OutFoxed by FireFox
July 7, 2006 2:56 PM Subscribe
Why is FireFox failing to load so many pages?
I switched to FF from IE about a year ago, and I love it, and I don't want to go back. But about one page out of five fails to load and it's driving me crazy. On a failure, sometimes I get an error but most of the time the page is simply blank. I have to dig out the URL, copy it to the clipboard, fire up IE, and paste the URL.
An example of a page that won't load in FF is tfd.com. It seems to be the slow-loading pages that fail, so my guess is I need to up some kind of timeout. But I've scanned the whole list of parameters in about:config and can't find anything that works.
Anybody got any ideas?
I switched to FF from IE about a year ago, and I love it, and I don't want to go back. But about one page out of five fails to load and it's driving me crazy. On a failure, sometimes I get an error but most of the time the page is simply blank. I have to dig out the URL, copy it to the clipboard, fire up IE, and paste the URL.
An example of a page that won't load in FF is tfd.com. It seems to be the slow-loading pages that fail, so my guess is I need to up some kind of timeout. But I've scanned the whole list of parameters in about:config and can't find anything that works.
Anybody got any ideas?
No idea, but tfd.com also comes up nominally in my Firefox 1.5.0.4 ... Just another data point for you.
I rarely (if ever) have any trouble with FIrefox anymore. Therefore I wonder if it's something else: hardware, or some network trouble.
posted by Rash at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2006
I rarely (if ever) have any trouble with FIrefox anymore. Therefore I wonder if it's something else: hardware, or some network trouble.
posted by Rash at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2006
Create a new profile and see if it makes a difference. (A standard Firefox troubleshooting technique.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 3:41 PM on July 7, 2006
posted by Zed_Lopez at 3:41 PM on July 7, 2006
Firefox doesn't upgrade very well across versions, and often bollixes things up. A new profile, as Zed says, will usually fix things. You'll probably want to copy over your bookmark file.
tfd.com loads just fine here.
posted by Malor at 3:45 PM on July 7, 2006
tfd.com loads just fine here.
posted by Malor at 3:45 PM on July 7, 2006
in case the evidence is not yet overwhelming for you, tfd.com is fine here too in 1.5.0.4
posted by juv3nal at 5:11 PM on July 7, 2006
posted by juv3nal at 5:11 PM on July 7, 2006
And in case you really truly do need to use IE to view certain pages (you might occasionally run across a page with embedded ActiveX controls whose power is being used for good, not evil), install the IE View extension into Firefox.
posted by flabdablet at 6:46 PM on July 7, 2006
posted by flabdablet at 6:46 PM on July 7, 2006
tfd.com also works for me - Firefox 1.0.4 in Red Hat Linux 9.
posted by flabdablet at 6:47 PM on July 7, 2006
posted by flabdablet at 6:47 PM on July 7, 2006
stupidcomputernickname, if you use Adblock Plus instead of Adblock, you can whitelist things you specifically want to see.
posted by flabdablet at 6:50 PM on July 7, 2006
posted by flabdablet at 6:50 PM on July 7, 2006
I have the same exact problem - certain sites never come up for me in FF, yet do just fine in IE, and yet many other people have no problems with those sites in FF (for me, it's msnbc.com and slashdot, go figure). This, after multiple re-installs of Firefox.
Just today I started using adblock to try and block every ad component on msnbc.com one at a time until the page rendered, and it seemed to work - although it looks less pretty than I'd like. I'm thinking that more tweaking with that will finally make these sites accessible. I'm guessing it's pieces from omniture (2O7.net) and some falkag.net bits, possibly more. Why it makes for blank pages in FF, I have no idea.
posted by kokogiak at 8:53 PM on July 7, 2006
Just today I started using adblock to try and block every ad component on msnbc.com one at a time until the page rendered, and it seemed to work - although it looks less pretty than I'd like. I'm thinking that more tweaking with that will finally make these sites accessible. I'm guessing it's pieces from omniture (2O7.net) and some falkag.net bits, possibly more. Why it makes for blank pages in FF, I have no idea.
posted by kokogiak at 8:53 PM on July 7, 2006
It should be noted that you can reinstall Firefox as many times as you like, and the newly installed versions will just keep using your existing Firefox profile. So if your profile is broken, reinstalling Firefox won't fix it.
Instructions for making a new Firefox profile are linked in Zed_Lopez's comment above.
A new profile will be missing all your extensions and all your bookmarks. If creating a new profile does indeed fix your problem, you can get all your bookmarks back just by copying bookmarks.html from your old busted profile to your new one; this should be completely safe.
Reinstall extensions one by one, checking after each extension installation that you can still get to the websites that gave you trouble with the old profile. If one of the extensions breaks things, try getting an update for it.
For adblocking, I recommend the Adblock Plus extension I linked to above, in conjunction with the Adblock Filterset.G Updater extension. Together, they just work.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 PM on July 7, 2006
Instructions for making a new Firefox profile are linked in Zed_Lopez's comment above.
A new profile will be missing all your extensions and all your bookmarks. If creating a new profile does indeed fix your problem, you can get all your bookmarks back just by copying bookmarks.html from your old busted profile to your new one; this should be completely safe.
Reinstall extensions one by one, checking after each extension installation that you can still get to the websites that gave you trouble with the old profile. If one of the extensions breaks things, try getting an update for it.
For adblocking, I recommend the Adblock Plus extension I linked to above, in conjunction with the Adblock Filterset.G Updater extension. Together, they just work.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 PM on July 7, 2006
I decided not to chip in on this thread, and then the very next page I tried to open failed to load! So yes, I know your pain, and yes, I would like to be able to alter the timeout.
I don't understand why the timeout is not easily user-settable. Ir seems to me to be a basic need if you browse to small servers in far away places -- and some big ones a lot nearer -- it was a McAfee page that drove me to join in here.
When I get a blizzard of failed pages, resetting my (wirelss) router works -- heaven only knows what it is doing as typically some pages are still loading, so it hasn't fallen over completely.
posted by Idcoytco at 12:04 AM on July 8, 2006
I don't understand why the timeout is not easily user-settable. Ir seems to me to be a basic need if you browse to small servers in far away places -- and some big ones a lot nearer -- it was a McAfee page that drove me to join in here.
When I get a blizzard of failed pages, resetting my (wirelss) router works -- heaven only knows what it is doing as typically some pages are still loading, so it hasn't fallen over completely.
posted by Idcoytco at 12:04 AM on July 8, 2006
If you visit the "about:config" page and type "timeout" in the "Filter:" box, you get to see (and change, if you like) the HTTP connect, keep-alive and request timeouts. In my profile, these are set to the defaults - 30 seconds, 300 seconds and 120 seconds respectively - which would seem adequate to me even for a slow dialup link.
Are the pages that fail for you failing quickly, or is this indeed likely to be a timeout-related issue?
posted by flabdablet at 2:43 AM on July 8, 2006
Are the pages that fail for you failing quickly, or is this indeed likely to be a timeout-related issue?
posted by flabdablet at 2:43 AM on July 8, 2006
I have finally found something useful about this on the web -- thank you flapdablet for guiding me on the name of the preference which isn't there in my new FF setup.
Bug#: 142326
So the http timeout preferences haven't been active for years, have been removed in newer versions, and (at the bottom of the page) the new system is known to be not working for many of us.
posted by Idcoytco at 5:53 PM on July 8, 2006
Bug#: 142326
So the http timeout preferences haven't been active for years, have been removed in newer versions, and (at the bottom of the page) the new system is known to be not working for many of us.
posted by Idcoytco at 5:53 PM on July 8, 2006
That Bugzilla link is mangled. Here's a corrected link to Bug 132326.
According to that bug report, the about:config timeout parameters I alluded to above are not actually honored by Firefox, which instead relies on the underlying system's timeout policies for making and maintaining TCP connections. Whether or not this is the right thing to do is, I guess, arguable; I was surprised, anyway.
In any case, you can make Windows try harder to make TCP connections. First, you should read Microsoft knowledge base article 314053; then download this registry patch: Increase-Tcp-Timeouts.reg; then log on as an administrative user, apply the patch, and restart Windows.
The patch sets TcpMaxConnectRetransmissions to 5 instead of the default 2, and sets TcpMaxDataRetransmissions to 7 instead of the default 5. The time between retransmissions starts at 3 seconds and doubles on each retry, so these settings make Windows take a looooong time to give up. You can play with the numbers inside your copy to fine tune the timeouts to your liking. I've used Ethereal to verify that these settings do work as advertised.
If this doesn't cure your Firefox problems, you should put things back the way they were by downloading and applying this other patch: Standard-Tcp-Timeouts.reg. It removes both the optional registry entries created by the first one.
Let me know if this helps.
posted by flabdablet at 12:02 AM on July 9, 2006
According to that bug report, the about:config timeout parameters I alluded to above are not actually honored by Firefox, which instead relies on the underlying system's timeout policies for making and maintaining TCP connections. Whether or not this is the right thing to do is, I guess, arguable; I was surprised, anyway.
In any case, you can make Windows try harder to make TCP connections. First, you should read Microsoft knowledge base article 314053; then download this registry patch: Increase-Tcp-Timeouts.reg; then log on as an administrative user, apply the patch, and restart Windows.
The patch sets TcpMaxConnectRetransmissions to 5 instead of the default 2, and sets TcpMaxDataRetransmissions to 7 instead of the default 5. The time between retransmissions starts at 3 seconds and doubles on each retry, so these settings make Windows take a looooong time to give up. You can play with the numbers inside your copy to fine tune the timeouts to your liking. I've used Ethereal to verify that these settings do work as advertised.
If this doesn't cure your Firefox problems, you should put things back the way they were by downloading and applying this other patch: Standard-Tcp-Timeouts.reg. It removes both the optional registry entries created by the first one.
Let me know if this helps.
posted by flabdablet at 12:02 AM on July 9, 2006
I have to say, though, that if I was having connectivity problems that always went away when I reset my wireless router, I'd be tossing the damn thing and getting one that didn't drop so many #$#@!@! packets.
posted by flabdablet at 12:05 AM on July 9, 2006
posted by flabdablet at 12:05 AM on July 9, 2006
FWIW, I once cookie-blocked 2o7.net (locally, not with their opt-out, which I located later), and *lots* of shit started breaking...
posted by baylink at 8:12 PM on July 10, 2006
posted by baylink at 8:12 PM on July 10, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by stupidcomputernickname at 3:09 PM on July 7, 2006