope someone corrects me.
I'm thinking two things. Either the security level of your browser got bumped up. (IE tools, / internet options / security to check,) Or you need to find the earthlink cookies and delete them.
That is what I'd look at, but I am by no means a computer expert.
Hope I helped...

Good suggestions! I have already checked security levels and they are all medium. Haven't done the cookies thing yet. Will do that this morning. Thank you.

Deleting cookies didn't help.

Can they go to any other site on that computer? If not, maybe the router needs to be reset, or the settings might be off. I am not familiar with wireless networking. With the quality of my neighbors, I opted to string 50' of cat cable to keep them out of my internet!

They can access any web site they have tried, but it is only the Earthlink web site they can't access. We are not talking about accessing their mail account... It is the web site itself. From there they normally click on web mail. I am still looking at restricted sites, parental controls etc.

Is there a help desk for Earthlink that you can call? I am out of ideas... Sorry!

They called Earthlink but was told that they would check in to it and get back to them within 48 hours. It has now been 5 days and no reply.

Call them again, if you get no satisfaction, politely ask to speak to a supervisor. Warn them that you will cancel service and go with (Whatever competitor is nearby). If that doesn't work, call back, (You'll get a different idiot,) and ask to be transferred to Retention. Than make the same threat again. I used to work in customer service for Sprint PCS, and I know how that game is played. They'll start tripping over themselves to help you.
If that doesn't work, then follow up on the threat, and when you talk to the different ISP, you can negotiate the price with them sometimes, and get a better or similar deal to what you are getting with Earthlink. Good luck!

Am going on vacation for a couple of weeks in the morning so I will "re-attack" this upon my return. Thanks for the help.

No problem! Enjoy the vacation!

We found that we had to reset the wireless Router. Strange how it would only block one site, but our local DSL rep figured it out... after their head office had sworn it wasn't their problem.

I know it has been awhile... but after reviewing my questions, I found that I had never provided an outcome solution. We found that by resetting the DSL Modem, it allowed them to access the Earthlink site. Don't know why it cured the problem but it did. Thanks to all for suggestions.

I know this post is a bit on the old side, but it might help someone in the future. What we found, was that we had to power down and reset the DSL modem. Everything worked fine. How a modem can work just fine on all but this one link is beyond me. I swear that is all we did.