Bank website tries to connect but nothing. Works on Chrome & IE.
I am having difficulty accessing my bank's website, www.usbank.com. When I try to go to it, FF just sits there "Waiting for www.usbank.com...", but never gets to it. I've tried the following:
- Uninstalled/reinstalled FF. - A different user profile on the computer. - Cleared cache, history, etc. - Restored FF to default. - Scanned for malware, viruses, etc. - Run FF in Safe Mode.
The site pops up fine if I use Chrome or IE and works fine with FF on my laptop, so I know this is a computer specific thing.
At this point, I'm at a loss on how to fix this. Any suggestions?
Chosen solution
by jscher2000Every now and then you see a website behave in a bizarre and inexplicable manner. In the case of usbank.com, it serves pages normally when your browser identifies itself as Firefox 18, but if it identifies itself as Firefox 19, it won't load.
Fortunately, there is a hack for that.
(1) Select and copy the following preference name to the clipboard (it's not supposed to be a link, the forum software does that):
general.useragent.override.usbank.com
(2) In a new tab or window, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.
(3) In the filter box, type override and pause while the list is filtered
(4) Make sure general.useragent.site_specific_overrides is set to its default value of true (or right-click and choose Reset if it is not).
(5) Right-click anywhere in the preference list area and choose
New > String
then paste the preference name you copied. Click OK and enter TEMP or asdf or any text as a temporary placeholder. You should see the preference added in bold. Leave about:config open and switch back to this tab.
(6) Select and copy the following useragent string to the clipboard (it's all one line):
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0
(That's Firefox 18 on Windows 7 64-bit)
(7) In about:config, double-click general.useragent.override.usbank.com and paste to replace the temporary text with the new useragent string. Click OK, you're done here.
Now try loading a page on US Bank. Working?
Read this answer in context 15Helpful replies
Hi wzdmb, you wrote:
"A website can't block a particular user agent string of a browser."
Actually, websites sniff the useragent string for many reasons, such as choosing between a desktop and mobile style sheet, or working around browser incompatibilities, or simply showing different information. (The Google home page doesn't suggest trying Chrome if you're already running it, for example.)
"Microsoft.com is experiencing the same issue with a combination of Windows 7 and FF 19.0.2."
What URL has the problem on microsoft.com? The new content seems to load a bit more slowly than the old, but it does load for me.
Go to answer 1Additional System Details
Installed Plug-ins
- NPRuntime Script Plug-in Library for Java(TM) Deploy
- Shockwave Flash 11.6 r602
- npsitesafety
- iTunes Detector Plug-in
- 5.1.20125.0
- Nitro PDF plugin for Firefox and Chrome
- The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in Web pages. For more information, visit the QuickTime Web site.
- Amazon MP3 Downloader Plugin 1.0.17
- NPWLPG
- Pando Web Plugin
- Windows Activation Technologies Plugin for Mozilla
Application
- Firefox 19.0.2
- User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:19.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/19.0
- Support URL: http://support.mozilla.org/1/firefox/19.0.2/WINNT/en-US/
Extensions
- AVG SafeGuard toolbar 14.2.0.1
- Troubleshooter 1.0a
Javascript
- incrementalGCEnabled: True
Graphics
- adapterDescription: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
- adapterDescription2:
- adapterDeviceID: 0x6739
- adapterDeviceID2:
- adapterDrivers: aticfx64 aticfx64 aticfx64 aticfx32 aticfx32 aticfx32 atiumd64 atidxx64 atidxx64 atiumdag atidxx32 atidxx32 atiumdva atiumd6a atitmm64
- adapterDrivers2:
- adapterRAM: 1024
- adapterRAM2:
- adapterVendorID: 0x1002
- adapterVendorID2:
- direct2DEnabled: True
- directWriteEnabled: True
- directWriteVersion: 6.2.9200.16492
- driverDate: 12-19-2012
- driverDate2:
- driverVersion: 9.12.0.0
- driverVersion2:
- info: {u'AzureContentBackend': u'direct2d', u'AzureCanvasBackend': u'direct2d', u'AzureFallbackCanvasBackend': u'cairo'}
- isGPU2Active: False
- numAcceleratedWindows: 1
- numTotalWindows: 1
- webglRenderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series)
- windowLayerManagerType: Direct3D 10
Modified Preferences
- browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
- browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: False
- browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: False
- browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
- browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 4
- browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20130307023931
- browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 19.0.2
- dom.mozApps.used: True
- extensions.lastAppVersion: 19.0.2
- gfx.direct3d.prefer_10_1: True
- network.cookie.prefsMigrated: True
- places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 104858
- plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf
- privacy.donottrackheader.enabled: True
- privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: True
Misc
- User JS: No
- Accessibility: No
Chosen Solution
Every now and then you see a website behave in a bizarre and inexplicable manner. In the case of usbank.com, it serves pages normally when your browser identifies itself as Firefox 18, but if it identifies itself as Firefox 19, it won't load.
Fortunately, there is a hack for that.
(1) Select and copy the following preference name to the clipboard (it's not supposed to be a link, the forum software does that):
general.useragent.override.usbank.com
(2) In a new tab or window, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.
(3) In the filter box, type override and pause while the list is filtered
(4) Make sure general.useragent.site_specific_overrides is set to its default value of true (or right-click and choose Reset if it is not).
(5) Right-click anywhere in the preference list area and choose
New > String
then paste the preference name you copied. Click OK and enter TEMP or asdf or any text as a temporary placeholder. You should see the preference added in bold. Leave about:config open and switch back to this tab.
(6) Select and copy the following useragent string to the clipboard (it's all one line):
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0
(That's Firefox 18 on Windows 7 64-bit)
(7) In about:config, double-click general.useragent.override.usbank.com and paste to replace the temporary text with the new useragent string. Click OK, you're done here.
Now try loading a page on US Bank. Working?
Modified by jscher2000
WOW that was a lot of work but, worth it. I don't even want to know what was going on behind the scenes. Just glad it works.
Question owner
That worked! Weird it works fine on my laptop running the same version of FF but in the end, I just needed it fixed.
THANK YOU for your help.
A website can't block a particular user agent string of a browser. Microsoft.com is experiencing the same issue with a combination of Windows 7 and FF 19.0.2. This is a browser issue, not a website issue. What is FF going to do about this user agent string to fix this issue.
Note that such a specific override pref also takes a regular expression for search and replace values, so this should work on all platforms to change xx.0 to 18.0
- name: general.useragent.override.usbank.com
- value: (rv:|Firefox/)\d{2}[.]0#$118.0
Helpful Reply
Hi wzdmb, you wrote:
"A website can't block a particular user agent string of a browser."
Actually, websites sniff the useragent string for many reasons, such as choosing between a desktop and mobile style sheet, or working around browser incompatibilities, or simply showing different information. (The Google home page doesn't suggest trying Chrome if you're already running it, for example.)
"Microsoft.com is experiencing the same issue with a combination of Windows 7 and FF 19.0.2."
What URL has the problem on microsoft.com? The new content seems to load a bit more slowly than the old, but it does load for me.
Hi jscher2000: Yes, websites do sniff useragent strings to deliver content for specific devices using CSS. You seem to suggest this particular website is targeting the useragent string for Firefox 19 vs. 18. While it is true "every now and then you see a website behave in a bizarre and inexplicable manner", it is apparent this happens when a particular useragent string is involved.
There are multiple reports on this forum of users having issues accessing other sites using WIndows7 and Firefox 19.0.2, including msdn.microsoft.com - see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/953475
Hi wzdmb, I don't know exactly what US Bank's servers are doing or why. I can only confirm that changing a 9 to an 8 in two places avoids the problem. Since we knew Firefox 18 worked, I tried that first, and I didn't bother testing any other variations.
Regarding other sites, MSDN loads for me (Fx19.0.2 on Win7x64). I did have to refresh the page to get the banner to display. Firefox occasionally relies too heavily on the cache and can mismatch old and new files. When sites change, this can lead to load problems. As described in the MSDN thread, the first thing to try when you have a problem with a particular site is to bypass the cached files (Ctrl+Shift+r or full clearance) and clear the site's cookies.
Are you running into problems on a particular site?