Safari can't reach some URLs

[John Varela]

Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.

Error message:

Safari can't connect to the server (?)
Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
connect to the server "www.google.com"

That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
reached and Firefox has no problems.

The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
no difference.

Suggestiohttp://npcnt.net/temp/dsc01035.jpgns?

--
John Varela

[Fred Bambrough]

In message <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>

Followups set

I've had the same issue for a little while. My version of Safari is limited
by my use of Snow Leopard. I don't know if that's relevant.

I find that re-selecting the Location option from the Apple menu bar option
allows a web page to load again. I have settings with different DNS servers
but choosing the same one again seems to work equally well. Don't know why.

--
Fred

[dorayme]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,

"John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
>
> Error message:
>
> Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> connect to the server "www.google.com"

On Snow L, on latest Safari for it, no problem with at URL here.

--
dorayme

[Kevin McMurtrie]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,
"John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:

When your internet is working, try a traceroute to google.com and note
the IP address of the first hop of your ISP. Now ping that address and
leave it running. If ping fails at the same time, then it's your
connection. Check any local logs that you have and your modem lights.
--
I will not see posts from Google because I must filter them as spam

[Warren Oates]

In article <mpro.mk6wb8...@ypical.nospam.invalid>,
Fred Bambrough <fred@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

>
> Followups set

And reset. Fuck off Fred.
--
Where's the Vangelis music?
Pris' tongue is sticking out in in the wide shot after Batty has kissed her.
They have put back more tits into the Zhora dressing room scene.
-- notes for Blade Runner

[Warren Oates]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,
"John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
>
> Error message:
>
> Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> connect to the server "www.google.com"
>
> That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> reached and Firefox has no problems.
>
> The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> no difference.

What about other browsers?

[Paul Sture]

In article <vilain-64856E....@news.individual.net>,
Michael Vilain <vil...@NOspamcop.net> wrote:

> Sometimes modems go bad. Or worse, partially bad and can't be
> determined to be bad until they actually fail. Up until then, you have
> intermittent service and random problems that will instantly clear up if
> you replace the ISP's modem. This happened to a friend who ended up
> buying a burner cell phone because she uses Vonage and with no cable
> modem, she has no phone service.
>
> If it keeps up, call your ISP and have them do a remote diagnostic. If
> you have sysadmin skills, run various tools in the command line to pin
> point why your cable modem lost routing. Keep pounding on them to
> replace the modem, especially if you're renting it month-to-month. If
> your fridge in your apartment started leaking water, you'd have it
> replaced by the landlord ASAP.

I had a sudden loss of speed with a previous "cable modem" and I found a
speed test site in my country which offered the option of submitting a
report on my behalf to my ISP. That worked a treat and within an hour a
new modem had been ordered for me.

They stressed that I should not simply replace the modem but also use
the new cables which came with it.

--
Paul Sture

[Warren Oates]

In article <nospam-568462....@news.chingola.ch>,

Yeah, to be fair to our ISP, they sent us a new modem overnight (and
boosted our speeds) when we had problems. They're still too expensive,
and run by Frenchmen, but still ...

[JF Mezei]

O
>> Safari can't connect to the server (?)
>> Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
>> connect to the server "www.google.com"

from command line:

curl -I http://www.google.com

report when you see. (this is just the HTTP response header.)


I get this:

curl -I http://www.google.com

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: http://www.google.ca/
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Set-Cookie:
PREF=ID=416878e6a17f4bcf:FF=0:TM=1364238228:LM=1364238228:S=MON0m17vOEeh9XZT;
expires=Wed, 25-Mar-2015 19:03:48 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com
Set-Cookie:
NID=67=priDooQf8JdkRLOtJrc_bCRdhtE_F5epiXIhJf9ZvX0hukG6yBu_RCE4MTfAVVVF2nT2nYSxGcdvmnTQ5w-InAQG7z9RX758ZYVV9zt9iYRWcfJM2dx7xbLyTyR2-D2i;
expires=Tue, 24-Sep-2013 19:03:48 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com; HttpOnly
P3P: CP="This is not a P3P policy! See
http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151657
for more info."
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:03:48 GMT
Server: gws
Content-Length: 218
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN



Note the "Location:" field. This tells the browser that this is a
redirect to www.google.ca , at which point the browser is to attempt to
load www.google.ca

Sometimes those redirectis are in a look at the browser detects this.

[John Varela]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:29:40 UTC, Warren Oates
<warren...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,
> "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> > including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> > sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
> >
> > Error message:
> >
> > Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> > Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> > connect to the server "www.google.com"
> >
> > That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> > reached and Firefox has no problems.
> >
> > The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> > no difference.
>
> What about other browsers?

Sorry, I should have said that. Firefox and Opera have no problem
here. My wife, on the same LAN, has no problem with either Safari or
Firefox. All other applications, including Mail.app and this
newsreader, have no problem reaching their destinations.

This clearly is a problem specific to Safari on my computer. I
suspect the problem may have arisen with the upgrade to Mountain
Lion 10.8.3, so I've downloaded the 10.8.3 Combo update and will
install it as soon as I'm done reading news groups. (Wife's computer
is also on 10.8.3 and no Safari problems there.)

--
John Varela

[John White]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-zyUwNzidtV8G@localhost>,

Something simple to try:
Go to Safari Preferences > Advanced and check "Show Develop Menu"
Then go to the Develop Menu and hit "Empty Caches"

Might do the trick, might not, but won't do any harm.

[Jolly Roger]

In article <51503524$0$59630$c3e8da3$66d3...@news.astraweb.com>,

Warren Oates <warren...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,
> "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> > including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> > sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
> >
> > Error message:
> >
> > Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> > Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> > connect to the server "www.google.com"
> >
> > That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> > reached and Firefox has no problems.
> >
> > The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> > no difference.
>
> What about other browsers?

[couldn't reply to OP because it was missing on my end]

I've found Safari to be buggy in the way it handles (or more to the
point /doesn't/ handle) network context switches, like connecting or
disconnecting from VPN or even other WiFi access points at times.
Sometimes, Safari refuses to use the new network connection, for
whatever reason, until I quit and restart Safari. Then, like magic, it's
able to see the net again. Just in case you haven't, I would definitely
try restarting Safari.

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR

[John Varela]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:05:57 UTC, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> O
> >> Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> >> Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> >> connect to the server "www.google.com"
>
> from command line:
>
> curl -I http://www.google.com
>
> report when you see. (this is just the HTTP response header.)

Thanks for trying but I don't think this will help. Every app except
Safari has working access to the DNS. Even Safari has access to it
for four (only four!) URLs. These are SunTrust.com, USAA.com,
alum.mit.edu (but not mit.edu), and the domain where my web site is
hosted. I have tried a dozen or more other URLs and none of them
gets through.

Firefox and Opera on this computer have no problems. Firefox and
Safari on my wife's computer have no problems. No other Internet
apps on my computer have a problem as evidenced by my ability to
post here.

This looks like an ISP or DNS problem but it is not. It is specific
to Safari on this computer.

--
John Varela

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-25 19:04, John Varela wrote:

> Firefox and Opera on this computer have no problems. Firefox and
> Safari on my wife's computer have no problems. No other Internet
> apps on my computer have a problem as evidenced by my ability to
> post here.

This many not ne DNS related it may have to do with how the browser
handles the HTTP response, especially when it comes to redirects.

It could also be because Safari has something in its cache which "ruins"
the experience. Have you tried clearing the cache (does Safari have such
a function ?) and then quitting and restarting Safari ?


note that the curl -I does not make use of the browser at all, it merely
sends an HTTP request and prints the HTTP response header. No cache, no
logic, no URL rewrite involved. It may help you debug what Safari is
attempting to do.

[John Varela]

I'm ahead of you on that one. I had already gone to Safari > Reset
Safari... and reset everything. Everything.

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:08:04 UTC, "John Varela"
<newl...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:29:40 UTC, Warren Oates
> <warren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,
> > "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> > > including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> > > sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
> > >
> > > Error message:
> > >
> > > Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> > > Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> > > connect to the server "www.google.com"
> > >
> > > That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> > > reached and Firefox has no problems.
> > >
> > > The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> > > no difference.
> >
> > What about other browsers?
>
> Sorry, I should have said that. Firefox and Opera have no problem
> here. My wife, on the same LAN, has no problem with either Safari or
> Firefox. All other applications, including Mail.app and this
> newsreader, have no problem reaching their destinations.
>
> This clearly is a problem specific to Safari on my computer.

Actually, more than that. Safari works OK in a different account on
this computer.

So the problem is specific to this account on this computer.

> I
> suspect the problem may have arisen with the upgrade to Mountain
> Lion 10.8.3, so I've downloaded the 10.8.3 Combo update and will
> install it as soon as I'm done reading news groups. (Wife's computer
> is also on 10.8.3 and no Safari problems there.)

That didn't help.

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:47:36 UTC, Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com>
wrote:

> In article <51503524$0$59630$c3e8da3$66d3...@news.astraweb.com>,
> Warren Oates <warren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-mjwdji2NPPrh@localhost>,
> > "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> > > including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> > > sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
> > >
> > > Error message:
> > >
> > > Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> > > Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> > > connect to the server "www.google.com"
> > >
> > > That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> > > reached and Firefox has no problems.
> > >
> > > The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> > > no difference.
> >
> > What about other browsers?
>
> [couldn't reply to OP because it was missing on my end]
>
> I've found Safari to be buggy in the way it handles (or more to the
> point /doesn't/ handle) network context switches, like connecting or
> disconnecting from VPN or even other WiFi access points at times.
> Sometimes, Safari refuses to use the new network connection, for
> whatever reason, until I quit and restart Safari. Then, like magic, it's
> able to see the net again. Just in case you haven't, I would definitely
> try restarting Safari.

I've restarted the computer, installed the 10.8.3 combo, restarted
again, and still no joy.

Another obvious thing I should have done was to test Safari in
another account. It works in the admin account. Not in my account.

So it's something to do with my personal settings. What do you
suggest? Delete the .plist? Recover an old .plist from Time Machine?

--
John Varela

[Jolly Roger]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-OIXiytfIRUDo@localhost>,

Oh, interesting. Yep, you might try moving the Safari preference file
out of the way so a new one is created the next time you start Safari,
to see if that helps.

[DaveC]

> What do you
> suggest? Delete the .plist? Recover an old .plist from Time Machine?

Yes. Move .plist to Desktop, restart Safari. If not, restore the one from TM.
Restart Safari.

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-25 19:27, John Varela wrote:

> Another obvious thing I should have done was to test Safari in
> another account. It works in the admin account. Not in my account.

I all likelyhood, it is due to cached entries.


after you get an error for www.google.com , have you tried to "SHIFT
RELOAD" ? (press reload button on right of the URL bar, or in the view
menu).

Not sure if Safari handles "shift reload" , but on other browsers it
means "reload the page from scratch, ignore all cached entries.

[John Varela]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:42:02 UTC, Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com>

There's a problem here in that there are multiple plists.

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist
/com.apple.Safari.plist.gZwFkOQ
/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist

~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist
/Configurations.plist.signed
/Databases/databases.db
/safari-extension_com.agilebits...[more]
/Downloads.plist
/Extensions/1Password-1.safariextz
/Extensions.plist
/Ghostery.safari.extz
/Form Values
/History.plist
/Historyindex.sk
/LastSession.plist
/LocalStorage/
/Locationpermissions.plist
/ReadingListArchives/[long string]/Page.webarchive
/[long string]/Page.webarchive
/TopSites.plist
/UserNotificationPermissions.plist
/WebpageIcons.db

And those are just the ones I found. There may be more.

I tried renaming (just added a ? to each extension) the three items
in ~/Library/Preferences/ and opening Safari. Same as before. As
expected, a new Safari.plist had been created; the other two were
not replaced.

Would you suggest that I try renaming some of the other plists? That
Locationpermissions plist looked interesting, but it's only five
lines long so that can't be it.

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

I take it you mean to hold down the SHIFT key while commanding
Safari to reload the page. That doesn't help.

The drop-down from Develop includes a clickable item, Empty Caches,
and a selectable item, Disable Caches. Clicking on those doesn't
help, and after having done that I find that the folder
~Library/Caches/Safari/ is still over 30 MB long. That should be
empty, shouldn't it? I tried renaming the Safari caches folder so
that Safari couldn't find it, and that made no difference.

--
John Varela

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-26 21:22, John Varela wrote:

> The drop-down from Develop includes a clickable item, Empty Caches,
> and a selectable item, Disable Caches. Clicking on those doesn't
> help, and after having done that I find that the folder
> ~Library/Caches/Safari/ is still over 30 MB long.

I have an "Empty Cache" in the "Safari" menu (left of the File menu)
I do not have an Empty Cache in the Develop menu (am at Snow Leopard so
my version of Safari is old).

Another thing you may wish to try is "Clear History" which is the last
item at bottom of the "History" meny item.

Quit Safari and then restart it. This makes sure stuff gets written to
disk and any delayed actions get acted upon. It is possible that when
you "Disable caches", it also disabled any activity to clean" delete it.
You want to enable the caches in the Develop menu, then Clear the cache
in the Safari menu, exit and restart.

Something else to try: In the preferences, "Privacy", you want to
"Remore all Website Data" OR click on "Details" and remove anything
related to google.

It is possible that you have cookies being sent to your few "broken" web
sites that cause the web site to redirect to invalid site etc.

(Again, A Wireshark trace would tell you exactly what Safari si sending
to the internet and what come back).

I believe that "stored data" terminology used by Safari is "cookies"
(not sure why Apple decided against using standard terminology here)

[John Varela]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:33:46 UTC, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> On 13-03-26 21:22, John Varela wrote:
>
> > The drop-down from Develop includes a clickable item, Empty Caches,
> > and a selectable item, Disable Caches. Clicking on those doesn't
> > help, and after having done that I find that the folder
> > ~Library/Caches/Safari/ is still over 30 MB long.
>
> I have an "Empty Cache" in the "Safari" menu (left of the File menu)
> I do not have an Empty Cache in the Develop menu (am at Snow Leopard so
> my version of Safari is old).
>
> Another thing you may wish to try is "Clear History" which is the last
> item at bottom of the "History" meny item.

Done several days ago with Safari > Reset Safari... > Clear History

> Quit Safari and then restart it. This makes sure stuff gets written to
> disk and any delayed actions get acted upon. It is possible that when
> you "Disable caches", it also disabled any activity to clean" delete it.
> You want to enable the caches in the Develop menu, then Clear the cache
> in the Safari menu, exit and restart.

I've closed and reopened Safari dozens of times while
troubleshooting this.

> Something else to try: In the preferences, "Privacy", you want to
> "Remore all Website Data" OR click on "Details" and remove anything
> related to google.

Doesn't help.

> It is possible that you have cookies being sent to your few "broken" web
> sites that cause the web site to redirect to invalid site etc.

There aren't a few broken sites; every site I've tested is
unreachable except the four I named in another post.

> (Again, A Wireshark trace would tell you exactly what Safari si sending
> to the internet and what come back).

I've never heard of Wireshark. I don't know any Internet protocol so
I doubt I could interpret what it reported.

> I believe that "stored data" terminology used by Safari is "cookies"
> (not sure why Apple decided against using standard terminology here)

I'll try a few more things and then I may just abandon Safari.

--
John Varela

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-27 17:12, John Varela wrote:

> I'll try a few more things and then I may just abandon Safari.

from command line:

nslookup www.google.com

(or use Network Utility in "Utilities"), "Lookup"

Take the first IP address that is shown. (Google generally translates
into multiple ones and the browser generally chooses the first one)

Enter that IP address in the URL field on Safari (instead of www.google.com)

See if this gets you to google.

Otherwise, I suggest you start from scratch:

From safari, export your bookmarks to a file in your home directory.

Then delete:

~/Library/Safari
~/Library/Preferences/com.Apple.safari.plist
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari

Important to empty trash to make sure that any reference to file by ID
will fail. (remember that deleting a file merely moves it to the .Trash
folder, so the file, its ID and its contents remain accessible to any
application that knows the file by its ID (node).

Then restart Safari, it should be "vanilla". You can then re-import your
bookmakrks and go through the preferences to re-customize them.


With Wireshark, one could have diagnosed the exact problem, but short of
having the right tools at your disposal, the best way is perhaps to zap
your congigs and start from scratch.

I'll give you an example: at one point, it became impossible for me to
access the canadian government's CRTC web site. All others worked. And
it failed on Firefox while working on Safari (which I use rarely). Turns
out that the cookies set by the CRTC didn't expire and the cookie list
kept on growing to a point where it was so long that the HTTP request
was too long and the web site refused it. Clearing the cookies for the
CRTC web site fixed it.

But you said you already did that, so I have to assume it is something else.

[John Varela]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:05:40 UTC, "John Varela"

The bug isn't living in any of those files. I renamed all of them at
the folder level and let them be recreated and I also restored them
from Time Machine, and neither of those things helped.

I'm baffled.

--
John Varela

[Jolly Roger]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-UdwkdOHxVuvG@localhost>,

If it works fine in other user accounts, then it has to be *something*
in your user account.

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-27 17:59, John Varela wrote:

> I'm baffled.


Next: within safari:

Develop -> Show Web Inspector
Then type www.google.com in the normal URL bar, press return.

The web insector pane below the browser window will then show each HTTP
request being made to load the contents. Click on the "Network tab"

For instance, for me:

www.google.com returns a 302 code (found) and followed by a request for
www.google.ca with a 200 OK code. (and then requests for blank.html, and
various images)

Now, if I click on the first entry www.google.com it will some me the
headers for that HTTP transation.
You will see the request headers (what safari sent) and the response
headers (what it got back from remore web server)


here is what I got for www.google.com:

Request URL:http://www.google.com/
Request Method:GET
Status Code:302 Found

Request Headers
Accept:text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_8)
AppleWebKit/534.58.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.8 Safari/534.58.2


Response Headers
Cache-Control:private
Content-Length:218
Content-Type:text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date:Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:38:20 GMT
Location:http://www.google.ca/
Server:gws
X-Frame-Options:SAMEORIGIN
X-Xss-Protection:1; mode=block


(In the above case the Location: field tells the browser to switch to a
different page, in my case google.ca since google has determined I am
canadian)


In your case, looking at what happens and how far the process goes
before safari declares the request failed is important.

Some notes:

200 series codes are "success"
300 series error codes are basically "not here, but not failed"
400 series codes: Sorry there is a serious error (content not found etc)
500 series code: sorry, but the web server is having problems (not your
fault)

If there is a DNS problem, you will see a "failed" in the Status text
since no TCPIP connection could be established so no request could be
sent and response received.

[John Varela]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:49:47 UTC, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> On 13-03-27 17:12, John Varela wrote:
>
> > I'll try a few more things and then I may just abandon Safari.
>
> from command line:
>
> nslookup www.google.com
>
> (or use Network Utility in "Utilities"), "Lookup"
>
> Take the first IP address that is shown. (Google generally translates
> into multiple ones and the browser generally chooses the first one)
>
> Enter that IP address in the URL field on Safari (instead of www.google.com)
>
> See if this gets you to google.
>
> Otherwise, I suggest you start from scratch:
>
> From safari, export your bookmarks to a file in your home directory.
>
> Then delete:
>
> ~/Library/Safari
> ~/Library/Preferences/com.Apple.safari.plist
> ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari
>
> Important to empty trash to make sure that any reference to file by ID
> will fail. (remember that deleting a file merely moves it to the .Trash
> folder, so the file, its ID and its contents remain accessible to any
> application that knows the file by its ID (node).

All of that is what I just did, as I reported in another subthread.
Except I didn't delete the files I just appended a ? to the file
names or folder names so Safari couldn't find them. I also tried
replacing those files from Time Machine.

A strange thing, though. When I renamed Safari.plist to
Safari.plist? this time a new Safari.plist immediately appeared even
though Safari was closed. (I had earlier renamed Safari.plist and
not the others, and at that time hadn't experienced a new
Safari.plist popping up until after I had opened Safari.)

When I decided that this test had failed and went to restore the old
Safari.plist, I had to be quick to delete the new one and rename the
Safari.plist? back to Safari.plist before a new one could be
created.

> Then restart Safari, it should be "vanilla".

That was what I expected but it's not what happened. Evidently there
are more configuration files that I haven't found.

> You can then re-import your
> bookmakrks and go through the preferences to re-customize them.
>
>
> With Wireshark, one could have diagnosed the exact problem, but short of
> having the right tools at your disposal, the best way is perhaps to zap
> your congigs and start from scratch.
>
> I'll give you an example: at one point, it became impossible for me to
> access the canadian government's CRTC web site. All others worked. And
> it failed on Firefox while working on Safari (which I use rarely). Turns
> out that the cookies set by the CRTC didn't expire and the cookie list
> kept on growing to a point where it was so long that the HTTP request
> was too long and the web site refused it. Clearing the cookies for the
> CRTC web site fixed it.
>
> But you said you already did that, so I have to assume it is something else.

--
John Varela

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-27 20:42, Lewis wrote:

> But you *do* know the problem is not safari, but your account.

Read carefully. Safari on his account fails. Works on other Accounts.
Other browsers on his account work. Works also on other accounts.

This points to something which is safari specific.

[JF Mezei]

It s possible that other applciations on your system make use of Safari
services (webkit or whatever).

I suggest you reboot and before launching ANY application, you delete
all safari related files in your ~/Library hiearchy.

And remember to empty wastebasket.

But I would rather you do the steps with the developer menu because that
might hive us a hint of why those web sites fail. This is the type of
problem that is likely not reproducable once it has been fixed, so while
you can reproduce it at will, getting some debigging info would be of use.

If you are on a recent OS version, this would be worth reporting to
apple as a bug. Vut for that you need to collect that info.

[j Burns]

On 3/24/13 7:21 PM, John Varela wrote:
> Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
>
> Error message:
>
> Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> connect to the server "www.google.com"
>
> That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> reached and Firefox has no problems.
>
> The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> no difference.
>

> Suggestiohttp://npcnt.net/temp/dsc01035.jpgns?
>

Little Snitch and TCP Block can sometimes keep Safari from reaching some
servers while other browsers work for all servers.

[John Varela]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:42:17 UTC, Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

> In message <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-UdwkdOHxVuvG@localhost>

> But you *do* know the problem is not safari, but your account.

Yes, it's narrowed to that.

Since I only use Safari for a limited number of things, I just
created a new user account that I intend to use when I need Safari.
As a workaround. Until we figure out what the problem is with this
account.

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:28:09 UTC, Michael Vilain
<vil...@NOspamcop.net> wrote:

> In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-nsddU1JzVdUT@localhost>,

> I'd push Safari aside at this point since you don't have the expertise
> to fix it. One thing I don't recall you mentioning--in a newly created
> account, does Safari still fail to reach these sites?

As I mentioned in the other subthread, I just created a new user
account and installed Safari on it. I added Ghostery and 1Password
to it, same as in this account, and it's working properly.

> That would tell
> me that something in your setup or preferences is messing it up.

That's pretty clear from the other tests I've done.

> If
> it's to much trouble to move everything to a new account or just
> abandoning Safari for these sites, I think you have your work around.
>
> Alternately, if you're still on AppleCare, try calling them and asking
> for help. Otherwise, shift to another Browser when you want to access
> those sites. I do that lots of times I want to watch a trailer or video
> that won't play on Safari or Chrome.

I do most of my web access through Firefox and reserve Safari for
just a few things. That's part of the problem; it's not as if I
added an extension and things went to hell the next day. I don't
know how long Safari has had this problem so can't associate it with
any action I took. My first thought was that upgrading to OS X
10.8.3 caused it, because that was the most recent major thing that
I've done, but tests have eliminated that as the source.

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 06:36:16 UTC, j Burns <bur...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

I do have Little Snitch installed. It doesn't have any effect on the
Safari installations on other accounts on this computer, so it's
unlikely to be the source of the problem in this account.

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:49:14 UTC, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> On 13-03-27 17:59, John Varela wrote:
>
> > I'm baffled.
>
>
> Next: within safari:
>
> Develop -> Show Web Inspector
> Then type www.google.com in the normal URL bar, press return.
>
> The web insector pane below the browser window will then show each HTTP
> request being made to load the contents. Click on the "Network tab"

I don't see a "Network tab" anywhere.

When I try to open Google.com, Web Inspector only displays the html
for the page that tells me it can't reach the server. However, see
my response to you in the other subthread.


<snip>

--
John Varela

[John Varela]

I downloaded and installed and ran Wireshark. I have no idea what
all those options are for and am not going to make the effort to
learn. Given that, this is what I was able to record:

On initial opening of Safari:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17288735/Open%20Safari.Wireshark

Here you see at lines 17 and 22 Safari is fetching my home page.
This URL is to a redirector provided by my alumni association, which
redirects to my private domain. This web page opens properly despite
the lines with red letters on a black background that immediately
follow. So do links from that page to other pages in that domain,
but not to photo albums in Dropbox, which can't be reached.

Just to see what would happen I commanded Safari to reload the page:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17288735/Reload%20home%20page.Wireshark

In this case at line 9 we see the path to my home page and at lines
29 to 31 it's picking up the images on the page. Again, this page
loaded and behaved normally despite all the black lines that follow.
Note that in this case there was no redirection.

Finally, I tried to open http://bbt.com, which produced a
can't-open-the-page error:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17288735/Can't%20Open%20bbt.com.Wireshark

At line 13 Safari is asking the DNS for the address. The DNS
replies, there is a malformed packet, and nothing more.

None of that tells me much, but maybe you can suggest something more
to do.

--
John Varela

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-28 19:41, John Varela wrote:

> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17288735/Can't%20Open%20bbt.com.Wireshark
>
> At line 13 Safari is asking the DNS for the address. The DNS
> replies, there is a malformed packet, and nothing more.

1- You make a query for bbt.com

2- There is a succesfull response bbt.com = 72.13.32.43 This is the
correct IP address.

3- There is no HHTP or HTTPS request made or connection attempted to
72.13.32.43

This means that Safari reached the conclusion that the site was
unreacheable without actually attempting to connect to it.

I say "SAFARI" in the previous paragraph because you have stated that
from the same account, you can reach those sites with Firefox.


It is possible that someone played a prank on you and setup Safari with
some sort of parental controls to block certain sites ?

In my version of Safari, there appears to be no built-in means to block
certain web sites. But there is "parental controls" in System
Preferences, but for me it is disabled.

Also, in Safari, have you tried Preferences->Extensiosn "OFF" (there is
an on-off switch near the top right, at least on my version)


have you tried accessing: http://72.13.32.43/

You should be getting "This is a test page". (the web server that hosts
btt.com but without a proper host name, it doesn't know which content to
serve you.


Similarly, for google:

http://www.google.ca (this may bypass some blocks)
http://173.194.75.99 (this shoudl get you a default google search page)


So in short, assuming you let Wireshark run long enough, (which I think
you did), Safari resolves btt.com fine but then doesn't bother trying
to connect to it.

You can try to (command line) pink 72.13.32.43 (host for btt.com)
This should work since other browsers can connect

[Phillip Jones]

I have Little Snitch as well usually Little Snitch will notify you to
ask whether you want accept one time, or forever.

--
Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. "If it's Fixed, Don't Break it"
http://www.phillipmjones.net mailto:pjon...@comcast.net

[j Burns]

I've read of cases where the user couldn't see why Safari wouldn't
connect to some servers. It affected only Safari and only one account.
Uninstalling or turning off Little Snitch solved it.

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-28 23:29, j Burns wrote:

> I've read of cases where the user couldn't see why Safari wouldn't
> connect to some servers. It affected only Safari and only one account.
> Uninstalling or turning off Little Snitch solved it.

DOes Little SNitch have the ability to block outbound traffic only from
1 application ? Or does blocking an IP mean it is bocked to all apps on
that account ?

IF Little-snitch blocks computer-wide,
AND IF the OP is able to use Firefox but not Safari
THEN it cannot be little-snitch

But if Little snitch is able to block on a per application basis, then
it is plausible that it blocks safari from connecting to certain IPs.

From the wireshark, it does not block DNS requests since those went
through succesfully.

But since no connection was attempted, it is safe to say a connection
attenpt was blocked before reaching the ethernet level.

Question to the OP:

When you try one of the "bad" web sites, does the "can't connect" come
out immediatly, or does Safari try a little while (few seconds) before
declaring it cannot connect ?

In normal cases, a packet to establish a TCP connection would be sent
out and the browser would wait for a reply for many seconds and possibly
try a number of times before declaring a connection has failed.

However, if you try to connect and you get a reset packet back right
away, then you know the host is there and is telling you that the
connection was refused. So you can immediatly declare failure.

[Richard Maine]

JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> On 13-03-28 23:29, j Burns wrote:
>
> > I've read of cases where the user couldn't see why Safari wouldn't
> > connect to some servers. It affected only Safari and only one account.
> > Uninstalling or turning off Little Snitch solved it.
>
>
> DOes Little SNitch have the ability to block outbound traffic only from
> 1 application ?

Pretty much the whole point of Little Snitch is to do filtering per
application. If you want to block an IP address globally, that's the
kind of thing traditional firewalls do. There would be no need for
Little Snitch if that's all you wanted; I suppose you could configure it
that way, but it would be a waste.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-29 04:06, Richard Maine wrote:

> Pretty much the whole point of Little Snitch is to do filtering per
> application.

In that case, I suspect the OP is hit by Little Snitch having a block
for Safari, preventing it from accessing those IP addresses.

It is surprising however, that it can block google since google uses so
many IP addresses.

[Paul Sture]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-GSkGFhPnYkP1@localhost>,

"John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Finally, I tried to open http://bbt.com, which produced a
> can't-open-the-page error:
>
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17288735/Can't%20Open%20bbt.com.Wireshark
>
> At line 13 Safari is asking the DNS for the address. The DNS
> replies, there is a malformed packet, and nothing more.
>
> None of that tells me much, but maybe you can suggest something more
> to do.

I am wondering if you have succumbed to the DNSChanger malware.

<http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/dns-changer-malware-computers-hit/story
?id=16736053>

which includes a link to check and see if you have it

" How Do I Know if My Computer Is Infected?

You can check to see whether your computer is infected by clicking on
this link, which is run by DCWG."

<http://www.dns-ok.us/>

There is also a DNSChanger removal tool for OS X at:

<http://www.dnschanger.com/>

--
Paul Sture

[Alan Browne]

On 2013.03.24 19:21 , John Varela wrote:
> Today I discovered that Safari can't access some common sites
> including Google, Bing, and Apple. There are a couple of bookmarked
> sites that I can reach, but many others can't be reached.
>
> Error message:
>
> Safari can't connect to the server (?)
> Safari can't open the page "http://google.com/" because Safari can't
> connect to the server "www.google.com"
>
> That looks like a DNS problem, but those other two sites can be
> reached and Firefox has no problems.
>
> The only extension I have on Safari is Ghostery; turning it off made
> no difference.
>
> Suggestiohttp://npcnt.net/temp/dsc01035.jpgns?

Over the past week there has been a massive attack on Spamhaus which
comprises botnets (not many) making DNS requests with the return IP
pointed at Spamhaus. It is the most massive DDoS attack ever.

2 days ago it was at 300 Gb/s. A week earlier a mere 10 Gb/s.(!).

It may cause some DNS servers to be slow or non-responsive and it has
affected various large sites including Netflix (explains some drops I've
had, maybe).

You might just have been caught up in that.

--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

[Alan Browne]

On 2013.03.29 17:44 , Lewis wrote:
> In message <z4mdnUXrg_5aZ8jM...@giganews.com> Alan Browne

>> Over the past week there has been a massive attack on Spamhaus which
>> comprises botnets (not many) making DNS requests with the return IP
>> pointed at Spamhaus. It is the most massive DDoS attack ever.
>

> And yet, had nearly no effect.

Depends where you are. In Europe it did have quite an effect in some areas.

>
>> 2 days ago it was at 300 Gb/s. A week earlier a mere 10 Gb/s.(!).
>
>> It may cause some DNS servers to be slow or non-responsive and it has
>> affected various large sites including Netflix (explains some drops I've
>> had, maybe).
>

> Netflix noticed it, but I don't think there's any evidence it
> actually impacted service. I noticed a slight slowdown in rbl checks,
> but only slight.

>
>> You might just have been caught up in that.
>

> No, that would not be isolated to Safari on one account.

Depends where he is and what DNS(') he uses.

In any case it was just a "fer consideration".