Suspected DNS issues

marcus00 · 19 Jan 2014

My PC is connected to my Xfinity/Comcast modem/router through an ethernet cable. I've been having a ton of issues with Firefox lately.

When I click on the newsfeed of Facebook, it just hangs and won't load anything. If I click on my YouTube home, it won't go anywhere. If I highlight text and hit "Search Google for...", it will bring up the new tab, but will not load anything. It gives me the spinning circle instead.
When I close the browser and launch it again, everything loads just fine for a brief period of time until the issue comes up again.
I have found that if I give it two or three minutes, it will start loading content, but it is selective as to what content it will actually load. For instance, if will load a Facebook page, but won't load any pictures or comment boxes, etc...
I've also posted this in Bugzilla but no one is touching it, so I'm out of options here.
Here's what I've tried to resolve the issue:

Set up a new profile
Reset Firefox
Uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled a clean version
Uninstalled add-ons
Blocked Flash (set it to "Ask to Activate")
Uninstalled and re-installed Flash
Run multiple malware checks (in Safe Mode) - Malware Bytes, MSE, Microsoft Safety Scanner, SpyBot.
Run Firefox in Safe Mode
Made sure all of my plug-ins and add-ons are up-to-date
Added Firefox to Windows Firewall
Disabled Hardware Acceleration
Dumped the cache (set cache to clear every time Firefox closes, too)
Updated my graphics card and network card drivers

Someone on Reddit suggested I flush the DNS and set the DNS to the OpenDNS servers. I did that and things ran extremely well for a while, but the problem came up a few minutes ago. I went into the Firefox DNS help page and followed the instructions there (disabling IPV6 and DNS Prefetching).

I've posted this issue on every site I can imagine (including bugzilla and Firefox's help forums) and the only thing that's really done anything noticeable was flushing the DNS.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I can do?

2xg · 20 Jan 2014

Hi Marcus,

Have you tried another browser (IE, Chrome) and see if the issue is not Firefox?

marcus00 · 21 Jan 2014

Yes, as I was having issues in Firefox, I opened up Chrome and I was able to browse the internet without issue.

Slartybart · 21 Jan 2014

Good info Marcus, the issue seems to be specific to FireFox (FF).

It looks as though you've done thorough troubleshooting

marcus00 said:

Here's what I've tried to resolve the issue:

Set up a new profile
Reset Firefox
Uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled a clean version
Uninstalled add-ons
Blocked Flash (set it to "Ask to Activate")
Uninstalled and re-installed Flash
Run multiple malware checks (in Safe Mode) - Malware Bytes, MSE, Microsoft Safety Scanner, SpyBot.
Run Firefox in Safe Mode
Made sure all of my plug-ins and add-ons are up-to-date
Added Firefox to Windows Firewall
Disabled Hardware Acceleration
Dumped the cache (set cache to clear every time Firefox closes, too)
Updated my graphics card and network card drivers

and provided great feedback for members on this side of your monitor.

I have a few questions, don't do anything yet though, OK:

Is the new profile you set up a FF profile or a new Win7 User profile?
When you used chrome you stated no problems browsing,
does that include trying the same sites/tasks that FF had problems?
Facebook, Youtube, Google search, etc.

If you haven't please try those sites with Chrome
- report back any difficulties or if those sites work fine with Chrome.
Do you have a backup of your FF profile?
Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles | Firefox Help
When you uninstalled FF did you delete the FF folder that contains the
Profiles folder and the profiles.ini file?
Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data | Firefox Help

The next steps will be easier with answers to those questions.

As always with Windows there is more than one way to do something. I'm focusing on FF since Chrome works, another member might focus on Windows.

Q 1: makes the disctinction between FF and Windows User profiles
- the answer to that might change the direction I'm thinking about taking.

Which is basically, Uninstall FF folowing the Mozilla prescribed method, then followup with a installer clean up utilty (just in case), restart your system, verify the FF you'll download, install FF, restart the box, cross fingers, test FF.

But hold off on any of that until you get the answers posted.

Thanks,

Bill

marcus00 · 21 Jan 2014

Q1 - the new profile I set up was a Firefox profile, not a new Windows profile.
Q2 - Yes, as I was browsing the web using Chrome, I visited the same sites I was visiting in Firefox. While Firefox was stuck on the Facebook page, I was browsing Facebook in Chrome without issue.
Q3 - I don't have a backup of my Firefox profile that was causing me issues (unless it backed up somewhere without me know about it)
Q4 - Yes, when I uninstalled Firefox, it was a complete uninstallation which included removing the Firefox folder.

Things have been running pretty smoothly the last few days since I flushed the DNS and changed the preferred DNS to the openDNS servers. I did have one hiccup shortly after making the change, but my browsing experience has been much smoother and without any hanging so it's possible my issue has been solved. I was just curious if anyone else has any suggestions I can look at just in case (mainly because that one hiccup made question whether it was truly fixed).

Slartybart · 21 Jan 2014

Thanks for the feedback.
Run as it is now for a few days.

If the issue doesn't reoccur, please mark the thread as solved.

If it comes back, post here again.

For now, there's nothing to do - you pretty much solved the issue and we're looking for confirmation.
One hiccup after a change - it happens.
Continual hiccups after a change..... that would require more work.

Thanks, we'll wait to see how it goes.

marcus00 · 21 Jan 2014

Slartybart said:

Thanks for the feedback.
Run as it is now for a few days.

If the issue doesn't reoccur, please mark the thread as solved.

If it comes back, post here again.

For now, there's nothing to do - you pretty much solved the issue and we're looking for confirmation.
One hiccup after a change - it happens.
Continual hiccups after a change..... that would require more work.

Thanks, we'll wait to see how it goes.

Thanks for your help. I will try it out for a few more days. If it's fixed, I'll be so happy... This issue has been giving me a headache for a long time now.