1.5.0.6 and "Server not found" is still with us

Discussion of bugs in Mozilla Firefox
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VanillaMozilla
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

Right. But I have to say, domain name lookup is handled in a typical, overly complicated way in Windows. Leaving an unhandled error condition certainly looks problematic.

I would be concerned, however, if the discovery of a bug encouraged people with a problem to give up on connection problems. Most of these problems are minor, and fairly easily solved by configuring their firewall, or in the worst case, replacing their ISP's domain name service.
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

trackback wrote:
trolly wrote:This one? network.dns.disableIPv6 -> true


thanks but i don't think thats it because the gray page still shows up, i'm talking about the error page specifily... not really the error...
i'm trying to go to this page www.musichq.nl but it says connection timed out and tells me to try again ect... remember a few updated ago when there was a error it never used to show this gray page with a white box.... thats what i'm trying to get rid of, this gray page and white box that tells me to try again...
by the way do you get an error too while trying to view that site?

Or this one? browser.xul.error_pages.enabled
Yes, i also get an error.
trackback
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Post by trackback »

trolly wrote:
trackback wrote:
trolly wrote:This one? network.dns.disableIPv6 -> true


thanks but i don't think thats it because the gray page still shows up, i'm talking about the error page specifily... not really the error...
i'm trying to go to this page www.musichq.nl but it says connection timed out and tells me to try again ect... remember a few updated ago when there was a error it never used to show this gray page with a white box.... thats what i'm trying to get rid of, this gray page and white box that tells me to try again...
by the way do you get an error too while trying to view that site?

Or this one? browser.xul.error_pages.enabled
Yes, i also get an error.



that's it! thanks so much.
IDontKnow
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Post by IDontKnow »

VanillaMozilla wrote:Speaking of the original poster if we can get back to his problem,

@IDon'tKnow:
Dickvl was asking if you can access the sites by IP address. At some time when 30 or 40% of sites fail to open, the question is whether you can access the sites if you use the IP address instead of the URL. That's an important question because it helps prove whether the problem is domain-name lookup.


Thanks.

If I enter an IP address, I get the site. Only on one occasion have I had a timeout. The problem for me is to get all links as an IP address. If I click on the Google links, I do so rapidly. If I have to look up every translation individually, I don't know if it makes sense.

Anyway, I invested another 30 minutes and found 12 puppy addresses, converted them to IP using whois and entered them one by one with copy/paste. (Have I mentioned yet that I'm starting to hate puppies?)

Guess what: No (zero) errors. All loaded instantly (with the exception of some normal errors when loading the base page).

Now what? Do I revert back to the "good ole days" and enter only numbers and never click on a link :-))

What's next?

//AndyB aks IDontKnow
VanillaMozilla
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

I know it's impractical to enter IP addresses. That was just for diagnosis. It's great that you tolerated the puppies because it <b>proves that your problem is in DNS lookup,</b> assuming that you can consistently browse by IP address but not by URLs or links. For whatever reason, your computer is not managing to get the IP addresses, or at least not getting them in time. I recommend that you try snakes or something instead of puppies.

Now some of this heated discussion has indirectly concerned whether there is any way to get Fx to be more effective or persistent, or whatever, at getting IP addresses. The other way to approach it is to fix the network environment. If I remember correctly, you said the second try almost always succeeds, and that must mean that Windows is not caching negative DNS lookups in your case. I think that means that we can forget about flushing the DNS cache. It doesn't apply.

> The usual recommendation is to get TreeWalk to create a local DNS database, but you said that program crashed.

That leaves:
> <b>Replacing your DNS. I think that's your best option.</b> There is a good suggestion on how to do this here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 16#1389516 . Get help if you need it. Disclaimer: forget about what that guy said about reverting to an earlier version. It's downright hazardous.

> That Retry extension. I don't know anything about it, so I can't recommend it, but it's a possibility.
Last edited by VanillaMozilla on September 18th, 2006, 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
VanillaMozilla
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

(Secret hint to Trolly: that guy who wrote that previous link on replacing the DNS claims a regression between 1.0 RC1 and 1.0, on Linux.)
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

Thanks. I'm just trying to put up a small test tool for DNS. It is similar to nslookup but does not do any additional error checking or so. It just calls the DNS and displays the result. I'll need a day or two to finally dig through the code to find out what is done for ipv6 enabled.
I can call already for ipv4, ipv6 and unspecific protocol but i'm not sure i do it right for ipv6. Anyone a hint for me like a site accessible using ipv6? If anyone want to try pm me.
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IDontKnow
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Post by IDontKnow »

Sidetrack:

Reading the DNS article, I clicked on the IP link to Google - while somebody was sending me a BIG e-mail (remember I'm normally on a single ISDN B-Channel).

The IP click resulted in a time-out, which I accept, as the download was running.
The Google.com click resulted in the all too familiar Server not found.

Both loaded successfully on retry, even though the e-mail download was still going on.

Is this a further indication or symptom?
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

If you are running a huge download it can happen that the answer from the DNS is simply stuck in the queue.

You can try to use the nslookup with a greater timeout (subcommand "set timeout"):
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu ... ookup.mspx

Here is an article about setting a larger DNS query timeout:
http://drewthaler.blogspot.com/2005/09/ ... ndows.html
IDontKnow
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Post by IDontKnow »

Well I'll be *********

I followed the instructions: found 2 universities nearby, noticed they used the same DNS server, entered it (well nearly) as instructed and restarted the connection.

Went to Google and clicked on 20 links and all the sites about snakes in America, Massachusetts, Wiki definitions, Rattlers and the game ALL loaded without a hitch - slowly due to my bandwidth - but NO failures.

Knock me over. This is like FF 1.0. OK - it's a DNS lookup. Now I'm convinced. I'll play with this for a bit and get back here in a few days to confirm success.

But if this proves to be the answer, then what is the solution for the GP? The general public? Not everyone with this problem can find an alternate server. Or can they?

Anyway, I strongly advise the reading of that particular article, as it has taught me a lot about on how the internet works. The clicking on links part anyway.

Bye for now.

//AndyB aka IDontKnow

PS: as a sidenote: this also confirms my opinion about the capabilities of German ISDN ISP's, as I've had this problem with all of these "cheaper" providers.
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

Maybe an option to modify the DNS query timeout as described in the link in my last post?
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pondejim
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Post by pondejim »

With the upgrade to the current version of FF, why is it "broken" now. The version prior to the upgrade was fine. It is time for the Mozilla team to admit there is a problem "bug" and not blame it on Microsoft upgrades, firewalls, spyware or "timing". It was good before, so why is it "broken" now????????

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VanillaMozilla
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

IDontKnow wrote:Well I'll be ********* I followed the instructions... ALL loaded without a hitch ... NO failures. Knock me over.

Patience, Pondejim. You may have noticed that we appear to have solved the original poster's (IDontKnow's) problem. You might also have noticed that as we first suspected, the problem was not in his computer.

Read carefully what we asked him to, especially in this message:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 96#2489696 and this:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 98#2494698 . Read what he says about it here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 25#2494625 and here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 00#2494800 . Also be sure you read and understand this message: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 21#2295421 , which covers firewalls.

If you can't solve your problem after reading those, you need to post a brief, careful description of your symptoms. You will probably get the best response if you start a new subject. Ask if you still need help after making a reasonable effort. Your chances will improve if you stick to the facts and answer questions carefully, as IDontKnow did.
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

I'm absolutely sure that no one touched the DNS code in FF for years. The time stamp for the code mentioned earlier is back in 2005. So why should it break now?
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James
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Post by James »

pondejim wrote:With the upgrade to the current version of FF, why is it "broken" now. The version prior to the upgrade was fine. It is time for the Mozilla team to admit there is a problem "bug" and not blame it on Microsoft upgrades, firewalls, spyware or "timing". It was good before, so why is it "broken" now????????

Your saying the same sort of thing people claim about any minor release as each new one comes out as You claimed the previous version (1.5.0.6) was broken in the past but now say it worked fine compared to 1.5.0.7.
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