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Firefox problems with slow and unreliable dialup internet connection

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I have a slow an unreliable dialup internet connection. This is all that is available in my area -- no form of 'broadband' internet is available, not even satelight (I have too many trees in the way).

What happens is that due to the poor quality of the analog telephone system (very old and poorly maintained copper cables), my modem drops the internet connection from time to time -- it *usually* dials back, but sometimes I have to manually restart the connection. Because the the connection is so slow, it takes a long time to completely load pages and if the connection is lost in the middle of loading a page, Firefox seems to become 'confused' and even if I stop loading the page and then try to reload it, it does not do so. I have an external modem, so I can watch the blinking lights, so I know when data is being transfered (I also have a connection monitor feature as part of my dialup connection software which shows a bar chart of data transfers over the dialip connection).

I *seems* like what is happening is that Firefox has open network connections that become 'void' when the connection is lost and then reconnected and Firefox attempts to re-cycle these connections. Or else it has 'worker threads' that have become confused or wedged.

Are there settings that I can set (eg with 'about:config') to deal with these issues?

I have a slow an unreliable dialup internet connection. This is all that is available in my area -- no form of 'broadband' internet is available, not even satelight (I have too many trees in the way). What happens is that due to the poor quality of the analog telephone system (very old and poorly maintained copper cables), my modem drops the internet connection from time to time -- it *usually* dials back, but sometimes I have to manually restart the connection. Because the the connection is so slow, it takes a long time to completely load pages and if the connection is lost in the middle of loading a page, Firefox seems to become 'confused' and even if I stop loading the page and then try to reload it, it does not do so. I have an external modem, so I can watch the blinking lights, so I know when data is being transfered (I also have a connection monitor feature as part of my dialup connection software which shows a bar chart of data transfers over the dialip connection). I *seems* like what is happening is that Firefox has open network connections that become 'void' when the connection is lost and then reconnected and Firefox attempts to re-cycle these connections. Or else it has 'worker threads' that have become confused or wedged. Are there settings that I can set (eg with 'about:config') to deal with these issues?

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Maybe it helps if you toggle the File > Work Offline setting on/off.

You can also try to reload web page(s) and bypass the cache.

  • Press and hold Shift and left-click the Reload button.
  • Press "Ctrl + F5" or press "Ctrl + Shift + R" (Windows,Linux)
  • Press "Cmd + Shift + R" (MAC)

Modified by cor-el