"The remote device or resource is not accepting the connection" error

Hi all,

Well this is a strange one. I was wondering why my Windows 10 was not updating - it hasn't been, for a few months - and why Cortana was insisting I was offline, when I am not, when I discovered via the Network Troubleshooter that, for Microsoft services, "The remote device or resource is not accepting the connection". Every other web site is fine.

This also means that I am logging into Windows 10 with the local account, as the machine cannot connect to Microsoft to authenticate the remote account.

The machine is a Lenovo PC with i7 processor and 8GB of RAM. It connects via Intel wireless. The internet works perfectly in all browsers (Edge, Chrome, IE). I can open microsoft.com without problems - it seems to be only Microsoft services such as Cortana, Windows Update and account authentication that are having problems connecting.

There is no proxy set. A lot of internet pages recommend turning the proxy off as the first stage in resolving this problem, but my machine has never used a proxy.

I have tried resetting IE, resetting Winsock, renewing my IP (all IP settings examined with ipconfig look fine) and a few other recommendations I have found on the net, but the problem persists.

Does anybody have any idea how I can resolve this issue? I'm running out of ideas......

Many thanks

Andy

What is the contents of the host file and what antivirus do you use?

Hi Samuria,

Many thanks for your reply! It is much appreciated.

Here are the contents of my hosts file - strangely, it looks empty.

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.## This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.## This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one# space.## Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.## For example:## 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.# 127.0.0.1 localhost# ::1 localhost


As for antivirus, when the problem started, I was just using Windows Defender. I am now using AVG but have also tried Avast! to see if I could resolve the problem, but nothing has helped.

Many thanks!

Andy