How can I disable incesant rambling alarm "The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading" in FF17?
In using FF 17.0.1 in a WinXP/SP3 notebook (Acer) while traveling abroad I get unrelenting rambling and totally inconsequential display alarms "The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading." The page in question looks perfectly fine and there is NO problem whatsoever in its display. The only problem is this annoyingly useless alarm, which forces the screen display to the tab where the supposed error occurred when one is in a different tab -- in a couple of instances, this absolutely unnecessary, forced jump to a different tab has made me lose data being entered in a different tab.
The notebook is extremely lean in its booting process -- no shared DLLs preloaded; no crapware; limited essential start-ups; trimmed unused or irrelevant services. The alarm occurs: (1) with FF and the OS in either normal or safe mode (i.e., both safe mode, both normal mode, or one safe mode and the other normal mode); (2) using different Western European ISPs; (3) using different DNS servers (either default European ones, or manually selected top-tier U.S. servers); (4) and with a number of different web pages (such as many in sites of news organizations) but not in all pages (for instance, none of the different Google server pages).
The alarm does NOT occur browsing the same pages with either Chrome, Opera or IE.
I have not been able to find a clearly marked entry for such an alarm in about:config, and am weary of start changing alarms settings blindly. The text of this alarm is not found in firefox.exe so it must be in one of its associated libraries. Given that this alarm is COMPLETELY WORTHLESS, especially in its manic wanton conditions, can some one give me an informed opinion on how to disable it? TIA
All Replies (3)
Hi Ad_Hoc,
Sorry about your frustrations with this error message. Unfortunately I don't know of a way to disable it, but I have some thoughts on how you could at least reduce the frustration when this happens, read on :)
First of all, does this happen only when you travel (i.e. when you don't have a reliable connection, or not a connection at all)? Or does this happen all the time? It sounds like it's connection related, but it also sounds like it doesn't happen all the time, based on your description.
Anyway, one thing you could do when this happen is to simply close the tabs that are giving you these error message, if you're not using them at the moment. I personally have a tendency to keep way to many tabs open, and after 50+ tabs, I begin to lose track of what I have open. So, sometimes I simply go on a tab closing spree, and it feels great! :)
Another thing you can do when this error is thrown on the screen is to use the Esc key on your keyboard to close it. I find that it is that much quicker than to use the mouse or trackpad and click OK. Also, after you've hit Esc, you can hit Ctrl+W to close that tab -- this will take you straight back to the tab you were previously on.
Hope this helps somewhat.
Cheers, David
Thanks for responding, David. Using <Esc> and <CtrlW> might reduce the time in returning to the other tab, but does little when the triggering of a wanton alarm is very frequent. The connections I have used were extremely reliable and fast. I am using at this moment a 54 Mbps WiFi connection that lives up to its ratings in downloading & uploading data; yet, as shown in the attached image, I still get this worthless alarm. I do not know if this problem happens with my regular ISP since I have been using this tiny notebook only when traveling -- will test that once I am back mostly for curiosity, but even then if then the alarm were not triggered this would be of little consolation, since other browsers do not have the problem right now).
As a moderator, I urge you to ask the Mozilla-powers-to-be why there is no way to turn off the alarm with, say, a true/false switch in about:config (mind you, there is still old-versions junk in this config list, so it isn't we are talking about amending the constitution). Complains about this fugly alarm can be traced in the web as far back as 2010 at least. Besides, what is the advantage of the alarm for the average user? When FF users are still posing amazingly basic questions in forums of Firefox or Mozilla support, such an alarm ought to be _off_ by default and should be an option of advanced settings menu. This annoyance shows how much the critical focus on keeping a simple GUI uncluttered by trivial or higher-level messages still needs to evolve for Firefox, which I have used it since it was known a Firebird. Guess will have to switch to Chrome now while abroad.
Happy Holidays
Hi Ad_Hoc,
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that the error box is annoying and unhelpful. I will see if I can get in touch of a developer about this one, but I know that there are many small paper cuts like this that they are working on so I don't know where this falls in their priorities.
The reality is that getting this error message is supposed to be rare (because it's normally tied to problematic connections, which would likely trigger other types of erroneous behavior). You say that you have a fast connection, but do you experience any problems with the connection dropping every once in a while?
Another thing I forgot to ask the first time is, which websites are you getting this error message on? If it's only on specific website, that would be great to know. If it's happening on all sorts of websites, this could actually be some sort of malware or malicious add-on that is causing the issue. If it's the later, I would recommend a Firefox Reset and see if that would make this behavior go away. You can read about the instructions for Reset here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems (but these instructions would probably only be relevant if you experience these issues on just about any website you visit).
Let me know if this gets us any further to a solution.
Cheers, David