Weird Browser Issue

RT800

I've been trying to figure this out for a while and can't, so I figured I might as well ask here and see if anyone had any idea as to what's going on.

For several months, whenever I open my web browser (Firefox) it initially tells me that I have no internet connection. Page Not Found, etc.

But that's never true. My computer is connected to the internet. If I simply hit "reload", the page loads. (Homepage is just Google, BTW)

But it's irritating that every time I open the browser, I'm initially told I have no internet connection (when I know that I do) until I reload the page.

I have no idea what is causing this.

Anyone know what the problem could be?

Hevach

Fist thought: a browser hijack performing an invisible redirect on the home page, often to a tainted Google or Bing page filled with third party ads.

This is a very common infection vector, but a lot of them get shut down at the source leaving the page it tries to load invalid.

These exist in deeply buried settings, and have no file component for antivirus software to detect (Hijackthis will find malicious settings but isn't always easy to understand), not in the simple settings you can directly access, meaning just fixing those settings usually won't correct them.

discrider

My laptop does this on login, because it hasn't reconnected to the wifi router yet.

RT800

Hevach wrote: »

Fist thought: a browser hijack performing an invisible redirect on the home page, often to a tainted Google or Bing page filled with third party ads.

This is a very common infection vector, but a lot of them get shut down at the source leaving the page it tries to load invalid.

These exist in deeply buried settings, and have no file component for antivirus software to detect (Hijackthis will find malicious settings but isn't always easy to understand), not in the simple settings you can directly access, meaning just fixing those settings usually won't correct them.

That's a troubling thought. Anti-virus hasn't picked up anything, but the page the browser says it can't connect to is "www.google.com". Clicking "Try Again" simply takes me to regular Google - no ads or anything as far as I'm aware.

It may also be worth noting that it only really happens with Firefox. I don't have this problem with Microsoft Edge.

spool32

Walk us through the steps involved in reproducing

Is the PC asleep and you're waking it up?
Do you have a wifi connection or are you wired all the way to the router?
If you close firefox and immediately reopen it, does the same behavior happen consistently?

RT800

It happens both after the PC wakes from sleep mode and while it has already been awake and in use.

The PC uses a wired ethernet cable connected directly to the modem.

It happens consistently every time I close and re-open the browser. The browser will initially tell me it "cannot connect to the page" - then upon refresh it WILL connect the correct homepage with no further issues until I close and reopen the browser again.

Carpy

Fresh install of Firefox might help, or if you're running any extensions or plugins could try disabling them all and seeing if it fixes it.

Shadowfire

Or rather than a fresh install, you can go to the Help page, More Troubleshooting, then hit Refresh. See if that helps.

Also is this only on Firefox? If you open edge do you have the same thing happen?

RT800

It only seems to happen with Firefox. Edge opens right up to it's default homepage.

Update: I tried the "refresh" option under troubleshooting as suggested and it seems to have worked.

Thanks

It was never a huge thing, but that's one less small annoyance in my life. I wonder what caused it in the first place.

Carpy

Assuming you weren't asking rhetorically and also because I've been thinking about this at work

Internal state just gets funky sometimes and in ways that aren't really diagnosable: Patch didn't apply correctly but didn't actually error out and revert, updating from an old version didn't fully remove some configuration setting that's no longer used but still has an effect if present, some file didn't close out properly and is causing issues, the literal sun decided to say "f your Firefox RT800" and started flipping tables, or a whole host of other potential weird things.

Point being that's there's a lot of one off internal states that can cause issues but are difficult to impossible to reproduce and the fix is to just revert them to a known good. That's why one of the first troubleshooting steps for a device is to turn it off and on, power cycling forces a lot of core internal processes to a known state and can cure a host of issues that are otherwise impossible to diagnose or prevent. Refresh/reinstall does a similar function at the application level.

Tofystedeth

Substitute infernal for internal as needed.