Ask Me Help Desk - No eBay access from 11pm to 5am GMT

Hi - I have just registered as I am having no luck elsewhere.

I have over the past few days run check after check on over a dozen sophisticated items of software for Adware, Spybots, CW, 3 lots for Trojan Horses, installed a Firewall, run my Norton 2004, added Windows Updates, sent HijackThis logs to on-line experts, changed my browser from IE to Mozilla (BIG mistake - I hate it!) and everything has come up as completely clear (the occasional SpyBot or Adware cookie, but I delete them - nothing worse).

Since Xmas I have no access to eBay from about 11pm GMT (can be a few minutes either side) until 5am the next morning. It will half download then freeze.

I've had no luck with any expert anywhere, eBay give me rubbish advice that does nothing and my ISP say it's nothing to do with them.

Pretty much all other sites work fine, but eBay - ANY eBay - freezes on me, but it is fine during the day. It is like a lunar module losing earth contact as it goes around the dark side of the moon.

Does anyone know what is happening, why, and how I can get my life back to normal?

Thanks!

PHILIP

As an extra piece of information to my enquiry below, though I don't know how it got in or activated, I think I might have found what is happening to my PC from browsing on Google - though I still have no idea how to remove it.

When I key in eBay, it will put the right wanted eBay page at the top of the screen in the toolbar. However, at the bottom of the screen it says 'include.ebaystatic.com' - and I am reading this is some nasty software that disables eBay.

Would this help me get it sorted?

PHILIP

Read your problem,and decided to check out other forums.Now this might not be what your looking for,so help from others would be appreciated as well.My answer refers to the Ebay toolbar.Not your browser toolbar of course.Go to http:forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jsp?forum=87&thread=410242030&modified=1092 417169292
and read the answer.A long winded url I know,but the link is valid.
If this is'nt what you want,apologies, :confused:

Good luck,
Nez.

Can you give us a bit more information.

Did you get the same error when using Mozilla? That would help tell us whether it was something effecting IE. And was it Mozilla you used or Firefox?
When you say the page freezes do you mean it just stops loading or the whole browser locks up?
Did you say you got to Ebay through a toolbar or are you just typing in "www.ebay.com" into the address field?
Are you accessing Ebay at home or are you at a school, at work etc.? Are you using some kind of network to get your internet access - an administrator might be stopping your access.
Finally you said it's been since Xmas. Any idea what you have installed since Xmas? If you have Windows XP you could try using System Restore to put your PC back to a restore point before Xmas. This will tell you if it's something that's been installed since Xmas causing the problem.

My thoughts is that it isn't spyware. I would have thought that a bit of malicous software would be programmed to stop access from timeA to timeB. It wouldn't kick in "around 11". It would be same time, everyday, because it's programmed like that. But that is just my thoughts though - could be rubbish :P

Finally, the Ebaystatic thing. At first that did make me think "Uh,oh" but it's fine. Ebay from my PC loads through the same site. Plus the whois looks fine too. It's quite common for companies to use multiple servers for heavy load sites like this. This will just be one of those many servers.

Hi - thanks for replying.

I have gone through this error with helper after helper again and again - thankfully, I had everything available on one message board so I will paste it in here to save doing it all again!

Firstly, I'll answer your specific questions - but they won't help!

1) Yep, I had the same problem when I switched brosers from IE.
2) I don't know what the difference is between Mozilla and Firefox (I thought it was one and the same!) but I was running Firefox.
3) It is difficult to say if it stops loading or the browser locks up as to my ignorant mind it is the same thing! The page will eventually go blank, it will say at the bottom it is opening the page and the download bar won't finish. It'll just slow to a dead-stop midway (but I cover that below).
4) I try all sorts of way to get into it. I have a shortcut on my desktop, I sometimes key it in directly, I sometimes try all sorts of international eBays via the Google lists - you know what you do when you get desperate!
5) I use it at home. It's a PC, not connected to anyone else in any way.
6) I have only installed software since Xmas since long after the problem began, and the software I have downloaded has been security software to stop it happening.
7) I don't run XP - I'm on 98SE.

Right, so that's that particular one...

Now here's the full story cut & pasted from elsewhere :

"This has been ongoing for some time and I have had experts (loads of them) on all sorts of forums advising me. I was away for a month and when I got back in late December I suddenly found I had no eBay access from 11pm to 5am every night, though everything else was fine. I could sometimes get to the home page after about 5 minutes of download time, the sign in page came and went very quickly, then My eBay would not come up - the download bar would progress a couple of pixels every 5 seconds, and would then freeze halfway. This was for every eBay site worldwide, though nothing else seemed to be affected during this. The next morning, all would be fine again. It always came on at 11pm.

I am on broadband with Freeserve/Wanadoo in the UK and run Windows 98SE.

I have Norton Antivirus 2004 which is totally up to date and detects no viruses or anything even quarantined as far as I'm aware. I wasn't running a Firewall though - I thought I had always had one, but hadn't. I now use Kendio - but a lot of the time have no idea what I should or shouldn't be letting in - masses of numbers mean nothing to me! And what's a 'packet' that random numbers keep wanting to send me (which I turn down)?

I downloaded HijackThis and sent the results to ComputerCops who confirmed my system was totally clear on a basic scan and a huge detailed one.

I downloaded and used SpyBot S&D, Ad-Aware, a2, Tau-3, Spyblaster and CWShredder. Though S&D & Ad-Aware always come up with a few things every time I run them (I have been told they are harmless), everything is ultimately supposedly clear.

I was getting nowhere. In the end, on advice, I switched from IE to Mozilla Firefox as my browser. It was horrible and made no difference. I hated it so reset to IE after about 4 days.

I then discovered that although it would say (for example) 'http://www.ebay.co.uk' on the top toolbar when I tried to get into eBay, it would say 'include.ebaystatic.com' at the bottom of the screen. So I put this into Google and discovered this is some site with phishing connections.

A link showed me how to put that site, with a load of others, in my Restriced Zone and change my settings to restore access. I did it a couple of nights ago, and up to half past midnight full access to eBay was restored. I thought that was the end of the matter. But then it started slowing down again.

The next night I had virtually no access again. Unlike previously, I can eventually get to a page, but it will take about 10 minutes to come in. The data LED on my modem doesn't light up during it - just as if it is trying to get a square peg into a round hole.

So that's pretty much it! "

Now, I have been looking at my Firewall activity when it slows down (it is happening for the couple of minutes here and there during the day and has now - it seems - started to affect Amazon as well) and I may well seem really stupid here, but when it slows to a stop I get a load of rogue(?) IE areas opening up and connecting OUT that just as quickly can disappear again. It is just masses of numbers (I have written a lot of them down before they disappear again). I only see this by logging into my Firewall window. I have no idea what I should or should not accept with the alerts from my Firewall I'm afraid! It is all just a mass of numbers!

I was away from home for a month and one of my e-mails when I got back was NETSKY, which Norton alerted and destroyed (though the problems started afterwards). I've since been sent MYDOOM as well, which likewise was detected and removed - neither show up in any scan, so I don't think they are part of this issue.

I always get a few criticals on Ad-Aware scans (which come in pairs - one of them a cookie. They start with philip@ - which is the start of my e-mail address) and I always come up with DSO Exploit on my SpyBot S&D.

I would really appreciate your advice - no one seems to be able to clear it up and it is such an odd thing, affecting only one or two sites periodically.

Thanks,
PHILIP

Quote:

Originally Posted by Actorguide

I then discovered that although it would say (for example) 'http://www.ebay.co.uk' on the top toolbar when I tried to get into eBay, it would say 'include.ebaystatic.com' at the bottom of the screen. So I put this into Google and discovered this is some site with phishing connections.

No... include.ebaystatic.com is legitimate.

Quote:

Now, I have been looking at my Firewall activity when it slows down (it is happening for the couple of minutes here and there during the day and has now - it seems - started to affect Amazon as well) and I may well seem really stupid here, but when it slows to a stop I get a load of rogue(?) IE areas opening up and connecting OUT that just as quickly can disappear again. It is just masses of numbers (I have written a lot of them down before they disappear again). I only see this by logging into my Firewall window. I have no idea what I should or should not accept with the alerts from my Firewall I'm afraid! It is all just a mass of numbers!

Okay... I'm not sure exactly how your firewall organizes logs, but it should look something like this:

Code:

DROP SRC IP=192.168.0.100 DST IP=290.306.4.2 SRC PORT=4000 DST PORT=80

This displays the source and destination IP addresses. Don't worry about them for now.
Just post the source and destination ports your firewall logs.

I'm not sure what could be causing this. If something was flooding your connection, it would slow down everything, not just one site. Perhaps this is the effect of some incredibly poorly-programmed time-based parental control software?

If you _really_ want to get to the bottom of this, give this a try:
Go to http://www.knoppix.net/ and download Knoppix.
Burn it to a CD (double-click the downloaded ISO file, you want to burn the contents of the ISO to disc, not the ISO file itself).
Leave the CD in your computer, and reboot.
Knoppix will boot. Try and connect to e-bay again...

Hello folks.

Thanks for all your help and kindness.

I just thought it would be polite to let you know I have had the PC entirely rebuilt (well, C drive anyway) and life is now back to normal! Nothing made any difference and it was getting too much hassle so we thankfully used all the software that had been Ghosted onto E Drive.

Best wishes
PHILIP