I posted this on alt.computer and was advised to post here on the chance that someone has heard of my problem.
I have a problem that apparently nobody else has ever had and when I try to explain it, it just makes people think I'm making it up or stupid. This group is my last resort so here goes:
Sometimes random links/urls won't show up for me when someone posts, and they won't show up even in 3 different browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape). It does this for no reason.
There will just be a big blank space where the link was posted and even when I go to "view source" (ctrl + U) the url is not there. It's like the link/url never existed, but everyone else can see it. This happened to me yesterday and I tried rebooting my computer, shutting down my firewall, closing and restarting my browser. I evem tried to close down my entire security system (Norton), but I couldn't figure out how.
Example: Say it was
And when I do ctrl+U, and go to where it is supposed to be, it will still say "I went to and looked it up".
And the thing is, it only happens randomly. This link I can't see is on a webpage and everything else on the webpage will show up except that.
This time, a webpage link was posted on a message forum and I initially thought the original poster had left the url out, but when I went to reply and quoted her post, the url showed up in the text box but not in my post. It quickly became clear that I am the ONLY person on the forum who can't see this url. I copied the url out of the text box and pasted it into my browser and got a blank page. I also figured out that if I remove http AND www and post the url or post the whole thing as text-only, I can get the url to show up but it just will not show up in link form, and for absolutely no reason at all. Also, if I am able to get the actual url and copy and paste in the browser, I get a completely blank page.
And yesterday on the forum I made actual screen caps of my monitor and posted them on the forum, with BIG RED ARROWS drawn on them pointing out the black spaces and where the link was supposed to be and how there was nothing there and yet the few responses I got were "the link is in so-and-so thread" and people linking directly to the post saying that I need to look there, making it clear that they either did not bother reading my post or didn't understand it. I know where the url is, it just doesn't show up for me no matter what I do! I actually spelled it out for them with pictures and narration and they still don't get it!
I also tried e-mailing the url to myself to see if it will show up. It showed up on my ISP mail (Outlook Express) but not Gmail. And I've tried posting it on other forums and it doesn't show up there either, but everyone else can see it.
This is happening more and more, it is driving me crazy, and I'm getting sick and tired of being treated like an imbecile who doesn't really have a problem so I hope someone can help me with this.
Thanks in advance.
-- Let the dog out to e-mail me.