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Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

Can not open Google directly

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After some time of using Firefox, opening Google somehow "breaks". Let me explain:

Upon starting FF, all works fine. After some time, however, say 5-10 minutes, when I click the URL bar and try to google something, nothing happens. If a page is already open, the browser will stay on this page. If I opened a new tab, the URL will change to the relevant google URL, but the actual tab won't change at all. Dev-Console shows an empty HTML page. It's not even attempting to load the page really, the network panel shows a single empty GET request to google and nothing more. Even if I try to go to google.com directly, nothing changes. Meanwhile, all other sites I tried (youtube, amazon, reddit, what have you) still load and behave normally. It's as if FF goes completely brain dead as soon and only if google is involved.

I can "circumvent" this by going to some other google product, say google docs, and then selecting google search in the "google apps" menu in the upper right. But the only way to "fix" it is to restart the browser entirely.

This only happens on the laptop provided by my employer and only since today. On my personal laptop, running the same version of FF with the same account and addons it works just fine. It even happens in troubleshoot mode with no addons running. Even a system restart doesn't fully fix this issue.

I'm really at a loss here, any help would be appreciated.

Here you will find a screenshot of what happens if I open a new tab and try to google "test". For whatever reason, it didn't let me upload to this form directly.

After some time of using Firefox, opening Google somehow "breaks". Let me explain: Upon starting FF, all works fine. After some time, however, say 5-10 minutes, when I click the URL bar and try to google something, nothing happens. If a page is already open, the browser will stay on this page. If I opened a new tab, the URL will change to the relevant google URL, but the actual tab won't change at all. Dev-Console shows an empty HTML page. It's not even attempting to load the page really, the network panel shows a single empty GET request to google and nothing more. Even if I try to go to google.com directly, nothing changes. Meanwhile, all other sites I tried (youtube, amazon, reddit, what have you) still load and behave normally. It's as if FF goes completely brain dead as soon and only if google is involved. I can "circumvent" this by going to some other google product, say google docs, and then selecting google search in the "google apps" menu in the upper right. But the only way to "fix" it is to restart the browser entirely. This only happens on the laptop provided by my employer and only since today. On my personal laptop, running the same version of FF with the same account and addons it works just fine. It even happens in troubleshoot mode with no addons running. Even a system restart doesn't fully fix this issue. I'm really at a loss here, any help would be appreciated. [https://imgur.com/a/06ZohS6 Here] you will find a screenshot of what happens if I open a new tab and try to google "test". For whatever reason, it didn't let me upload to this form directly.

All Replies (6)

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Okulungisiwe ngu jonzn4SUSE

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I have tried both Safe Mode/Troubleshoot Mode and clearing cookies and site data, it still happens.

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Update: Curiously enough, without changing anything, normal functinality seems to come back from time to time, only to "break" again a couple of minutes later.

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donthavecow said

We need some clarification here so is it limited to the Employer laptop or yours as well. Your reply here is confusing and isn't differentiating which laptop in the second half is the problem here. For Employer laptop issues you need to talk to your IT department about this since they own and control the laptop and what you can use it for.

All the issues are limited to the laptop provided by my employer. I'm checking with their IT department as well, but this seems to be an issue isolated entirely to FF and my employer doesn't customize FF installs, so my first guess would be that this is in FF's yard.

donthavecow said

"Advice" never "USE" employer laptop to do your personnel/private business they can see and track what you do with it-never a smart thing to do. That should only be used for your Business purpose and nothing else. You already have a personal laptop to do your own personnel business.

Fair point, though in this case I trust my (relatively small and intimate) organization enough to use the same FF setup.

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You can check the connection settings.

  • Settings -> General -> Network: Connection -> Settings

If you do not need to use a proxy to connect to internet then try to select "No Proxy" if "Use the system proxy settings" or one of the others do not work properly.

See "Firefox connection settings":

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cor-el said

You can check the connection settings.
  • Settings -> General -> Network: Connection -> Settings
If you do not need to use a proxy to connect to internet then try to select "No Proxy" if "Use the system proxy settings" or one of the others do not work properly. See "Firefox connection settings":

I tried, still happens. This does not appear to be your usual network error: as described above, FF does not even *try* to load google, there's no loading bar or anything like that. A single GET request is made, but other than that, the browser behaves as if I didn't even want to navigate anywhere.