Tuesday, October 24, 2006

"Address Bar [Url] is currently unavailable" bug in IE7

I just ran across the following weird behavior in Internet Explorer 7:
  • Open a new IE7 window.
  • Fairly quickly (before the homepage begins loading), paste a valid URL into the address bar and press enter.
  • An error message appears: Caption "Address bar", text "[Url] is currently unavailable."

The error doesn't occur if I wait a second or two after the windows opens before navigating to the new URL.

This may seem like a fairly contrived set of steps to take, but I wasn't hunting for IE7 bugs when I ran across this; I was just using the browser normally. It's a series of steps I do fairly frequently to quickly bring up a URL in a new IE window via keyboard: copy an URL to the clipboard, open the new IE window (Winkey | down arrow | Enter -- IE is the top item in my Windows XP Start menu), Alt+d to set the focus to the address bar in the new IE7 window, Ctrl+v to paste the URL, enter to navigate to the URL.

I have to think this behavior of IE7 is a bug -- at least, it doesn't seem like something that should be classified as "working as intended" or "by design"! And I never saw this behavior in several years of using IE6.

17 comments:

  1. Jon,
    I am facing the same problem, however, regardless whether the page is completely loaded or not, the error occurs.
    For sure, this is one more bug in Internet Explorer, that's why I can't stop using my Firefox 2.0, almost "bugless".
    What I am doing today to minimize this problem is to open a new tab. The problem seems to disappear only in the new tabs. The first one I simply don't use.

    []
    Biga

    ReplyDelete
  2. I noticed that too. In my case I have the Links bar showing. At first, the Links bar isn't displayed. During this time I get that "is currenly unavailable" message to any URL. After a couple seconds the Links bar appears and I can browse normally. Sux to be an early adopter.

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  3. Yes, this looks to be a bug of IE7 not exactly a bug but wait for a sec or 2 so that the IE loads completely and then type in the address.. it works fine.

    Seems microsoft need to work on the performance thread of IE7.

    -debpal

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  4. I'm having the same issue only much worse. No matter what URL gets typed in IE7, tabs or otherwise, it get the Address Bar [url] is currently unavailable error. Firefox works fine. I even tried reseting the browser to the original factory configuration but no success. (Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced (tab) -> Reset (button))

    Has anyone figured out what's causing this? A possible fix?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Same problem here sadly... Tried installing IE8 Beta to no avail. Running Vista 64, other than that a plain fresh build. Still searching...

    ReplyDelete
  6. this started happening to ie7 on my windows xp sp2 machine after installing Vuze (formerly known as Azuerus). In fact the enterire web surfing experince would randomly hesitate. Researching the issue brought me to faq.vuze.com page that has a drop down category titled "conenctivity issues" that talked about problems with particular routers being problematic, many popular models at that, which have automated configuration (upnp) and i believe that Vuze configured some ports to be forwarded and has generated so much traffic even when it is shut down i still have this problem. There is some direction on how to disable the upnp and manually configure things, but you probably also have to rest your router to factory defaults and reconfigure it for you isp to manke things right again.

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  7. Would appreciate anyone coming with a solution here. In my case not only I get the same problem, I can not type in a URL ever.

    Debjani
    p.s. I have switched to Firefox

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good to see that many face the same problem. I was afraid someone had embedded a virus in my IE7.Good to know I aint alone out there!

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  9. I opened windows update from the start menu and that "unlocked" the problem...

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  10. some smart windows update has checkde "Use proxy" in my IE7 Connection settings - and I was getting the same behaviour as you guys describe.

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  11. I tried this way and it worked
    Run CMD > regsvr32 shdocvw.dll

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Loc, :) Worked great!

      Delete
  12. Thanks Loc, don't know why that was unregistered but worked great

    ReplyDelete
  13. I also face the same problem..do i need to delete this --Run CMD > regsvr32 shdocvw.dll?

    ReplyDelete
  14. I have already run the cmd and type regsvr32 shdocvw.dll,and suddenly the popup appear said that, DLLRegister server in shdocvw.dll failed.Return code was :0x8002801c

    help!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. After running regsvr32 shdocvw.dll getting following error:
    "The Module shdocvw.dll was loaded but the entry point DllRegisterServer was not found.
    Make sure that shdocvw.dll is valid or ocx file and then try again"...

    Help..!!!!!
    Windows Sucks...!!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. QUICK FIX:
    1. click Tools -> Internet Options
    2. In Home Page box, type in any website (ex: www.buffalo.edu)
    3. Click Apply button and close the window.
    4. Re-open IE, the popup will disappear.

    ReplyDelete

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