My local webserver (apache) on my laptop is successfully serving up a content management system that looks fine in both IE9 and Firefox.
However, when attempting to demo it without an internet connection, the elements were misaligned and looked terrible in IE9. Still, they appeared okay in Firefox. I couldn't figure out what was wrong even after restoring a known good build. The only difference I noticed was the lack of a wireless or wired connection at the location.
Back at home to diagnose the issue, the pages rendered correctly with internet access. By process of elimination, I found that switching off my wireless connection caused the screwed-up rendering to occur again. With numerous framework-generated divs and CSS classes, pinpointing the issue isn't easy. Here's my main question:
Why would IE9 stop rendering a locally served page properly simply by shutting off my internet connection?