The problem
Last week I installed some updates for windows and internet explorer. After installing I tried to open a form page, but instead of opening forms my internet explorer disappeared without any warning.
I retried this a few times, also in other environments but the problem occurs every time. So it must be a local problem, and it should be related to the updates. The simplest thing to do was uninstall the updates, but I tried to fix the problem without uninstalling the updates. The updates are not there without a reason.
Analyzing
To resolve the problem I first had to find out whether I could find an error message or not. I could remember that in the java console sometimes an error message is displayed.
So before I opened a forms page, I opened the java console (in internet explorer, go to tools and select java console). After the Java console was ‘up’ I opened the form page.
Indeed this time I get an error message (See screenshot below).
On Google I looked for this error. I get many possible reasons for it:
– uninstall C++ related products
– uninstall Google toolbar
– there’s a lack of service pack
Solution
I hadn’t any C++ related products installed. The same counts for the Google toolbar. But I found out that I hadn’t installed a service pack at all.
So I installed Service Pack 3, it took me about 2 hours, but after this installation I was able to open forms pages again.
A colleague of me had the same problem, for him uninstalling Google toolbar was the solution.
As you see, there are even more solutions!
I had similar problems (reported earlier upon on this weblog) when I installed Oracle’s (!) DBA Toolbar… Uninstalling it immediately after, solved my problems as well…
This can also be caused by older versions of Google Desktop Search. Seems like newer versions don’t have this problem anymore