For the past month or so I have been having trouble with Gmail, where it is either slow to load (20-30 seconds) or more often doesn't load at all. Instead the application times out and I get the "Connection interrupted" box, and the invitation to try again. I have learned not to bother trying again. If it fails once, it will not work. Maybe an hour later I will try it and it will load normally.

The failure seems (not sure of this) to happen more often right after powering up the computer. However, I was just in my Gmail 10 minutes ago, and now cannot get back in. I go to Gmail, the URL at the bottom left of the screen says "Connected to www.google.com..."; the blue progress bar at the bottom right of the screen quickly goes halfway, then stops until the "Connection interrupted" box appears. If I naively click on the "Retry" button, the progress bar clears and then just stays empty.

It is not a problem with connect speed at my end. When Gmail doesn't start, I can go to the empeg bbs and it comes up almost instantly (< 1 second) and the Google home page (my default internet start page) always comes right up. Only the Gmail app fails to run.

I imagine that if other people were having this kind of trouble I'd have heard about it. Right?

Windows Vista, SP2, Firefox 3.6.8.

tanstaafl.