Connection problems

I'm having trouble accessing the internet through certain applications, it seems. I can browse the web easily and use Thunderbird mail and IRC easily but I can't connect to the iTunes music store for the last two days and I can't connect to the server for SystemSuite antivirus updates either. I've also been having trouble connecting to AIM recently but that may be an issue with AIM Triton being in beta (since other people have the problem). I can connect using my old AIM. I can also get Spybot S+D updates. I tried turning my firewall off (ZoneAlarm) but there were still problems. Does anyone have any idea what could be the issue? Usually its firewall problems but ZoneAlarm doesnt seem to be causing it and I havent changed my DSL modem settings.

ok forget it, apparently my proxy program had changed my internet options to run everything through it (i forgot i enabled that) and since it wasnt running, my computer would get confused looping requests back through 127.0.0.1:4001 where nothing was waiting for it. At least thats what I assume. I turned that off in my internet option settings so it should work now, i had meant for it to be with my browser only (Firefox).

Doesn't Firefox have an option to run through a proxy? If the proxy program is causing you problems, you can always try that. Unless it requires a program to run through.

heh yeah, I know, thats what I did, I changed my firefox connection settings. Unfortuantly I ALSO had the program automatically change my regular connection settings (I only wanted firefox to run through the proxy). When my proxy was running (whether it was connected or disconnected to the proxy server) it didnt matter because all requests fed through 127.0.0.1:4001 would be handled by it but when the proxy application itself wasnt even running, certain programs would hit a dead end being echoed back to my system. I had the same problem with Firefox; i have to change my settings back to "Direct Connection To The Internet" if I'm not running the proxy application, but if I'm running it I can route all requests through the proxy app whether or not its actually connected to a proxy. It just had to do with all requests being sent to a dead end because there was nothing listening on the localhost port I was trying to loop the requests back to. So yeah its figured out, thanks :)