Firefox - Domain Name Mismatch

November 27, 2007 9:34 AM

Help with Firefox "Domain Name Mismatch" I am getting constant pop-up messages warning of a "Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch". The url is for a website I use at work and is legitimate. They were bought by a new company and changed their domain name.

My issue however is that I get this message constantly even though I am not going to their URL at all. It popped up while I was typing this and this is the only site I am on right now. In fact I only use IE when using their site (which is an online project management ASP). I tried looking through the settings in firefox to see what certificates it knew of and the list was blank. I thought maybe they have a cookie on my system and deleted those too.. still the pop up message.

Anyone have any ideas as to where on my system there could be something that is trying to communicate with their site that would make it pop up only in firefox? There is an extension you can download to get rid of these messages but I want to know why its happening even when I am not connected to their website.

Thanks in advance for your help

posted by postergeist to technology (10 comments total)

Is this for an SSL (https:) url?
posted by rhizome at 10:09 AM on November 27, 2007

No
posted by postergeist at 10:13 AM on November 27, 2007

I googled for your problem and found this:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/internet/firefox/fix-security-error-domain-name-mismatch-warning-in-firefox/

The interesting part to me was that it said that this extension they're talking about works for both Firefox and Thunderbird. Are you by chance running Thunderbird, and can it be an e-mail checking thing, or something? (The weird part about your problem bring that Firefox isn't even running. I assume you've already restarted and/or killed any Firefox processes.)
posted by iguanapolitico at 10:25 AM on November 27, 2007

No actually firefox is running, but the website is not. In other words, the message pops up when I am NOT visiting the website and on any other website.
posted by postergeist at 11:27 AM on November 27, 2007

Thanks for the link. Again though, I don't want the message to just disappear by downloading an extension. I want to know why something is communicating with their web server even though I am not using their site. Kind of suspect and shady.
posted by postergeist at 11:28 AM on November 27, 2007

What other extensions do you have installed? I can see something like one of the bookmark checker extensions running through your bookmarks (possibly/probably including your work site) in the background and bringing up the dialog.
posted by anaelith at 11:32 AM on November 27, 2007

Only 1 extension which is stumbleupon. I also thought that may be it as well, though I checked through all my bookmarks and have nothing for that URL.
posted by postergeist at 12:02 PM on November 27, 2007

Do you have that URL bookmarked by Firefox? If so, it's possible that Firefox is looking for an update (if it's a "live bookmark") or maybe a favicon.
posted by helios at 12:08 PM on November 27, 2007

Also - this is kind of far fetched - but next time you see the dialog you could do a view-source of the page you're on, and make sure that the URL isn't referenced within. It's possible your company has some proxy server that is automatically rewriting pages to replace ads or something like that.
posted by helios at 12:10 PM on November 27, 2007

In order of steps to take. Take the next step if the previous step didnt work.

1. Uninstall all extensions.

2. Create a new profile for firefox.

3. Delete old profile and reinstall. (back up your bookmarks before you do this)

4. Ask here.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:28 PM on November 27, 2007