Website problems - Sainsburys and Tescos

Jamez_3

I've been having trouble accessing the Sainsburys and Tescos websites for online shopping recently.

Ever since I started using my new Dell desktop (thanks to the Quick! Grab It While You Can board! ) the access to these sites has been frustratingly slow.

Also on the Sainsburys site, once a page has eventually loaded, half the time when I click on an item it doesn't get added to the shopping basket and there's a little "Error on page" message in the bottom left hand corner of the Internet Explorer window.

Now seeing as my new computer is much faster than my knackered old laptop and I'm on broadband, I'm curious as to why certain sites are so slow. Especially as most other sites load up straight away (as you'd expect).

I've tried disabling pop-up blockers and firewall, but that doesn't seem to have any effect. I've also searched a few other sites for the answer, but with no joy.

Anyone have any clues as to how to get these sites back to normal? I'd appreciate any tips, otherwise my days of online shopping are over!

peter_the_piper

I would think the first place to look would be in the Tools>options empty cookies and temp files, could also be an idea to empty history as well.
In the same area -it might be that your setting for the temop files might be too low. Try increasing the size.
Have you a quick cleaner like CCleaner from http://www.ccleaner.com/update/?v=1.14.072
gets rid of a load of junk which could be clogging up the works.
Peter.
P.S. Don't run without the firewall, it may be slower but without it you will grind to a halt.

Jamez_3

Thanks for that, will give CCleaner a go.

Also, I've just downloaded Mozilla Firefox to try instead of Internet Explorer. It seems quite good so far and has done the trick on Tesco.com. Every page loads up quickly and as it should now. Just need to sort out Sainsburys now....

Oh and don't worry, the firewall is up and running! Just turned it off temporarily to see if it had any effect!

Cheers

TheLydons

Also check if you are up to date with Microsoft XP service packs. The current one is Service Pack 2.

You can check by going to https://www.microsoft.com.

(Pah, personally hate promoting Microsoft but hey!)

Please be warned though, installation of SS2 may disrupt settings, so it is always advisable to set up a system restore point before installing any program, so that you can simply roll back, should a problem arise.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/ is another site that I would recommend for regular pc maintenance. Good for watching spyware/adware/malware.

Jamez_3

Thanks, but Windows is all up to date with Service Pack 2.

I think the problem was something specific to Internet Explorer as I've just done a shop at Tesco.com browsing with Firefox and there were no problems at all.

Guess I'll just end up surfing some sites with IE and others with Firefox. Not a problem....

Thanks for the help.

Gonna check out pcpitstop now, although use Ad-Aware, Spybot, etc, so hoping I'm ok!

CarlyA

Hiya, i had exactly the same problems so contacted Sainsbury's. They sent me the following and it worked a treat :
We believe the problems you have been experiencing may be due to your ISP using what are known as transparent web caches. This is a technique often employed by ISP's to provide a performance increase in their service; unfortunately this has a negative effect on the performance of our site due to its dynamic content. We have found that setting your Internet connection to run through what is known as a proxy server which in essence redirects the flow of data to and from your computer to avoid these web caches solves the problem.

First, clear your temporary internet files (check box that says delete off-line content)

Re-start your machine

To use a proxy server:

For PC and IE5.5 and IE 6:
1. (Connect to the Internet and) open Internet Explorer
2. On the IE toolbar, click tools and then click Internet options
3. In the Internet options window, select the connections tab
4. Click the LAN settings button
5. Click advanced settings and then in the HTTP Proxy address to use textbox, type one of the proxy addresses from below and in the Port textbox type 8080 or 3128. Please make sure that the option 'use the same proxy server for all protocols' is ticked.
6. Click ok
7. In the Local Area Network (LAN) settings window in the section labelled Proxy Server, select the option 'Use a proxy server for your LAN...'
8. Click ok twice
9. Close IE and re-start

Proxy addresses
80.3.64.5
62.253.128.5
62.252.32.5
62.254.96.4
62.252.0.4

Phew! Sorry, really long but i'm sure it will solve the problems you were having.

Hope to help.

Carly