<snip> I should have mentioned this, sorry. Users see a "Page could not be displayed error 401" Or in other words an "401 Unauthorized". It doesn't make any sense to me. The rules don't point to that and access.log shows nothing for that hit. <snip> That to me suggests that there is a problem with your authentication program. Check the logs of the authentication program to see if it returns any errors. Perhaps it gets tied up with too many request for authentication at once? Is the error generated from squid, or is it the browser that's returning the error message? If it's the browser, try using another one, say FireFox, and see if it gives the same problems? Nolan