[RESOLVED] FF Causes a Access Denied Error

[gypsy63]

On 6/15 FF updated both of mine and my husband's computer to FF 13.0.1 and something called Mozilla Maintenance Service. I am only mentioning my husband's PC because his computer is also having the same error now and we have our own PCs and we both just had FF to pass on new updates to each one of us. I don't know if this problem started right after the updates because it was only on 6/19 I tried to access an online newspaper that I have a paid subscription to. At first I thought it was just my computer that could not get to this site, but then my husband tried to go to this same site with his computer and also received the same error message. This was the error message:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://chronicle.augusta.com/
The following error was encountered:

Access Denied.
Generated Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:13:23 GMT by sms2.cac001.groupz.net (squid)

Since neither one of us could access the site from 2 different computers, I thought it might have to do with the web site itself. So I waited until this morning and tried again--same results. Then I called the newspaper itself and they said that no one else was having this problem. My next thought was that it might be a ISP problem, that maybe our ISP was blocking us from access to the site. And a funny thing I noticed is that this web site also no longer showed up on my Face Book site (the head lines). My husband & I spent 2 hours on the phone with tech support with our ISP--he tried everything and nothing worked. Finally my husband had an idea and tried to access the web site with IE--and IE had no problem getting on the site. So then we knew it must be a FF problem--and both of our FF had just been updated a few days before.

Tonight I spend hours on FF web site doing research on their site and got over a 1000 search results. Some of the problems I saw that related to mine were people being denied access to different web sites, but most of them had to do with a much lower version of FF than mine. But still I read the answers to the solutions and tried them all--and nothing worked. The following is what was recommended the most to fix the problem and I also tried it:

"Clear the Cache":
Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Offline Storage (Cache): "Clear Now"
"Remove Cookies"

I not only cleared all the cookies, all of the history, all the cache, etc.--I cleared everything. But this still did not solve the problem either. These are some other suggestions that I tried: In the Proxy Settings under Tools, Advanced, Network Tab, I selected "No Proxy" even though we don't connect through a proxy. No help there. Next it was suggested that maybe a firewall was prevented access. The only firewall I have is Windows 7 Firewall, so I just disabled it to test and see if that was the problem--still could not access the site. Then I found a suggestion that said:

Firefox supports IPv6 by default, which may cause connection problems on certain systems.

So I followed the instructions on how to disable IPv6 in Firefox--still did not help. I have tried every solution suggested on FF web site that I could find and nothing has worked. My only thought left is that it has to do with updating to FF 13.0.1 and to Mozilla Maintenance Service on 6/15. So far I have not come across any more web sites I have been denied, but I have not been to all my regular sites yet since it has just started happening. I am really upset because I pay for a subscription to be able to read the newspaper online and am not able to do so because of this error.

This is the pertinent information about what is running in real time on my computer:
Windows 7
FF 13.0.1
SuperAntiSpyware
Avast Anti-spyware

I will be up for a little while longer and will check back here again before going to bed.

[gypsy63]

I thought could stay up a while longer but Mr. Sandman is calling me so I guess I am going to have to follow him. Be back here tomorrow.
Thanks,

[SpywareDr]

Can you get to http://chronicle.augusta.com/ using IE or Chrome?

[gypsy63]

SpywareDr: Yes, both my husband's computer and mine can go to the site with IE--just not FF. That is how we decided it was something wrong with FF since we had no problem when we used IE. I really don't want to start using IE--have not used it in years. Since the only thing that is now different with both my computer and my husband's computer is that we recently got new updates from FF, so we are leaning toward thinking that the update is what is causing the problem. When FF notified me that it wanted to update my browser, it stated it was a critical security update. So naturally I gave it permission to update my FF--and when I asked my husband if he received the same update as mine, he said yes.

[SpywareDr]

It could be something else that both you and your husband are using that is interfering with Firefox.

Can you get to http://chronicle.augusta.com/ with your Firefox Add-ons disabled? (In Firefox, click Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled).

If not, what about fom within "Safe mode with networking"?

[gypsy63]

I am so sorry it has taken me so long to get back here but I have been doing a lot to try and find out the cause and solution to this problem.

First of all, as suggested by Spyware doctor, I disabled all my add-ons--but one at a time then trying to go to the Augusta Chronicle as I disabled each one of them. But as anyone who is familiar with FF knows, you have to close out FF each time you disable an add-on and restart FF before the changes take place. So it took a long time to do this. But it was not an add-on that was causing the problem because by the time I had disabled the last add-on I still could not get on the site.

Then I did a research on the Internet with the term of the what was suppose to have generated the error--the numbers at the bottom of the error message that started with sms2 I got nothing but gobbly gob for in the results--each result only showed other businesses and sites that had gotten the same messages--but no explanation of why they got this message. Then I went to MS web site, hoping to find the information there. All I got was error messages by IE but not this error message.

I did not know how to do Safe-Mode so I had to wait until my husband woke up from a nap to ask him to do this . He stated to me that when he spent hours on the phone the other day with our ISP about this problem, the tech had him to do this and it was no help--still could not access the site.

My only other thought is maybe I should restore my computer back to date just before the last update from FF. If I can access the site after this, then we will know for sure that FF's new version is the cause of this--or either the Mozilla Maintenance Service program that was also installed at the same time as the new version of FF. I think right now I will go and uninstall the Mozilla Maintenance Service program and then try to access the Augusta Chronicle and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, then I won't have to restore back to an earlier date. Will post back in a few minutes and let you know what I did & if I got any results.

[gypsy63]

All right, I uninstalled the Mozilla Maintenance Service program and I still got the same error message from the site so that is not the program causing the problem.

So next I went to Restore and Backup but then I had a problem. I was going to restore back a week but when I looked at last week's date that it said it would restore my computer to my last back up was on the 17th--2 days after I installed the new version of FF--so that would not help. The only other choice I had to restore to was 1 month!! I tried to find out if there was a way I could change the 17 to the 14th but could find no way to do this. Is it possible to change last week's date to the 14th. I would hate to restore back a month because of all the WDs updates!

[gypsy63]

It's after 2:30 AM here where I live so I am going to bed now. Will check back in the morning to see if there are any other suggestions. Before coming back here I disabled my anti-virus and anti-spyware just to see if I could get on the site. Still could not get on the site so my security programs is not the problem.
Good night all,

[doysl]

Hello, Sheila!
My name is Slava and I'm from Russia. Unfortunately, I got the same problem with FF.

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://amarillo.com/

The following error was encountered:

Access Denied.

Generated Sat, 23 Jun 2012 08:10:20 GMT by sms3.cac004.groupz.net (squid)

You've done a great work checking all the ways you've mentioned. I did all the same and there's no result. I think it has something to do with the latest updates of FF too. I'll try to instal a newer version that is Firefox 14.0 (Beta 8) and then, if it won't give a positive result, I'll try one of the previous versions of FF.

[doysl]

Well, I uninstalled FF and installed Firefox 14.0 (Beta 8). It resulted in the same access trouble. Then I uninstalled the beta version and tried Firefox 12.0, which didn't help neither. I'm gonna continue my attempts and if they bear some fruits I'll make sure to let you know.

[doysl]

Talking about sms2.cac001.groupz.net, I took a look at the domain info using who.is service and it gave me the following:

Registrant:
Morris DigitalWorks, LLC
P.O. Box 936
Augusta, GA 30903
US

Domain Name: GROUPZ.NET

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Morris DigitalWorks, LLC [email protected]
P.O. Box 936
Augusta, GA 30903
US
706-828-3861

You might want to call the up asking for some details on the issue. I would do it myself, if I had a better English.

[Steve R Jones]

http://amarillo.com/
Works like a charm for me in FF13.

[doysl]

I just tried a different computer. There was FF12 installed. The both sites are being opened well. Then I updated FF to 13th version and it still opens the both sites with no problem. Now, I may state the FF itself isn't the reason.

[SpywareDr]

Ditto.

Just visited both http://chronicle.augusta.com/ and http://amarillo.com/ with three computers here at home with FF 13.0.1, (XPP32, 7P64, 7U64), with nary a problem. I then remoted into a few other computers scattered across South Florida, (WS2K8, XPP32, 7P64), and again had no problem whatsoever accessing either of those two sites with FF 13.0.1.

--

support.mozilla.org: Reset Firefox – easily fix most problems

[doysl]

SpywareDr, thank you for letting us know about the Reset Button. Didn't know about it. Though, it isn't of any help speaking about the trouble. I've reset my FF and still can't open the site.

Moreover, I've removed all the plugins and extensions for FF. Useless...