Firefox will not load a single site on my computer, but Interner Explorer 7 will work just fine.

September 26, 2006 5:22 AM

I have an issue with Firefox as of late. Firefox will not load a single site on my computer, but Interner Explorer 7 will work just fine. I have a portable Firefox on my flash drive which loads just fine, but it does not make sense any the Firefox that is installed on my machine does not work.

I have an issue with Firefox as of late. Firefox will not load a single site on my computer, but Interner Explorer 7 will work just fine. I have a portable Firefox on my flash drive which loads just fine, but it does not make sense any the Firefox that is installed on my machine does not work.

I have scanned my system numerous times with Ewido, Ad-Aware, NOD32, AVG and Windows Defender, all of them showed no threats. Does anyone have any idea what it could be or maybe what tech forums I should go to and ask for more help?

Thank you in advance!

posted by cheero to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Have your proxy settings recently changed? Is it possible that IE has picked up on these proxy settings and Firefox hasn't?
posted by antifuse at 5:40 AM on September 26, 2006

Do you have any plugins/addons/extensions on your copy of Firefox on the computer? Have you tried removing them all or making a fresh profile?
posted by bcwinters at 6:05 AM on September 26, 2006

Your profile may be corrupted. go to start>run and type "firefox -p". Create a new profile and see if it works. If so, you can copy over your bookmarks and such from your old profile folder to the new folder and continue using the new profile.
posted by chrisamiller at 6:05 AM on September 26, 2006

Sorry to interrupt, but I was about to post exactly the same question --- it's happening on my partner's computer. No error message, just a blank white page. IE works fine. The other computers on our network are fine.

I checked the proxy settings, and they're okay (direct connection) and I tried upgrading to the latest Firefox. No luck. After reading bcwinters and chrisamiller's suggestion, I created a new profile. Still nothing...
posted by robcorr at 6:49 AM on September 26, 2006

Profile manipulation instructions are here. Note that your profile folder is not a subfolder of your Firefox program folder; uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox has no effect at all on your (possibly corrupted) profile(s).
posted by flabdablet at 6:52 AM on September 26, 2006

cheero - I asked a similar question a couple months ago. Not trying to call you out or anything, but you might find some helpful info there, although I only had the problem with one site.

I don't have the problem anymore, and I have no idea why - I gave up trying and then one day, bam! Everything was fine.
posted by AlisonM at 6:58 AM on September 26, 2006

Flabdablet: A new profile didn't fix it for me.

Following AlisonM's link to the old thread, someone suggested viewing the Page Info to see what's going on. It said the page was "about:blank". I tried typing "about:blank" in the address bar, and it didn't give the usual settings page. Does this information help anyone narrow it down?
posted by robcorr at 7:11 AM on September 26, 2006

robcorr: about:blank is supposed to be a blank page; the settings page is about:config.

What happens when you type http://www.google.com/ into the address bar and then view Page Info?
posted by flabdablet at 7:15 AM on September 26, 2006

Tools>Options>Connection Settings

Make sure Direct connection is checked (or that your proxy settings are fine).

If that doesn't work, backup your bookmarks first. Then, uninstall firefox, manually remove your old profiles from Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles. Reinstall the newest version of firefox and see what happens
posted by chrisamiller at 7:21 AM on September 26, 2006

flabdablet: duh. Sorry. Yeah, when I visit any site, including Google, the Page Info shows "about:blank".

chrisamiller: I'll try a clean install tomorrow.
posted by robcorr at 7:44 AM on September 26, 2006

Everyone, thank you for your help. chrisamiller's solution worked! I love Firefox so much but this is the third time I had an issue with their profile bs crap. I truly hope Mozilla works to fix this problem.
posted by cheero at 12:07 PM on September 26, 2006

Do you frequently install/uninstall lots of extensions and themes? Poorly written extensions can cause a lot of problems sometimes.

FWIW, Firefox 2.0 should be out very soon. It's in beta already.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:30 PM on September 26, 2006

I do not install/uninstall many. The only ones I have are flashblock, adblock plus and google preview.

Hopefully 2.0 will be more stable. Thanks again for your help!
posted by cheero at 3:56 PM on September 26, 2006

cheero, which version of Adblock Plus are you using? I've found Wladimir Palant's versions (0.6.x, 0.7.x) quite unstable; lots of browser crashes. Michael McDonald's 0.5.x series has always worked much better for me. I currently have 0.5.11.4, along with Adblock Filterset.G Updater 0.3.0.4, and they work very nicely together.
posted by flabdablet at 8:34 PM on September 26, 2006