mozilla firefox won't browse 'net

**hotpotato71** · February 4th, 2005, 07:51 AM

i have a friend at our office who suddenly couldn't use her mozilla firefox 1.0 browser anymore. it happened about two days ago. it was working fine until her word 2003 suddenly crashed. firefox would load, i would see network activity on the system tray, and then activity will stop. just like that.

tried uninstalling and reinstalling firefox. also ran norton antivirus and adaware se (both with updated definition files). no luck. checked with the network administrator, he said there was no unusual activity with our internet service provider.

ie6 ran normally, so my friend was forced to use it for the moment.

anyone have any idea what happened? every day i see my friend stuck with ie, i get the creepies... ie let in something like 54 critical ad/malwares between december and this week.

**TechZ** · February 4th, 2005, 08:15 AM

Clean with Spybot to make sure.

Spybot Search & Destroy: http://www.download.com/3001-8022_4-10289035.html

Spybot has an excellent Immunize feature also.

**Richard1** · February 4th, 2005, 09:20 AM

If it's an XP or ME OS, you can use the "System Restore" feature to restore your PC to the time before the problem started.

Start button -> Program Files -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore

Good luck and let us know how you make out.

**NooNoo** · February 5th, 2005, 09:11 AM

has group policy blocked it?

**shanff** · February 5th, 2005, 11:16 AM

How about a proxy? Does IE have a proxy set via Group Policy that doesn't get pushed out to Firefox?

**hotpotato71** · February 8th, 2005, 04:44 AM

hi tech2, richard1, noonoo and shanff. thanks very much for the suggestions, really appreciate them.

i tried ad-aware instead of spybot (spybot tends to crash the entire system if it goes haywire), but didn't find anything. pushed system restore all the way to november, didn't work. as for group policy, our network administrator said there's no reason why firefox shouldn't work - almost all the computers in our office run on firefox. our office has a proxy server, and i've tried using it on the firefox in the affected pc; i also tried running firefox without proxy.

so far no luck. but i'll still appreciate more suggestions. thanks again!

**deksys** · February 8th, 2005, 04:08 PM

Have you rebooted? If not, you might find that there is a firefox process still running in processes section of task manager. Kill that process. Once this is done, Firefox runs normally. Out of approx. 300 XP systems, this only happens on one of them. Not sure exactly why.

**DiR[ëctory]** · February 8th, 2005, 04:12 PM

make the system admin come down and fix it

**hotpotato71** · February 9th, 2005, 05:02 AM

hi desksys. yes i did reboot, several times at that. it just won't work anymore. this morning i patched my officemate's xp machine with microsoft's latest patches. kinda hoped they could find something (malware, anything), but no luck either.

thanks for the suggestion, dir[ectory]. wish it were that easy. senate's busy with budget deliberations, and understandably the tech people are too busy to be bothered. i don't know when the deliberations will end, they're kinda tiring already.

anyway, thanks for the suggestions. i guess you're right. that pc may just happen to be the one-in-300 case.

**deksys** · February 9th, 2005, 06:32 PM

The last option is to remove firefox, then go into /program files/mozilla firefox and delete it from there, then go to the user folder and delete the remnants (Docs and settings/user name/ Aplication data/ mozilla). Note: if you don't have an "application data" folder, you need to set system files and folders to display in file options (it may say "hide ..." with a checkmark -- in that case, just uncheck it). reboot the system. reinstall Firefox. This is the nuclear bomb approach. If that doesn't fix it, I am out of options. This would indicate to me that something in that system's windows os isn't set correctly or configured correctly, and that would be what is causing the problem.

**WebHead** · February 9th, 2005, 06:53 PM

Just a thought,.. how about using another computer to install FF onto a USB key. Then plug that USB key into the problematic computer and see if it works or not. FF should be portable like that as far as I know. Maybe there is a bug in the system that is corrupting the original FF install.

**TechZ** · February 10th, 2005, 02:40 AM

http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/

I've used portable firefox. IT works fine. Just remember to get a good USB 2.0 USB Flash Drive

**deksys** · February 11th, 2005, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by WebHead

Just a thought,.. how about using another computer to install FF onto a USB key. Then plug that USB key into the problematic computer and see if it works or not. FF should be portable like that as far as I know. Maybe there is a bug in the system that is corrupting the original FF install.

This is a good idea since everything in Firefox is contained in its directory (no registry entries required). You could put it on a cd or zip or any other removable media -- not just a USB key. Verify that it works on another system before you run it on the mischievious system.

Before running firefox, though, you will want to rename the profile at the very least in the users documents folder. If it works, then move the original user profile back. Try again - if it stops, then the user's profile is messed up.

**hotpotato71** · February 13th, 2005, 11:23 PM

thanks for the suggestion, i'll try portable firefox via usb. you're right, it may be something in the system that corrupted firefox. windows xp on pentium 3 is already slow as it is.

**juantoro** · February 17th, 2005, 02:16 PM

I was having a similar problem with Firefox. I have a laptop computer (Windows XP) that I use at work and at home.

At home I am directly connected to the internet and I could browse fine with Firefox and IE.

At work we are behind a proxy which is accessed through an automagic configuration scipt. I could access the internet at work with IE but not with Firefox. It worked when I first downloaded it, but then for the last week it would just try for about 30 seconds and then time out. Couldn't figure it out...Every other app that accessed the internet worked fine, just not Firefox...

Also, as a side note, if I set up an SSH tunnel to a proxy server on my home computer Firefox would work fine, from work.....

????

Anyway, on a tip from a friend, I downloaded the Developer Extensions toolbar:
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/ex...numpg=10&id=60

Once installed, there is a button labeled "Disable" on the far left of the toolbar. One of the options is "Disable Referrer Logging". I selected that and restarted Firefox. Whala! Now it works.... Don't ask me why, or how, or what... all I know is that it fixed it...

Anyway, might be worth a try...

:-)