If you’ve ever gone to the Microsoft Update Catalog and gotten the error code mentioned in the subject line of this post, there’s a way to fix it. Symptoms include a very brief display of the page you’re looking for, (be it the main page or a page with results from a clickable link you’ve been provided) followed by a page displaying the above-mentioned error code.
All you need to do is to enable first party cookies and what’s called “DOM storage” within your choice of browser.
For IE, it’s simply a matter of checking a box on the Advanced tab of the Internet options dialog box that’s labeled “Enable DOM Storage”. This is listed under the “Security” heading of that tab. The Security heading has a little image of a locked padlock next to it. Once the setting is enabled, click “Apply” at the bottom of the Internet options dialog box, and then click on the “Privacy” tab. Here, if you’ve got custom settings, make sure they’re set to accept first party cookies, and then click OK at the bottom of the dialog box and you’re done. If you have a slider for the cookie settings instead, you need to set it to “Low” to have the page work, and then click OK at the bottom of the dialog box, and you’re all set.
For those with Firefox, you’ll need to get into the about:config page of the browser. Once there, use the search box under the browser’s address bar to search for the setting “dom.storage.enabled”. Make sure the value is set to “true”. If not, just double click it to change it to “true”. Now go to the about:preferences#privacy page (just copy and paste the text here into the browser’s address bar) and check your cookie settings to make sure Firefox is set to accept first party cookies. That’s it, you’re done!
IE and Firefox are the two browsers I have experience with, so anyone with Chrome experience please feel free to post instructions for that browser. Same goes for those who may use Opera. I do realize that other browsers may not have a way to change the setting, or that by default it may not need changing.
Hope this helps, what with Microsoft’s move to the Update Catalog for stand-alone security patches. The procedure described here is what has worked for me so that I can now use the Update Catalog site after having experienced the frustrating error code mentioned above.
