# Web Browsing Woes

## pratttech

I'm running Firefox as my default browser on both my Gentoo laptop and my Win98 desktop.  There are a number of web sites that I can not browse from my Gentoo machine  :Crying or Very sad:  , yet which open fine from the Windows desktop.  Here's a few of the sites that I have this problem with

http://www.cnn.com

http://www.xbox.com

http://www.gamespot.com

http://www.gamezone.com

I have also tried using Epiphany, Mozilla, and Lynx from my Gentoo machine, but they all just hang at a blank screens as well (Sometimes I do get a message dialog over the blank screen stating: This document contains no data).  Any ideas?

----------

## papal_authority

All those sites work fine for me under Firefox 1.0 on Gentoo. Perhaps close firefox, move your $HOME/.mozilla/ directory to $HOME/.mozilla.bak/ and see if it works then.

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## pratttech

No such luck.  In fact since I lost my bookmarks with the profile, I discovered another site that behaves the same way for me: http://www.mozilla.org  :Rolling Eyes: 

I am running Firefox 1.0 too.

Perhaps something in my setup?  Here's my info:

chris@privateer chris $ emerge info

Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1, 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 i686)

=================================================================

System uname: 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) III Mobile CPU      1133MHz

Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16

ccache version 2.3 [enabled]

Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5

Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1

Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.15.90.0.1.1-r3

Headers:  sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.21-r1

Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r7

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"

AUTOCLEAN="yes"

CFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -ftracer -fforce-addr -fprefetch-loop-arrays -frename-registers -falign-functions=64 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

COMPILER=""

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"

CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -ftracer -fforce-addr -fprefetch-loop-arrays -frename-registers -falign-functions=64 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict userpriv usersandbox"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"

MAKEOPTS="-j2"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"

SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

USE="X aalib acl acpi aim alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bonobo cdparanoia cdr crypt cups dio directfb divx4linux doc dvd encode esd ethereal evo fam fbcon fbdev flac foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gimp gnome gnutls gphoto2 gpm gps gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile iconv icq imagemagick imlib ipv6 jabber jack java joystick jpeg kde lcms libcaca libwww lirc live lzo mad mikmod mmap mmx mmx2 motif mozilla mpeg msn nas ncurses network nls nmap oggvorbis openal opengl oss pam pcmcia pcre pda pdflib perl pic png pnp prelude python qt quicktime readline rtc ruby samba scanner sdl slang slp sockets speex spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd theora tiff truetype usb v4l v4l2 videos wmf x86 xine xml xml2 xmlrpc xmms xosd xpm xsl xv xvid yahoo zlib video_cards_i830"

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## Cadorna

don't have much of a clue here, but how it's your machine connected to internet???? I see you have set up ipv6 in your USE flags, and depending in your connection this can bring problems if your router doens't understand ipv6 (I think)

maybe trying to compile with -ipv6 may help

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## pratttech

I'm not sure if IP6 flags are the problem.  I thought perhaps my AP was the problem as the Windows machine connects directly to the router and my laptop is WiFi, but even when I use the wired port; I still can't get to these sites.  I don't believe that my problem is DNS or IP related as I can resolve names fine and even ping the web servers in question.

This problem does seem similar to some postings regarding kernel version that I found while searching the forums.  I'm going to try booting some of my older kernels and see how the problem behaves.  I don't really know if this is new or if I always had this problem.  I'm currently running 2.6.9-gentoo-r1, so I was wondering if anyone else with this ver has a similar problem; or what kernel those not having the same problem are running?

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## timezone

do you have the same dns servers?

cat /etc/resolv.conf and see what you've in there.

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## pratttech

In update to my previous post, I booted my old kernel 2.6.8-gentoo-r3 but it didn't change anything.  If I don't get any solutions I'll probably try some even earlier kernels, but I'll need to edit my grub.conf

In answer to your question timezone, I do have the same DNS servers on each machine.  They both get the dns info and their own IPs via dhcp, which is served from my Linksys router that handles the NAT to the broadband connection.

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## natet1

You didn't mention whether or not this problem is happening with more than just firefox...  This is worth a try anyway.  ECN certainly used to cause problems like this - I haven't kept up with it recently though...

Check if TCP ECN is turned on:

```

cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn

```

if it is set to 1 try turning it off (as root) with:

```

echo "0" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn

```

Then (restart) firefox and try again.

If that fixes the problem then you will want to edit /etc/sysctl.conf and add a line like so:

```

net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 0

```

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## pratttech

Thanks for the reply.  It happens with Epiphany, Mozilla, and Firefox-- even Lynx.  All the graphical ones just sit "Waiting for www..." on these sites.  Sometimes I get an alert dialog box stating " The document contains no data".  With Lynx the message is "HTTP request sent; waiting for response."  It is only certain sites like those I mentioned.  Other ones (like these forums) work perfectly fine.

I checked my setting as you mentioned, but it was already 0:

 *Quote:*   

> privateer root # cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn
> 
> 0
> 
> privateer root #
> ...

 

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## jmack1010

I would say your plugins are not installed correctly, but your errors are really unrelated.  gamespot.com has problems without flash and java support, so that was my first guess.  I am a frequent visitor to www.gamespot.com, I use konqueror, however my roommate uses firefox and both work perfectly fine, so I really don't think that it is the browser.

I don't think that it is a kernel problem because we are both running kernel 2.6.10, but have used virtually all of the 2.6 tree.  I use gentoo-dev-sources and he uses kernel.org.  We also have a linksys wireless 802.11b.  

I wonder if its an iptables problem or as everyone else said a ipv6 problem.  Just leave you computer and do an emerge -e world.  The brute force technique that somehow works.

Probably not what you wanted to hear

Joe

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## Blubbmon

The originally posted links are working for me, but I have almost the same problem with https://forums.gentoo.org. Every browser including firefox, konqueror, opera, lynx, etc. give me strange results.

The procedure is every time the same: I search the forum for something (e.g. "test") and then try to open any posting. My browsers behave like this:

Firefox: "The document contains no data."

Konqueror: the page loads infinitely

lynx: "Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted.", "Alert!: Unable to access document."

Opera: gives a dialog where I would like to store the page "viewtopic.php" (mime-type: application/octet-stream) -- it is empty too

But if I copy the "Link Location" in firefox (e.g. for "https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=292824&highlight=test"), open a new tab and paste the url without anything after the ampersand (without "highlight=...."), the page loads just fine.

Help is greatly appreciated.

----------

## asiobob

Might be a TCP window scaling issue

Try this as root

```

echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_default_win_scale 

```

If that works, good. The above won't hold through a reboot, so the same thing in a more permanant solution is

Add 

```

net.ipv4.tcp_default_win_scale = 0

```

 into /etc/sysctl.conf

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## Blubbmon

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_default_win_scale
> ```
> ...

 

I do not have this entry in /proc, but I tried tcp_window_scaling instead -- nothing changed:

```
/proc/sys/net/ipv4 # ls -al

total 0

dr-xr-xr-x  6 root root 0 Feb  9 21:41 .

dr-xr-xr-x  9 root root 0 Feb  9 21:41 ..

dr-xr-xr-x  6 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 conf

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 icmp_echo_ignore_all

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 icmp_ratelimit

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 icmp_ratemask

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 igmp_max_memberships

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 igmp_max_msf

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 inet_peer_gc_maxtime

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 inet_peer_gc_mintime

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 inet_peer_maxttl

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 inet_peer_minttl

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 inet_peer_threshold

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_autoconfig

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_conntrack_max

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_default_ttl

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_dynaddr

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_forward

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_local_port_range

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_no_pmtu_disc

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_nonlocal_bind

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ip_queue_maxlen

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ipfrag_high_thresh

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ipfrag_low_thresh

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ipfrag_secret_interval

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 ipfrag_time

dr-xr-xr-x  5 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 neigh

dr-xr-xr-x  2 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 netfilter

dr-xr-xr-x  2 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 route

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_abort_on_overflow

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_adv_win_scale

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_app_win

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_bic

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_bic_fast_convergence

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_bic_low_window

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_dsack

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_ecn

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_fack

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_fin_timeout

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_frto

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_keepalive_intvl

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_keepalive_probes

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_keepalive_time

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_low_latency

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_max_orphans

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_max_syn_backlog

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_max_tw_buckets

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_mem

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_moderate_rcvbuf

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_no_metrics_save

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_orphan_retries

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_reordering

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_retrans_collapse

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_retries1

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_retries2

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_rfc1337

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_rmem

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_sack

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_stdurg

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_syn_retries

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_synack_retries

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_timestamps

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_tso_win_divisor

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_tw_recycle

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_tw_reuse

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_vegas_alpha

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_vegas_beta

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_vegas_cong_avoid

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_vegas_gamma

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_westwood

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_window_scaling

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Feb  9 21:57 tcp_wmem
```

Is there a special module that creates tcp_default_win_scale? Maybe I missed something in the kernel config or the name of this proc file changed. I am using linux 2.6.10-gentoo-r5  :Question: 

Tomorrow I will have a look at the kernel changelog and TCP documentation. 

Anyway ... thanks for this hint!

----------

## Blubbmon

 *Blubbmon wrote:*   

> Tomorrow I will have a look at the kernel changelog and TCP documentation.

 

I searched in all changelogs of the last kernel versions for tcp_default_win_scale and found out that it was introduced in 2.6.7 by David Miller (in net/ipv4/sysctl_net_ipv4.c):

 *Changelog-2.6.7 wrote:*   

> <davem@nuts.davemloft.net>
> 
> 	[TCP]: Add tcp_default_win_scale sysctl.

 

But since version 2.6.9_rc2 it has been removed:

 *Changelog-2.6.9_rc2 wrote:*   

> Stephen Hemminger:
> 
>         [TCP]: Automatically compute tcp_default_win_scale

 

Anyway, my browser problem still exists on my laptop, whereas two other gentoo systems with almost the same configuration don't behave this way (all systems are connected to the same switch)  :Sad: 

Maybe I should/will try an older kernel   :Question: 

----------

## Blubbmon

I just noticed that the browser problem suddenly disappeared! WTF!   :Shocked: 

But I'll continue investigate about this problem   :Confused: 

----------

## jammib

My installation of firefox is having this problem too.  I have noticed in the last couple of days, but only on the Gentoo forums site, and only when clicking on  a search result.  Also, if I open the link in a new tab, I get "the document contains no data", but if I remove everything from the = onwards (as in highlight=blah) it works fine.

I don't think this is anything to do with the url parsing as  *Quote:*   

> https://forums.gentoo.org/posting.php?mode=reply&t=273267&sid=e5936aeb5f218c19966819e00a03e06d

 

works fine

This is a fairly new install <2 weeks, using x86 except for a few packages, and had been working fine.  If any one has any ideas, I would love to know.

Jammib

----------

