Case Study: INET_E_DOWNLOAD_FAILURE

When accessing https://google.com or https://abc.xyz, both Internet Explorer and Edge on Windows 10 fail to connect and display:

Can't reach this page.
Make sure the address https://google.com is correct.
More information: The connection to the site was reset.
Error Code: INET_E_DOWNLOAD_FAILURE

Scenario:

• This occurs on all user profiles in the system.

• Originally noticed on Windows 10 1709 but persists after upgrade to Windows 10 1803.

• The affected system does not use any special networking settings (DHCP to the server/router as usual).

• There are no additional entries in hosts.

• There is no malware.

• Other machines on the same network work correctly.

• Firefox works correctly.

• Other https sites work correctly.

• Accessing http://google.com correctly redirects to https://google.com.

We do not currently have a solution for this problem, however we suspect it is related to the CA used to sign these websites, as they are both Google.