Safari and FireFox hosed on Yahoo, Flickr, Corporate Website (telecommuter)

Question

Good evening,
My wife has been experiencing a setback with Tiger since 10.4.7. She cannot login to her Yahoo groups, her Flickr account, or her corporate website for work. She can get access but going deeper than one level simply times out, both my Thinkpads work just fine. But, in the interest of checking everything I upgraded our network by installing a new, different brand, PPPoE router. She has the problem over wireless or wired connections. If that was not enough, both our other Minis are experiencing the same issue. One PPC, one Intel Mini.
We are both well acquainted with Macs having used them since 7.5.1. We have covered all the normal bases. I am a systems administrator having worked with Macs, Unix, Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It ain't our network.
We searched the forums for answers and some of them even worked. here is the rundown of what we have done, and what the results were.
Create a new user account to isolate the problem.
Result = Problem solved, no issues with Yahoo or Flickr
Tossed Safari cookies
Tossed Safari prefs com.apple.safari.plist
Fixed permissions
Result = Problem solved for original user.
Wait one week, problem returned. Went through the above procedure and everything worked again.
Wait another week, problem returned. Went through the above procedure and the problem did not go away. Tried the second account we created to isolate the problem and now the second account has the same issue. Installed FireFox, no difference, problem persists.
We are seriously considering wiping the HardDrive and reinstalling the original shipped OS, then turning off SoftWare Updates, but that seems to much like a "Windows" solution to us.
I am out of options, does anyone have a permanent solution to this problem?
Thanks,
DAve
Message was edited by: yellowhousejake

Answer 1

Ok, here is where we stand. We tried all manner of updates, including combo patches. Problem still exists, on all three Mac Minis. My work laptop (XP Pro) has no issue.
2 Mac Minis(PPC) at 10.4.11 Safari 3.0.14
1 Mac Mini (Intel) at 10.4.11 Safari 3.0.14
Our network has been replaced, yes, replaced. New LinkSys PPOE router, new switches. All the Macs have been added to a 100mb full duplex lan. No airport.
We went so far as to reformat and reinstall Tiger from the original DVDs on all three Minis. With no software other than the install DVDs the problem returned.
At this point we allowed the Minis to complete a software update, hopefully to get only the newest updates.
No joy. You can go to maps.yahoo.com, login as a yahoo user, and attempting to logout will causes the pages to fail to load. Spinning cursor ****. Mapquest will fail sooner. Yahoo groups, Flickr, Facebook, etc. All hosed.
Answers to Bee;
- We tried the 10.4.10, problem returned, that was when we did a full format and reinstall.
- The new users works, for a while. I suspect a cron job is the culprit, is there anything modifing perms (expecialy cookie permissions) on a schedule?
- Firewall? no. There is nothing in the Linksys that should block access, I had my wife leave her Mac firewall OFF. My XP Pro machine uses the same network. We are all on DHCP. I had two servers in here last week, another work laptop, and three VMWare guests all running and having no issues accessing the internet.
I hesitate to go to an Apple store, if they tell me an upgrade to 10.5 will fix the problem I will spaz out. I am also not too keen on paying to fix an issue I see as not a user created problem.
I need direction, advice, a drink. The Macs are all but unusable for internet access at this point, if a website requires a login it's a crapshoot whether it will work or not. My wife has artwork and several classes on Flickr and Yahoo, right now she can't do anything.
Help.