[opensuse] firefox keeps timing out
Hey, I am posting this here as I learn the whole suse linux system and try to complete my migration from windows. I have had some issues with the internet, in particular with firefox not loading web pages. I frequently get the error "Firefox can't find the server at ..." when I try to load a web page, and so I hit "try again". I decided to do a comparison and I opened chrome and firefox at the same time, went to cnn.com at the same time, and clicked to open 6 new tabs (using right-click, open in new tab) on the same first 6 story links at the same time. Chrome opened all 6 tabs without having to try and refresh any a 2nd time, taking less than 3 minutes for all 6 tabbed pages to open. Firefox opened 1 of the tabs, gave me the could not find the server error on 2 of them, and on the other 3 just kept going and going and going, but no page ever came up. I do not have a proxy server set up (I don't really even know how to do that). I am using oS 11.4, KDE 4.6, and firefox 6.0. I would not know what other information to post to assist in troubleshooting. In any case, it seems that this is a firefox configuration problem, and I would like to know where to start, because firefox offers so much more than chrome AFAIK. George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
George OLson wrote:
Hey, I am posting this here as I learn the whole suse linux system and try to complete my migration from windows.
I have had some issues with the internet, in particular with firefox not loading web pages. I frequently get the error "Firefox can't find the server at ..." when I try to load a web page, and so I hit "try again".
I decided to do a comparison and I opened chrome and firefox at the same time, went to cnn.com at the same time, and clicked to open 6 new tabs (using right-click, open in new tab) on the same first 6 story links at the same time.
Chrome opened all 6 tabs without having to try and refresh any a 2nd time, taking less than 3 minutes for all 6 tabbed pages to open. Firefox opened 1 of the tabs, gave me the could not find the server error on 2 of them, and on the other 3 just kept going and going and going, but no page ever came up.
I do not have a proxy server set up (I don't really even know how to do that). I am using oS 11.4, KDE 4.6, and firefox 6.0. I would not know what other information to post to assist in troubleshooting. In any case, it seems that this is a firefox configuration problem, and I would like to know where to start, because firefox offers so much more than chrome AFAIK.
George
One possible, which is easy to check, is if you have dual IP stacks, that is IPv6 and IPv4 both present Firefox may be attempting to look up IPv6 AAAA DNS records first. It should fall back automatically. You can check this by opening a blank tab and placing about:config in the URI bar. Hit return and in the Filter type in dns. Double-click on the entry network.dns.disableIPv6 and it will toggle from the default of 'false' to true. Another way to test if it is DNS related is to simple place an IP address in the URI bar instead of domain name. You can either use nslookup or dig to locate the IP for a web site domain name. -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 08/27/2011 08:02 AM, Michael Powell wrote:
One possible, which is easy to check, is if you have dual IP stacks, that is IPv6 and IPv4 both present Firefox may be attempting to look up IPv6 AAAA DNS records first. It should fall back automatically.
You can check this by opening a blank tab and placing about:config in the URI bar. Hit return and in the Filter type in dns. Double-click on the entry network.dns.disableIPv6 and it will toggle from the default of 'false' to true.
Another way to test if it is DNS related is to simple place an IP address in the URI bar instead of domain name. You can either use nslookup or dig to locate the IP for a web site domain name.
-Mike
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!! Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file? George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 27/08/11 12:35, George OLson wrote:
On 08/27/2011 08:02 AM, Michael Powell wrote:
One possible, which is easy to check, is if you have dual IP stacks, that is IPv6 and IPv4 both present Firefox may be attempting to look up IPv6 AAAA DNS records first. It should fall back automatically.
You can check this by opening a blank tab and placing about:config in the URI bar. Hit return and in the Filter type in dns. Double-click on the entry network.dns.disableIPv6 and it will toggle from the default of 'false' to true.
Another way to test if it is DNS related is to simple place an IP address in the URI bar instead of domain name. You can either use nslookup or dig to locate the IP for a web site domain name.
-Mike
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!!
Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file?
Why not try the wikipedia? eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipv6 BC -- "Facts are stupid things." Ronald Reagan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Basil Chupin wrote:
On 27/08/11 12:35, George OLson wrote:
On 08/27/2011 08:02 AM, Michael Powell wrote:
One possible, which is easy to check, is if you have dual IP stacks, that is IPv6 and IPv4 both present Firefox may be attempting to look up IPv6 AAAA DNS records first. It should fall back automatically.
You can check this by opening a blank tab and placing about:config in the URI bar. Hit return and in the Filter type in dns. Double-click on the entry network.dns.disableIPv6 and it will toggle from the default of 'false' to true.
Another way to test if it is DNS related is to simple place an IP address in the URI bar instead of domain name. You can either use nslookup or dig to locate the IP for a web site domain name.
-Mike
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!!
Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file?
Why not try the wikipedia? eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipv6
BC
Or better yet, try IPv6. It's easy to do, even if your ISP doesn't yet provide it. You can do this with "tunnnel brokers", which enable you to send & receive IPv6 encapsulated in IPv4. I use gogonet, http://gogonet.gogo6.com and another is he.net and there are many others. With gognet, I installed a client on my Linux firewall. It'll also work with NAT. He.net is better if you have a router that supports 6in4 tunnelling and has a static IP. With gogonet, I have a subnet with about a trillion times more addresses than the entire IPv4 address space (I've already used up 7 of them <g>). With he.net, you get a trillion, trillion addresses in a subnet. My ISP has promised IPv6 by the end of the year and all those LTE & 4G phones will require IPv6 for best performance. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
George OLson wrote: [snip]
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!!
Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file?
In terms of any kind of short summary of differences between IPv6 and IPv4, that would not be possible in a few sentences or paragraphs as it is quite involved. What you did in the Firefox config was to disable it from trying to resolve DNS hostnames by querying IPv6 DNS nameservers. If you were to disable IPv6 networking support on your box the time-out would occur very quickly, and fall back to IPv4 lookups before the connection timed out (in other words with no IPv6 on your box you would never have noticed this). Most people have no support for native IPv6 connectivity from their ISP, so most people should disable it. Even so, the configuration change you made in Firefox is still recommended as it will completely skip the first DNS lookup trying to query AAAA records (IPv6) and instead go straight to A record lookups on IPv4. This enhances performance a smidgeon. -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 08/27/2011 02:14 PM, Michael Powell wrote:
George OLson wrote:
[snip]
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!!
Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file?
In terms of any kind of short summary of differences between IPv6 and IPv4, that would not be possible in a few sentences or paragraphs as it is quite involved.
What you did in the Firefox config was to disable it from trying to resolve DNS hostnames by querying IPv6 DNS nameservers. If you were to disable IPv6 networking support on your box the time-out would occur very quickly, and fall back to IPv4 lookups before the connection timed out (in other words with no IPv6 on your box you would never have noticed this).
Most people have no support for native IPv6 connectivity from their ISP, so most people should disable it. Even so, the configuration change you made in Firefox is still recommended as it will completely skip the first DNS lookup trying to query AAAA records (IPv6) and instead go straight to A record lookups on IPv4. This enhances performance a smidgeon.
-Mike
Great, thanks! Glad it worked. George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hi, Am 27.08.2011 08:14, schrieb Michael Powell:
George OLson wrote:
[snip]
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!!
Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file?
In terms of any kind of short summary of differences between IPv6 and IPv4, that would not be possible in a few sentences or paragraphs as it is quite involved.
What you did in the Firefox config was to disable it from trying to resolve DNS hostnames by querying IPv6 DNS nameservers. If you were to disable IPv6 networking support on your box the time-out would occur very quickly, and fall back to IPv4 lookups before the connection timed out (in other words with no IPv6 on your box you would never have noticed this).
Not completely correct though ;-) disableIPv6 means that Firefox is not asking the DNS server for IPv6 addresses. Not only not asking IPv6 DNS nameservers.
Most people have no support for native IPv6 connectivity from their ISP, so most people should disable it. Even so, the configuration change you made in Firefox is still recommended as it will completely skip the first DNS lookup trying to query AAAA records (IPv6) and instead go straight to A record lookups on IPv4. This enhances performance a smidgeon.
It only really helps for environments where IPv6 setup is somehow broken. Otherwise the browser recognizes pretty fast (as in miliseconds) that it cannot connect using IPv6. There are quite some networks which are not working as expected. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 08/27/2011 02:14 PM, Michael Powell wrote:
George OLson wrote:
[snip]
Wow, that was it. It is like having a completely new browser. Thanks!!
Can you give a "nutshell" summary of the difference between IPv6 and IPV4 so that I understand what I just did when I adjusted the about:config file?
In terms of any kind of short summary of differences between IPv6 and IPv4, that would not be possible in a few sentences or paragraphs as it is quite involved.
What you did in the Firefox config was to disable it from trying to resolve DNS hostnames by querying IPv6 DNS nameservers. If you were to disable IPv6 networking support on your box the time-out would occur very quickly, and fall back to IPv4 lookups before the connection timed out (in other words with no IPv6 on your box you would never have noticed this).
Most people have no support for native IPv6 connectivity from their ISP, so most people should disable it. Even so, the configuration change you made in Firefox is still recommended as it will completely skip the first DNS lookup trying to query AAAA records (IPv6) and instead go straight to A record lookups on IPv4. This enhances performance a smidgeon.
-Mike
Is it possible that trying to resolve hostnames between IPv4 and IPv6 is also the problem with my Yast? It always times out when trying to refresh the list of configured repositories and when downloading packages that I have selected to install. I continue to have to hit the 'retry' button. My internet speed is so much faster now that I disabled IPv6. Is there a way to do that also in Yast? George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
george olson wrote: [snip]
Is it possible that trying to resolve hostnames between IPv4 and IPv6 is also the problem with my Yast? It always times out when trying to refresh the list of configured repositories and when downloading packages that I have selected to install. I continue to have to hit the 'retry' button. My internet speed is so much faster now that I disabled IPv6. Is there a way to do that also in Yast?
This I do not know. Doubt I can be much help with this one. Doing the command ifconfig -a and examining the output will show if IPv6 has truly been disabled. If your Firefox is now working correctly for the Internet in general you might try plugging in the URLs for the repositories you have configured in Yast into Firefox and watch what happens. If you get the same stalling in Firefox it isn't a Yast issue. -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 08/28/2011 08:36 AM, Michael Powell wrote:
george olson wrote:
[snip]
Is it possible that trying to resolve hostnames between IPv4 and IPv6 is also the problem with my Yast? It always times out when trying to refresh the list of configured repositories and when downloading packages that I have selected to install. I continue to have to hit the 'retry' button. My internet speed is so much faster now that I disabled IPv6. Is there a way to do that also in Yast?
This I do not know. Doubt I can be much help with this one. Doing the command ifconfig -a and examining the output will show if IPv6 has truly been disabled. If your Firefox is now working correctly for the Internet in general you might try plugging in the URLs for the repositories you have configured in Yast into Firefox and watch what happens. If you get the same stalling in Firefox it isn't a Yast issue.
-Mike
I get this line from ifconfig just below the ipv4 line, which I assume means that I am still checking ipv6: inet6 addr: fe80::4a5b:39ff:fef3:7692/64 Scope:Link James, I am keeping what you wrote in mind, but it is a little beyond my understanding at this point in my learning. So I will store that email for the future when I have a better grasp on the whole thing. George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
George OLson wrote:
I get this line from ifconfig just below the ipv4 line, which I assume means that I am still checking ipv6: inet6 addr: fe80::4a5b:39ff:fef3:7692/64 Scope:Link
James, I am keeping what you wrote in mind, but it is a little beyond my understanding at this point in my learning. So I will store that email for the future when I have a better grasp on the whole thing.
Any address that starts with fe80 is what's called a link local address, which every IPv6 capable device has and is based on the MAC address. It's used only for communications within the local network for computers, routers and other devices to announce their presence etc. For example, a router will advertise itself with the link local address and computers will use that address for sending stuff to the router. As for IPv6, it's generally transparent for most things and behaves the same way as IPv4. It's main benefit is the much larger address space, but has other features that improve router performance, enable better security etc. An excellent reference is IPv6 Essentials from O'Reilly. I run IPv6 on both home and work networks. Also, with the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, you can expect to see more about IPv6 and it's something everyone should learn about. All modern operating systems now support it and it's beginning to appear in consumer grade routers etc. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (6)
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Basil Chupin -
george olson -
George OLson
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James Knott -
Michael Powell -
Wolfgang Rosenauer