> Does anyone know what a 'socket notification sink' is? If you do, would you happen to know how to get them fixed? On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 2,3, and 4, 2000, I have been experiencing multiple 'socket notification sink' errors that occur and always force restarting, getting worse and worse as time progressed it seems. Right now, 6:00 on April 4th, It's progressed to the stage that I can barely stay online, and if I do it's very slow and unstable. I have no idea what's casuing the errors, but they still come no matter which of the 3 ISP's I use. Any information on this would be helpful....
>
> -Ka"I need more regular computer plumbing"z!

First, you may want check out your system with the latest version of an anti-viral program like Norton's. Your problems may be caused by a trojan, or some other ilk, that got triggered by April Fool's Day according to your time/datestamp.

Secondly, what the error message means. A Socket is a software object that connects whatever application you're using to a network (like the Internet). For example, Netscape Communicator 4.7 and IE 5 (your web browser) sends and receives TCP/IP messages by opening a socket, and basically reading and writing data to and from the socket. A Notification Sink is... um, well... well I think that must be an observed-event notification, given by the Receiver Object (i.e., the Sink) that tells the Initiator Event (i.e., the Source) that the sent-data was actually received by the Sink (I think that's right... *whew*). So, to make the long story short, a "Socket Notification Sink" is a wait/end task error, meaning _something_ on your computer is waiting for a signal that says "the socket's been closed, it's ok to go ahead now and shutdown the OS, dagnabit!"

Anyway I've never gotten that error myself. Still, there's a standard way to handle freezes and stuff that won't shutdown in any Windows PC version. You give your keyboard the 3-fingered salute. In other words, press together and hold down the Control-Alt-Delete keys, and wait until the Task Menu comes up. It shows a list of the currently open Tasks (programs) in memory. Sometimes you will see a Task that reports itself as "(Not Responding)", so just click on that Task, and tell the OS to "End Task" to shut that program down. Be patient and give it some time to terminate the process, like 20 seconds. Even if you can't see an application task that is frozen in the menu, click on whatever you think is likely to have caused the Socket Error -- like your web browser, probably. Always try selecting "End Task" before choosing "Shut Down"... You've more likely to succeed with the first one.

If that doesn't work in the long run: flush your cache, Use "Add/Remove Programs" in Control Panel to uninstall your web browser from the System Registry, then *delete* the actual Netscape or Iexplorer directory, and reinstall your web browser. *Delete* it -- don't just reinstall on top of it! And make sure to save your web links in Bookmark.htm or Favorites first, before you start. You may also want to do the same uninstall/reinstall bit with your WinSock driver.

I hope that helps. If someone has a better idea with what's causing this "Socket Notification Sink" error -- like, perhaps, simple bad code in NS Comm 4.02 or whatnot -- well, go for it 'cause I'm just plain out of ideas.

Wolfspirit