Firefox opens a blank tab when clicking a link

[Anthony Papillion]

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A user came to me with a problem that I'm not able to resolve so I
thought I'd come here and ask.

They are running Firefox 44.0.2 on Windows XP SP3. When they click on
a link on page, a new tab will open to display the content of the
page from the link but the tab goes to about:blank instead of loading
the page.

I know the solution to this is pretty simple, IIRC, but my Google-fu
is failing me.

Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Anthony


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[VanguardLH]

Anthony Papillion wrote on 2016/03/03:

> A user came to me with a problem that I'm not able to resolve so I
> thought I'd come here and ask.
>
> They are running Firefox 44.0.2 on Windows XP SP3. When they click on
> a link on page, a new tab will open to display the content of the
> page from the link but the tab goes to about:blank instead of loading
> the page.
>
> I know the solution to this is pretty simple, IIRC, but my Google-fu
> is failing me.

Check if there is a lingering firefox.exe (or other web browser)
instance despite the user thinking they exited their web browser(s).
Try disabling ALL extensions and restart Firefox (make sure on exit that
ALL instances of firefox.exe have unloaded before loading a new one).

There is malware that pushes the about:blank page. Get a decent
anti-virus/malware program to scan the user's computer. Use the
currently installed AV program (but not if it is Windows Defender which
was merely an adware detector back in Windows XP) and add something else
as an on-demand scanner (e.g., free MalwareBytes' AntiMalware).

See if booting Windows into its safe mode gets rid of the problem. If
so, there is a startup program causing the interference.

Also make sure nothing odd is going on in the 'hosts' file. If there is
anything other than "127.0.0.1 localhost" then wipe the file leaving
only that entry.

Check his DNS settings. Should either be getting them from his ISP (his
computer directly connects to the cable/dsl model) or it is the one
assigned to him by by his router's DHCP server. If he is using a static
IP address, make sure it is a valid local static IP address.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 3/3/2016 11:08 AM, Anthony Papillion wrote:

> A user came to me with a problem that I'm not able to resolve so I
> thought I'd come here and ask.
>
> They are running Firefox 44.0.2 on Windows XP SP3. When they click on
> a link on page, a new tab will open to display the content of the
> page from the link but the tab goes to about:blank instead of loading
> the page.
>
> I know the solution to this is pretty simple, IIRC, but my Google-fu
> is failing me.
>
> Can anyone help?
>
> Thanks,
> Anthony

This is happening to me when it is a https link such as
https://www.google.com/
and firefox 44.0.2 is not currently running. All I get is
the blank page.

If I click the https link again then a new tab is created
on the firefix window and the proper web page is brought up.

Most irritating.

Thanks,
Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

I forgot to mention that I am running ublock 0.9.50 also.

Lynn

[VanguardLH]

Lynn McGuire wrote on 2016/03/04:

> On 3/3/2016 11:08 AM, Anthony Papillion wrote:
>
>> A user came to me with a problem that I'm not able to resolve so I
>> thought I'd come here and ask.
>>
>> They are running Firefox 44.0.2 on Windows XP SP3. When they click on
>> a link on page, a new tab will open to display the content of the
>> page from the link but the tab goes to about:blank instead of loading
>> the page.
>>
>> I know the solution to this is pretty simple, IIRC, but my Google-fu
>> is failing me.
>

> This is happening to me when it is a https link such as
> https://www.google.com/
> and firefox 44.0.2 is not currently running. All I get is
> the blank page.
>
> If I click the https link again then a new tab is created
> on the firefix window and the proper web page is brought up.

Oh, I remember something similar. I was at v42 and then updated to v43
in order to get to v44. That's the update path the update check offered
me in Firefox. For shortcuts to URLs where the shortcut's command line
specified a URL, Firefox would open. In my case, it wasn't to the
about:blank page. It was to the about:newtab internal page but it was
blank.

I was going to start a thread to discuss this but the problem went away.
Can't remember what I did or if the problem's disappearance was
coincidental, like a reboot to complete Windows Update installs fixed
the problem (by getting rid of pending replaces on inuse files so all
patch files were in sync with the patch after the reboot).

If Firefox is already loaded and I click on a URL shortcut, Firefox
opens it just fine. It was only when Firefox was not loaded (no
instances of firefox.exe in memory) and only when it was started with a
command line that specified a URL that Firefox loaded with a blank
newtab page. Somehow Firefox was ignoring the replaceable parameters in
the shell in which it was loaded. I tried with and without the optional
-url argument prefix before the URL string in the command line but that
made no difference (Firefox would still load with a blank newtab page).
I disabled my anti-virus program (Avast). Still didn't help.

Hyperlinks used within Firefox behaved correctly. Shortcuts that
specified "<path>\firefox.exe <url>" or "<path>\firefox.exe -url <url>"
would fail (blank newtab page on load).

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments has a URL example but
shows it enclosed in double quotes. Those should not be necessary.
They are only needed when a command-line argument contains space
character(s). URLs are not allowed to have spaces in them (and why
spaces must be replaced with the hexadecimal ISO entity of %20).

At some point, the behavior went away and has not reappeared. Something
I did, like remove and reinstall an extension or rebooting fixed the
problem. Oh, wait a second, I think I got so frustrated with Firefox
that I uninstalled it (including wipe the profile folder and other
remnant registry entries and files) while I investigate Google Chrome.
I trialed Opera but noticed the privacy breaches on searches (they
redirect some search engines through their server rather than to the
targeted search engine) so that trial ended in under an hour. Did the
remnant cleanup again and then decided to work on Firefox some more.
Installed Firefox (this time going direct to v44 rather than their
incremental 42 -> 43 -> 44 update their program required) and the
problem was gone. Uninstalled the upgraded copy, did remnant cleanup,
installed the latest version (no upgrade path), and problem gone. I bet
I was getting too close and the software decided to start working so I
couldn't find the cause.

[Lynn McGuire]

So, I need to do a complete reinstall of firefox?

This failure to open the https links on the first window of firefox is really upsetting me.

Thanks,
Lynn

[VanguardLH]

Lynn McGuire wrote on 2016/03/08:

> So, I need to do a complete reinstall of firefox? This failure to open
> the https links on the first window of firefox is really upsetting
> me.

I would first try disabling all extensions and retest. Didn't work for
me, though.

Then try a new profile in Firefox.

Someone else can verify if extensions are per-profile; that is, does
creating a new profile result in losing the extensions installed in the
prior profile? If so, for me there would be only a small increase in
effort to create a new profile and having to reinstall all the
extensions than for me to uninstall Firefox, do remnant file and
registry cleanup (including wiping the old profile folder), and
installing Firefox again with a new clean profile to have to install all
the extensions. Too often "create a new profile" is a suggestion
solution for Firefox which, to me, might work but a clean reinstall with
a clean new profile is very little more work.

I'm very used to uninstalling, remnant cleanup, and reinstall but many
users want the least painful method so just try creating a new profile.
If that works, install the extensions again into your new profile and
delete the old profile.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_new_Firefox_profile_on_Windows

According to that, "some extensions are installed globally (e.g., for
all profiles)". So some of your old extensions (add-ons) may survive
into your new profile but some may not. When I look inside my Firefox
profile folder, I see 9 extensions listed under there. When I go to
look inside of Firefox at the extensions, there are 9 listed. So it
looks like none of those that I have (CanvasBlocker, HTTPS-Everywhere,
No-Javascript Add-on, Pearl Crescent Page Saver, Restart Button,
SmartSearch, Tab Mix Plus, and uBlock Origin) are global extensions.
Creating a new profile would mean having to reinstall all those again -
unless using Firefox's Sync worked to reinstall them in a new profile.

[»Q«]

In <news:mailman.61.1457488719...@lists.mozilla.org>,

VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH> wrote:

> Someone else can verify if extensions are per-profile; that is, does
> creating a new profile result in losing the extensions installed in
> the prior profile?

Yes. Newly created profiles have no extensions.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 3/4/2016 1:49 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

This bug was fixed in FF version 45.0.

Thanks!

Lynn

[VanguardLH]

Lynn McGuire wrote on 2016/03/09:

> Lynn McGuire wrote:
>
>> Anthony Papillion wrote:
>>
>>> A user came to me with a problem that I'm not able to resolve so I
>>> thought I'd come here and ask.
>>>
>>> They are running Firefox 44.0.2 on Windows XP SP3. When they click on
>>> a link on page, a new tab will open to display the content of the
>>> page from the link but the tab goes to about:blank instead of loading
>>> the page.
>>>
>>> I know the solution to this is pretty simple, IIRC, but my Google-fu
>>> is failing me.
>>

>> This is happening to me when it is a https link such as
>> https://www.google.com/
>> and firefox 44.0.2 is not currently running. All I get is
>> the blank page.
>>
>> If I click the https link again then a new tab is created
>> on the firefix window and the proper web page is brought up.
>>
>> Most irritating.
>

> This bug was fixed in FF version 45.0.

Did not see anything at:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/45.0/releasenotes/
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/#firefox45

which specifically addresses this issue. Could be they made some code
change that incidentally corrected the new-tab-on-load problem.