I cannot sign into my Charter mail box. It just keeps returning to the log-in screen. What can I do?

Question

I have a mail account at mail.charter.net (Charter Cable). I used to be able to sign in and read my e-mail. Now, I just keep getting put back to the sign-in screen. I've tried everything obvious: yes, I am using the right username and password. I deleted cookies and temporary internet files. I rebooted. I tried both IE and Firefox. I put the site in my Trusted Zone. I know the site is not down because I can sign in from another computer nearby on the same home network. I turned off both my firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware while I was testing. I am up-to-date on MS patches and on Java runtime. I ran several different virus and spyware scans and came up with nothing significant. My computer is 2 years old and runs Win XP Home Edition. I don't download my mail to a local mail client like Outlook Express. I prefer to leave it on the web server where I can get to it from any PC.

Answer 1

Given everything you have tried, there must be a software conflict on our PC. I had the same problem and discovered that the Google Web Accelerator program that I used was causing the conflict. After I deactivated it, voila, I could access my web mail again.

I have heard that this type of program can interfere with web mail and some online forms. I have also heard that this type of program works best with slow connections (e.g., dial-up), and can actually slow down a faster connection (e.g., broadband). Are you using dial-up?

If that doesn't work, try turning off other software you are running, one at a time, to isolate the problem.