What would cause IE to just stop rendering pages?

I was reading email, clicked on a link, and then that was it.  Nothing at all came up in IE (IE9, on a Windows 7 Ultimate box.  It is a 64-bit version of Windows 7, but I typically run IE using the 32-bit version.)  From that point forward IE didn't work at all to render anything.  I thought at first I had lost Internet connectivity from my router, or my ISP.  I brought up a command window and ping my router, then I started pinging some websites.  It all worked fine.  I then sent my Hotmail account from my ISP email address, and Windows Messager right away told me that I got the email, although I couldn't see it because IE wasn't working.  The only thing that I could think of doing was rebooting my system.  That worked (obviously), but I don't really like doing that if I don't have to.  What caused this to happen and how do I prevent it?

My first guess would be that you have a misbehaving internet security application.

-Josh

@JoshRoss:You mean, my anti-virus software?

Hmmm  makes me wonder what that link was, what it pointed to etc....

possibly some kind of exploit that tried to put a trojan or other malware on your system ???

might have partly worked (thus hosing your session) but not all the way, then the re-boot ither dumped it or let it finish installing ??

clicking on email links is a classic way to get infected or scammed.

I've seen that happen too, but usually closing the browser and reopening fixes it.

I've also seen issues where Chrome simply stops responding to Javascript. It makes browsing Facebook very annoying.

I think IE can just get corrupt, and there's no way to fix it. I'm using Chrome at home now becuase every site I opened in IE9 would just half-freeze...then IE asks if it can recover webpage. Uninstall/reinstall didn't do anything. I can guess only a full reinstall of Windows can repair IE9.

It might be user profile corruption ... I've encountered similar problems and that was the cause.  Try logging in with a new user account and see if you still have the issue.

You can do a reset of IE9: Open Internet Option -> tab Advanced -> Button Reset.

Don't think the reset does much of anything...

@ZippyV: Thank you for this information.

I find this all very interesting. What do people do to cause IE to become corrupt like this? I've done some horrible "oh the humanity" type stuff to various computers over the years and IE keeps plugging along. On the contrary it's Firefox and Chrome that I've managed to make inoperable.

@gogonow: Facebook stops responding to clicks in Chrome almost daily for me. IE9 works every time.

One of the reason is IE evil BC. When in doubt, it uses BC all they way back to IE6 instead of trying to use IE9. I couldn't use SkyDrive drag&drop upload until I specifically set it to IE9. Just irritating.