IE8 buttons stop working


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Ok, I got this weird problem, upgraded from Vista 32bit to win7 32bit, using IE8 but after some time (dunno how long, it's random it seems) the buttons stop working (back, forward, refresh) And a good number of items are grayed out on the menus (page, safety, tools).

Any ideas? Anyone else have this problem? I just restarted IE8 in no add-on mode, but I don't think this was due to an add-on or some thing else like a toolbar, I don't have any toolbars installed.

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I have the same issue with IE8 under 7. I usually find that there are stray iexplore.exe process in task manager that will not close down when the GUI is closed. I use standby quite a bit and without any actual empirical investigation I conect the two dots; however it's no excuse and hopefully MS are aware of it by now.

Ok one more solution and i promise i wont bother you anymore :p

Try this:

Start menu ---> Control Panel ---> Uninstall a program ---> Turn Windows features on or off ----> Uncheck Internet Explorer 8 and click Ok.

Restart the computer

Turn back on Internet on.

I hope this helps

I have the same issue with IE8 under 7. I usually find that there are stray iexplore.exe process in task manager that will not close down when the GUI is closed. I use standby quite a bit and without any actual empirical investigation I conect the two dots; however it's no excuse and hopefully MS are aware of it by now.

I noticed those as well when this first started up, I closed them manually through task manager and restarted IE8, though, that screwed up my last seasion so I figured one or more of thsoe that are left are basically what IE8 uses to keep your season alive if you close IE8 by mistake or the whole thing crashes.

Ok one more solution and i promise i wont bother you anymore :p

Try this:

Start menu ---> Control Panel ---> Uninstall a program ---> Turn Windows features on or off ----> Uncheck Internet Explorer 8 and click Ok.

Restart the computer

Turn back on Internet on.

I hope this helps

I'll give that a try if this no-addon mode also has the same problem. I also don't feel like restarting now either. heh.

  • 2 weeks later...

Well after trying more stuff, even turning IE8 off and on through win7's settings, the problem still happens. AFter a bit of time they just stop working for no reason.

Anyone else have this problem at all?

Well, nothing seems to help, it still happens. I'm guessing this is some weird bug that you can get when you do a upgrade instead of a clean install maybe?

I have no idea what's doing it either.

Run a HijackThis log and make sure you don't have any BHOs installed that you don't know about... If you're not sure how to read the log you can post it here in a message and everyone can look at it for you. :)

Done, only had two BHOs installed, one that seems to have been a leftover from something I must have deleted or the upgrade process missed, anyways, got rid of it. Now to see if that helped, only time will tell.

Done, only had two BHOs installed, one that seems to have been a leftover from something I must have deleted or the upgrade process missed, anyways, got rid of it. Now to see if that helped, only time will tell.

same thing happened to me; i uninstalled DOM view, which caused the browser buttons to stop working after a while. after i clean the registry up a bit, it is working fine now (3 days and counting)

Done, only had two BHOs installed, one that seems to have been a leftover from something I must have deleted or the upgrade process missed, anyways, got rid of it. Now to see if that helped, only time will tell.

Let me know if you figure it out. My dad has the same problem with IE under Windows 7.

Let me know if you figure it out. My dad has the same problem with IE under Windows 7.

That seems to have fixed it, so far since then it's been running fine. So I guess it was that leftover BHO or something. Do a scan on your dads win7 system and see if you have any BHOs listed as "unknown" etc, that was the one that showed up for me and I got rid of it.

So far so good, unless this changes then I'll post again.

Looks like I spoke too soon, it's stopped working again. I can't for the life of me figure out why, and it seems others have had this problem as well. Doing a google search will show you what I mean.

Anyways, I'm guessing this is some odd bug related to the upgrade process probably. Though I think even those who did a clean install are having the problem as well. Bummer.

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