Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that occasionally when I clicked a link, I would get an error message stating, "The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded." Then the page would load. No browsing was interrupted, but it was annoying to see this message. Last night, Aubrey, using a different computer, complained about the same problem. We first started noticing it with her Springfield Daily Photo blog, and since then I've started noticing it at a few other sites. I scoured the web last night looking for answers, but I couldn't find anything to help.
This morning, I was glad to see that Marie's having this same problem. Sorry Marie, I'm not glad you're having problems. Just glad to not be alone in this. Ben left a comment with a link suggesting a solution to the problem. Tried it. Wasn't the problem. No improvements. I've also found several fixes that include buggy extensions or themes. I use the default theme and only have the following extensions: Adblock Plus, Copy Plain Text, FireFTP, and Talkback. None of these are indicated as being problematic in the web help pages I've found.
Started Firefox in Safe Mode. The problem still exists. I haven't updated any software recently. No changes to Firefox.
I just can't figure this out. Any help?
11 comments:
Well my first suggestion would be to try a different browser all together. Assuming you're on Windows, if you try IE and it happens then I would look for a Windows Update that may have installed around the time the problem started. If you find one, uninstall it and give it another go.
Thanks. I tried it with IE and the problem does not exist in IE. I think this is strictly a Firefox problem.
Hmm, check this out: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Error_loading_websites#IPv6
Thanks, EJ, I'm going to look through that. I'm starting to wonder if it's a problem with certain widgets. I noticed that two widgets on one of the sites (the main one I'm having trouble with) are not loading.
John, I'm sure this isn't the problem, but I'm noting it anyway. Of your listed add-ons, the only one I also have is FireFTP. Also, I never have it open unless I'm actually using it. Didn't use it yesterday or today.
EJ, I'm getting it in Firefox and IE. I did install a Windows Update Tuesday night. This was the only update:
"Update for Windows XP (KB932823)
Install this update to resolve an issue in which a user is unable to use Windows Internet Explorer 7 to download files on a computer that is running Windows XP with IME enabled. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer."
It's possible that I didn't go to any of the problem web sites from Tuesday night to Thursday.
Marie - I would uninstall that hotfix. Searching around, there seem to be more than a few people having other strange problems with that patch. Uninstall and reboot, see if that gets you going again.
This seems silly to me, but I just asked Aubrey if I could remove the widgets on her site that weren't loading. One was a NOAA weather widget, and the other was a date and time widget. Actually, when I opened the Date and Time widget to remove it, I got the same "URL is not valid" warning. I blasted both of those widgets, and I don't get the warning any more.
Marie, if you don't mind, see if you still get that warning when you visit Springfield Daily Photo.
John - The warning disappeared and her site loads perfectly.
EJ - Interesting. I'm in the process of uninstalling that update and the wizard thing just told me that my updated version of AVG, which I suspected was the culprit the whole time, will not work.
Also, even though I had previously disabled AVG from the start-up programs, I didn't actually uninstall it. When I pulled up task manager, it tells me that avgrsx.exe is running.
So, I'm going to back out of the Windows update uninstall thing and uninstall AVG 8.0 first. Reboot. Then see what happens. I'll let you know.
This is a key reason I prefer to do updates manually. So that you will have an idea of were to start troubleshooting. However this doesn't work for a lot peoples computing lifestyle.
Some things to consider. Are the people seeing this using the same operating system? The same internet service provider ( ISP )? I wouldn't think this is DNS related but it might be.
I think the hotfix seems to be the source of the issue. But that would only be the case if everyone seeing this installed that update.
I'm running Vista with IE 8 beta 1 and have seen no such issues.
A good read for AVG users and a possible source of conflict.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20502964-AVG-8-link-scanner-causes-Firefox-to-crash
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20587288-IE-Error-Message-While-Browsing-Wikipedia
Normally that site and those forums would have large threads in regards to hotfix issues or users having similar problems as to what is being seen here. At this point I'm not seeing that.
Uninstalling AVG did not get rid of the problem.
Subsequently uninstalling Update for Windows XP (KB932823) also did not get rid of the problem.
Still working on this problem.
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