My brower keeps timing out when submitting forms!
October 20, 2009 6:20 AM   Subscribe

My laptop browser(s) won't allow me to submit forms any more.

I have a MacBook running Boot Camp, and I alternate between the Windows and Mac sides depending on what program I'm using and what I'm working on. About two weeks ago, the Windows side stopped allowing me to submit forms (I first noticed the problem when trying to leave AskMeFi comments - the page simply times out and won't allow me to preview.)

I use Firefox, and have reinstalled that to no avail, as well as trying various other browsers. They all have the same issue. So it's not the browser, but I don't know what it is, and Google hasn't helped me much (too many words to search for, which means that the search returns far too much noise).

On the Mac side, things seem a bit slower than usual (although I could be imagining this) but forms work just fine. I'm submitting this using Firefox on the Mac side.

Any ideas as to what this could be? I'm not particularly tech savvy so forgive me if this turns out to be an easy fix.

I know I could sort it out by doing a reinstall but don't really fancy the idea given that I just did one a few months ago, so I'm saving that as a last resort.
posted by ask me please to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)
 
Can you explain what you mean by the page timing out? If I'm reading this right, you can fill in a form but after you click submit the responding page is getting stuck and loads perpetually. Is that correct? If that's the case you might have a problem with the Windows Firewall or some other misconfiguration that's causing problems with POST requests. For comparison, can you perform a search using the form on the Google home page? That form uses the GET method, which I suspect you're not having trouble with.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 7:15 AM on October 20, 2009


Response by poster: That's right, I can fill in forms, but after clicking submit the responding page gets stuck. Sorry for being unclear.

I have no problems with the Google form or with my Gmail account, they work just as well as ever.

Thanks for the starting point - while I have vaguely heard of POST and GET, I would never have been able to make the connection myself.
posted by ask me please at 8:05 AM on October 20, 2009


Besides it being a POST vs. GET issue, it could also have something to do with HTTPS.

(POST requests send the form data in the HTTP headers, which you normally don't see. GET requests embed the form data in the address of the next page, e.g. when you do a Google search.)

Did you submit this question from the computer that is affected by the problem? Are the affected pages secure pages?
posted by Nameless at 2:26 PM on October 22, 2009


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