Blank IE8 / PageTest.exe

[sludin]

I have set up a couple of hosted WPT instances on raw machines and VMs and have a vexing problem where sometimes I cannot get the IE instance launched by urlBlast.exe to connect and get content. I have tried both PageTest.exe and the default browser (IE8) and both have the same symptoms. The url:blank page loads and then the actual page load times out on 'connecting'. I added debug=1 to my urlblast.ini and fired up Dbgview.exe to look at the often helpful debug statements there but nothing is jumping out.

I should add that this in on XP, with server and agent on the same machine, and using both the old WPT and the most recent ( 2.1.1 ) version.

Ideas?