[RESOLVED] FF Causes a Access Denied Error
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:
Quote:
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:
Quote:
"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:
Quote:
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.
This is what is going on now
This morning I called the number that Slava provided for me to Morris DigitalWorks, LLC & still could get no answer. So next I put in a Google search for the company itself. I finally found their web site & it provided other phone numbers. I clicked on the link for "support." When I reached a tech at that number and explained my problem he said I needed to call customer service at the Augusta Chronicle--because they did not take care of customer problems there, only company problems with their network. I was so frustrated and so irate that I explained that the Augusta Chronicle was the first place I called and how they put me off on another company that had nothing to do with the site itself. I explained about all the hours and days of talking to different companies, including the hours we spent with tech support with our ISP. He finally got interested enough to try and help me. I told him if only I knew exactly the right person to talk to about this problem. He said he was going to put me on hold while he talked to some others about my problem. He then came back on line and said that some of the techs were already working on my problem--they had gotten my email from over the weekend. I had given him my IP address before he talked to the other techs. He told me that he gave them my IP address and they said that there was a "vulnerability" issue with FF and that was why I was being blocked. I told him about how others on this site had installed the same version of FF on different computers and that they had no problem accessing the Augusta Chronicle. He said but they did not also have my IP address--that they don't use the same ISP that I do. I told him that our ISP tech could not find the problem and he said that it was because it was not a problem for our ISP to fix. It sounded to me as if Morris DigitalWorks, LLC was blocking my ISP and that it was because it was a combination of both the ISP I use, plus the new version of FF. We have Hughes Net Satellite for our ISP--the only Internet service we can get where I live. Anyway, he said in the mean time to use either IE or Chrome to access the site and that as soon as they fixed the problem with FF & our ISP they would call me up and let me know. I hope it is not longer than a day because that makes me a prisoner of my home, waiting for their call. Will post back as soon as they call me and tell me anything.
Know what the problem was!
Just got off the phone with Beth Bradley Director of Technology Support and she explained exactly why I had this problem--why this happened. She said that some hackers had been using FF through Hughes Net to hack into their site--this started happening she said about 3 weeks ago. She stated this had happened before but it was with earlier versions but now they are using the new version of FF and the traffic is coming through Hughes Net. She said her techs are now aware of my problem and realize that I am a legitimate user & is trying to fix the problem for me. So I am finally satisfied that someone is really trying to fix this for me. I will post back if & when they do fix it. So it really was a combination of my using FF with the use of my ISP. No wonder that others were able to go to the Augusta Chronicle with my same version of FF--because they did not have Hughes Net as their ISP.
OBTW, she also told me that tech support for Hughes Net would not necessarily know about this problem because it was a security problem and not a tech problem.
