176761 - Proxy: Connection refused

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 56629

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Michael Schmitt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2b) Gecko/20021016
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2b) Gecko/20021016

A month ago I started getting the "connection was refused" error a LOT. I only
have about a 50% chance of getting a page.  If I keep refreshing, it eventually
will appear.
 
I got this on both Mozilla 1.1 and 1.2b.

I suspect that what changed is something in my company's proxy server (a Cisco
Content Server, running Cisco's Application and Content Networking Software
4.1.3).  If I run through another proxy server (ANS InterLock, I think) it works
fine.

I've tried various HTTP 1.0/1.1, keep alive and pipelining settings. No
combination fixes this problem.

Internet Explorer has no problem through either proxy server.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to any web site outside of the firewall.

Actual Results:  
The status bar will say "Connecting to (site)", it will timeout, and then the
connection refused message will appear. This happens at least 50% of the time.


There probably is a problem in the firewall. Unfortunately I can't report it,
because my company only supports IE. (They think that IE is some kind of
"standard".)
 
But the interesting question is, why does IE work fine and Mozilla fail? You
wouldn't think the proxy server is looking at the browser signature, so there
must be something different going on in the connections.

Note: This has become so annoying that I'm about ready to give up and use IE. Ugh.

Comment 1

[Darin Fisher]

most likely the proxy vendor only tested IE.  you can help us by enabling some
environment variables to collect a log of network activity from within mozilla.

here's the steps:

1) make sure quick launch is disabled; exit mozilla completely.
2) open a DOS prompt
3) type the following:

  c:\> set NSPR_LOG_MODULES=nsHttp:5
  c:\> set NSPR_LOG_FILE=c:\http.log
  c:\> cd \path\to\mozilla
  c:\> .\mozilla.exe

4) reproduce the problem.
5) exit mozilla completely.
6) upload c:\http.log to this bug report.

this might give us some clues as to why the problem is happening.  also, you
might try completely uninstalling mozilla (wipe out the existing installation
directory completely), and reinstall.  and, there is also the possibility that
creating a new mozilla profile might help.

if you can try out some of these things, it might help us get to the bottom of
this problem.  thx!

Comment 2

[Dave Moore]

Mozilla 1.2b build ID 2002101612 fails to handle the "automatic" proxy
correctly. Manual proxy works OK.

Note that this was not a problem in the 1.1 release.

Comment 3

[Darin Fisher]

dave: you are being bitten by the evil "must delete compreg.dat" bug.  please
either go into the mozilla/components directory and delete this file, or
completely uninstall mozilla (wipe out the old installation directory) and
reinstall.  sorry!!

Comment 4

[Michael Schmitt]

Attachment: HTTP.LOG with Keep Alive on

This is a http.log with HTTP 1.1, keep alive on, pipelining off.

Comment 5

[Michael Schmitt]

Attachment: HTTP.LOG with keep alive off

This is another log, with HTTP 1.1, keep alive off, pipelining off.
 
Notes:
1. I always uninstall Mozila completely before a reinstall. I did this for 1.2b
a few days ago, deleting the entire mozilla.org folder (except for the
plugins). However, I don't delete the profile.
 
2. This problem wasn't that easy to recreate this time! I'm wondering if there
is a connection to the cache. Think it would make a cleaner test case, I
cleaned out the cache before doing this test ... and then everything worked!
... for awhile.   I noticed this effect after installing 1.1b, at which time I
also deleted the cache -- it seemed to work great at first, and then got worse.


My cache is set to 50000 KB, "when the page is out of date".

Comment 6

[benc]

Error logs from your proxy server would be very useful at this point.

Comment 7

[Michael Schmitt]

Unfortunately I don't have access to the error logs of the proxy server.

Comment 8

[Michael Lefevre]

reporter (Michael): can you reproduce this bug with a recent build of mozilla
(for example, 1.3a)? if so, please comment again with details. if not, please
resolve this bug as WORKSFORME. thanks.

Comment 9

[Michael Schmitt]

With release 1.3a the error is now:

"The connection was refused when attempting to contact the proxy server you have
configured. Please check your proxy settings and try again."

I had a harder time creating the error today -- I didn't have a problem until I
flushed the cache and then accessed web sites in several windows at once.  (IE
worked fine in the same test.)  I suspect that the load on the proxy server is
small today, because people are still on vacation. I don't know why that would
make a difference, though.

Update: It just took me five tries before I could commit this comment, and this
is the only activity. Oh well.

Comment 10

[benc]

-> networking.
I got this. The change is because the original bug is fixed.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 56629 ***

Comment 11

[Michael Schmitt]

...but my proxy settings ARE correct. The question remains, why do I get this
type of error from Mozilla but not from IE?