weather widget not connecting

garbanzo said:

i finally solved this problem.

control panel - internet options - connections tab - LAN settings
then uncheck automatically detect settings

now they work just fine. it turned out IE wasn't connecting either, but i never knew since i use firefox!

Worked a charm!

I had this problem too,no sidebar gadgets would connect to the internet,I tried all of the previous suggestions and none of them worked for me.
The problem with sidebar gadgets not connecting also happens if internet explorer is in the "work offline" mode. open internet explorer,goto tools and untick work offline. Problem sorted, for me anyway.

batfink said:

I had this problem too,no sidebar gadgets would connect to the internet,I tried all of the previous suggestions and none of them worked for me.
The problem with sidebar gadgets not connecting also happens if internet explorer is in the "work offline" mode. open internet explorer,goto tools and untick work offline. Problem sorted, for me anyway.

yes, yes, yes!
The gadgets are affected by the IE network settings , it seems.

Thank you NeofromOz!!!! I tried every doggoned suggestion here (and some from elsewhere!) and could NOT get my Yahoo weather gadget to work. (The widget showed up -- but at midnight in low 50s, the "current conditions" showed 86 and sunny!)

This solved it!
"I just changed internet explorer to work online and it started to work!"

(I too only use Firefox -- except to check webpages I've designed against MSIE... which I did a few days ago.) Thanks!

The solution for Gadgets "Service Not Available" which worked for me today is here:
Weather gadget not working- Cannot connect to service - Microsoft Community

A) Copy the following files and folder from a Windows 7 machine with a working stock weather gadget to a flash drive or network file share:

1. %localappdata%\affected user\local\microsoft\windows\windows live\services\cache\config.xml (just copy the file)

2. %localappdata%\affected user\local\microsoft\windows\windows sidebar\cache\168522d5-1082-4df2-b2f6-9185c31f9472 (copy entire folder which should contain one or more xml files)

3. %localappdata%\affected user\local\microsoft\windows\windows sidebar\settings.ini (just copy the file)


B) Paste (OVERWRITING if necessary) the copied folder and files into the same locations on the machine whose stock weather gadget is not working.


C) Drag the weather gadget back out and this time it should be working

This fixed both my Dad's Weather and Stock gadget.

The weather one wasn't working for me either but apparently microsoft disabled all gadgets with a recent security update (Microsoft Security Advisory (2719662): Vulnerabilities in Gadgets Could Allow Remote Code Execution). Took them until now to get around to it since that was written last year but i think i can do without them if it means a safer system. I ran that fixit solution to permanently disable them, they were only really a novelty anyway.

My gadgets are still working. Did you try the fix I just posted above that worked for my Dad?

No, i thought i might as well disable them with that fix it solution in the link if there's a potential vulnerability.