Closed Bug 279381 Opened 20 years ago Closed 18 years ago

I often get a message that a url cannot be found, even though the url is a bookmark and/or a known valid url.

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Platform:
x86
Windows 2000
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: richard, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

The browser often cannot load a known valid url. Alert applet comes up : "[url]
could not be found.  Please check the name and try again."   The problem occurs
on all three of the PCs that are running Firefox browser.  Have reloaded Firefox
but  problem persists.  Not a showstopper, but frequent enough to be annoying. 

Thanks. 

Richard Moscatiello
rmoscat@comcast.net 

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click on bookmarked url
2.  
3.

Actual Results:  
The browser often cannot load a known valid url. Alert applet comes up : "[url]
could not be found.  Please check the name and try again."   The problem occurs
on all three of the PCs that are running Firefox browser.  Have reloaded Firefox
but  problem persists.  Not a showstopper, but frequent enough to be annoying. 

Expected Results:  
Browswer should be able to find  valid url and load same.
Does the same thing happen in Internet Explorer?
URL: http://[random url] → http://[random url]
"bookmark and/or known valid url" - so, not just bookmarks, then?
Assignee: vladimir+bm → firefox
URL: http://[random url]
Component: Bookmarks → General
QA Contact: mconnor → general
Are you able to verify that your DNS system is working? If I go through
what you are seeing by attempting to view the home page of a non-existing
server ...

A. Confirm non-existence with nslookup
bfowler% nslookup www.nosuchserver.com
Server:  dns.ewitness.ltd.uk
Address:  192.168.254.10

*** dns.ewitness.ltd.uk can't find www.nosuchserver.com: Non-existent host/domain

B. Type that URL into URL bar
C. Get message in status bar "Looking up ... "
D. After a minute or so, get the sheet " ... cannot be found ..."

Are you saying that you can get B, C and D without A's being true?

If your DNS system is not working either, then your problem is probably outside
Firefox. 
Hi,  I have also experienced this problem.  For example
http://www.travelconsumer.com/countries.htm is a valid URL that works fine in
IE6, but not in Firefox.

Max Lent
http://www.travelconsumer.com
http://www.maxlent.com
(In reply to comment #4)
> Hi,  I have also experienced this problem.  For example
> http://www.travelconsumer.com/countries.htm is a valid URL that works fine in
> IE6, but not in Firefox.

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050217
Firefox/1.0+

http://www.travelconsumer.com/countries.htm = WFM

Do you have any further diagnostics? http log? Are you using a proxy?
See Bug 253714 "I often receive the message that a specified website cannot be
found even though it is a valid address"
A friend of mine had this problem, he couldnt get to sites that required a login
such as myspace, gmail, and yahoo. It said that exact thing. However upon
clearing his cookies everything was reverted back to normal.
If a site depends on cookies for its navigation and does not warn or report
errors when the cookies are faulty, then that it almost certainly not a
defect in Firefox. I think that sourceforge gets this right. If you really
are seeing this gmail, then might want to see whether anyone else has had
a related problem, exempli gratia:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion/search?group=Gmail-Help-Discussion&q=cookies&qt_g=1&searchnow=Search+this+group

In general, reports in Bugzilla should be reproducible with a fresh profile,
which should mean that you get a new set of cookies.


I'm seeing this bug with the URL below as of May 7, 2005.

This url loads with curl, wget and IE

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html

Under firefox I get a popup

The file /editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html cannot be found.  Please check the
location and try again.

INTERESTING thing is, I edit the URL down to

financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html


and it loads IMMEDIATELY.

__________________________
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414
Firefox/1.0.3



(In reply to comment #9)
> This url loads with curl, wget and IE
> 
> http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html
> 
> Under firefox I get a popup
> 
> The file /editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html cannot be found.  ...

Did the message say file or URL? The sequence of events sounds like
a slow DNS lookup. Once it had worked once, did it work well
thereafter? Or are you saying that it works in (for example) wget,
but not in Firefox at all.
OK, that URL I gave is now working (afternoon Sunday May 8). (this problem
definitely is intermittent).

I'll post again when this happens again.

I've had this problem happen with the bookmarks, too.

When the URL I gave was was not working (yesterday) the popup message was
exactly as you see it above.  The protocol & host info was left off the URL,
only the filename (starting with the root-level "/") was printed, with the word
"filename" in the popup box, not the word URL.

I don't recall the exact order of what I did, but I definitely know that
successfully getting the URL once does not make it available from that point
onward.  The way I found that editing the URL down would make it load is that I
played with the error for some time.

A sequence of steps that I've done with this problem has been.

I would click the URL in FF & get the error.
Then I would right-click on & copy the URL, press Ctrl-L, paste the entire URL
and FF again produced the error.
Then I would press Ctrl-L again, edit the URL down, removing "http://www." and
FF would load the page.

I would paste the URL into the IE location edit box in IE, the page loads.
Then I would press Ctrl-L in FF, delete the http://www from the URL , press
enter and FF open the URL.
Then in FF I would go to previous page, (Alt-Left), click on the original link 
from the original page I found the link on and the page wouldn't load.
Then I would right-click the link, copy, press Ctrl-L, paste the entire URL and
it wouldn't load.

> > 
> > The file /editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html cannot be found.  ...
> 
> Did the message say file or URL? The sequence of events sounds like
> a slow DNS lookup. Once it had worked once, did it work well
> thereafter? Or are you saying that it works in (for example) wget,
> but not in Firefox at all.
(In reply to comment #9 and #10)
> The protocol & host info was left off the URL,
> only the filename (starting with the root-level "/") was printed, with the word
> "filename" in the popup box, not the word URL.

apologies, the word "file" followed by the file name

Not the word "filename".

The word URL was nowhere on the popup box.

Could someone verify if this is possible, or whether this is just a coincidence?

I've noted this sequence of events twice now.
I manually clear the directory holding FireFox's cache files outside of FF (a
delete from the OS).

some URLs refuse to load (the same symptoms I mentioned earlier, URLs load when
the http://www. is edited out but won't load with the http://www. left intact.

I clear the cache from within firefox's Tools-->options menu and the URLs start
appearing again.


(In reply to comment #12)
> (In reply to comment #9 and #10)
> > The protocol & host info was left off the URL,
> > only the filename (starting with the root-level "/") was printed, with the word
> > "filename" in the popup box, not the word URL.
> 
> apologies, the word "file" followed by the file name
> 
> Not the word "filename".
> 
> The word URL was nowhere on the popup box.
> 
I've reproduced this on my machine several times now.

1. visit several sites

2. delete the firerfox cache from the OS, NOT from fireox.

3. I now cannot get to several of the sites by using the link that worked
earlier or using the full name (which I get using right-click & copy link
address).  The error message is "the file xxxxx cannot be found.  Please check
the name and try again."  The http://www. is not included in this message, just
the file name begining with the root slash.

4. I can get to the URL using edited names (Ctrl-L to bring up the location edit
box, remove the http://www.  (including removing that final period))

5. within firefox go to Tools-->Options-->Privacy and clear the cache

6. The full URLs now work.
(In reply to comment #14)
> 3. I now cannot get to several of the sites by using the link that worked
> earlier or using the full name (which I get using right-click & copy link
> address).  The error message is "the file xxxxx cannot be found.  Please check
> the name and try again."  The http://www. is not included in this message, 
> just the file name begining with the root slash.

Are you using a proxy? Do you have any extensions?

I am assuming that when you deleted Firefox's cache from underneath it, Firefox
was not running! In this case, Firefox notes that the cache files are missing
and recreates the cache anew.
Not running a proxy

I have been deleting the files while ff was running (won't any more, though) ...
I've seen this exact symptom for months, before I started using any extensions.

current extensions are 
Add Bookmark Here 0.5.3
Download Sort 2.5.0
TargetAlert 0.7.3
URL Link 1.0.4

(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> > 3. I now cannot get to several of the sites by using the link that worked
> > earlier or using the full name (which I get using right-click & copy link
> > address).  The error message is "the file xxxxx cannot be found.  Please check
> > the name and try again."  The http://www. is not included in this message, 
> > just the file name begining with the root slash.
> 
> Are you using a proxy? Do you have any extensions?
> 
> I am assuming that when you deleted Firefox's cache from underneath it, Firefox
> was not running! In this case, Firefox notes that the cache files are missing
> and recreates the cache anew.
I didn't point it out earlier, but you ought to verify that the problem occurs
in a recent build, say a nightly no more than a day or two old.

Also, bug reports against Firefox should be demonstrably not due to an
extension. A good way to verify this is to use a completely fresh profile.

Could I also trouble you to post a full and complete recipe so that if
Firefox is failing in same way, I can see it in front of me by following your
recipe. 

Thank you.

OK, I downloaded they May 12 win32 build, unzipped into a clean directory, set
up a new profile, make sure the cache file is totally separate (it's in
e:\firefox_nightly\Cache)

Verify that there are no extensions.
Verify that there are no proxies.

(I'm typing this, can't seem to copy & paste from some of these windows) 
the "About' menu item says version 1.0+
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;rv;1.8b2) Gecko/20050512

open a few URLs

http://www.lewrockwell.com/
http://johntreed.com/ReedonWhitney.html
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html


leaving firefox open, manually delete the files in the Cache directory.
The _cache_xxx_ files can't be deleted but the rest vanish.

retry the 3 URLs above.  None work.

The error messages are

for http://www.lewrockwell.com/
The file / cannot be found.  Please check the location and try again.
Edit the URL down to   "lewrockwell.com" and it loads
Try the full URL again and it fails identically


for http://johntreed.com/ReedonWhitney.html
The file /RedonWhitney.html cannot be found.  Please check the location and try
again.
Edit the URL to "www.johntreed.com/ReedonWhitney.html" and it loads
Try the full URL again and it fails identically


for http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html
The file /editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html cannot be found. Please check the
location and try again.
Edit the URL to financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html and it loads.
Try the full URL again and it fails identically


Now using menu 
Tools-->Options

Then on the Cache tab, "Clear Cache Now"

All the above URLs work.


(In reply to comment #17)
> I didn't point it out earlier, but you ought to verify that the problem occurs
> in a recent build, say a nightly no more than a day or two old.
> 
> Also, bug reports against Firefox should be demonstrably not due to an
> extension. A good way to verify this is to use a completely fresh profile.
> 
> Could I also trouble you to post a full and complete recipe so that if
> Firefox is failing in same way, I can see it in front of me by following your
> recipe. 
> 
> Thank you.
>
(In reply to comment #18)

Thank you. This Bug may have morphed.

> open a few URLs
> 
> http://www.lewrockwell.com/
> http://johntreed.com/ReedonWhitney.html
> http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html

Did those URLs work the first time you tried them? Is that what this
report is all about.

> leaving firefox open, manually delete the files in the Cache directory.
> The _cache_xxx_ files can't be deleted but the rest vanish.
> 
> retry the 3 URLs above.  None work.

Is the only problem that Firefox gets confused if its cache files are
deleted?

Maybe it needs to report the error better, and/or re-sync its idea of 
what it has cached.
I don't know if it's the same problem now as it was in the past.

I've been having the problem for some time, it's just in the last 3 days I've
discovered how to reproduce it, by deleting the firefox cache files.


> Did those URLs work the first time you tried them? Is that what this
> report is all about.
> 

The URLs work first time, then you delete the cache files, outside of firefox's
control and they don't work.  Then you clean out the firefox cache from within
firefox & they work again.

> Is the only problem that Firefox gets confused if its cache files are
> deleted?

I don't know if the original poster, richard, is doing what I was doing, but the
symptoms seem identical to his.  Again, I don't know if deleting the files is
the ONLY cause of this problem, but it's definitely one cause.


(In reply to comment #19)
> (In reply to comment #18)
> 
> Thank you. This Bug may have morphed.
> 
> > open a few URLs
> > 
> > http://www.lewrockwell.com/
> > http://johntreed.com/ReedonWhitney.html
> > http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rostenko/2005/0505.html
> 
> Did those URLs work the first time you tried them? Is that what this
> report is all about.
> 
> > leaving firefox open, manually delete the files in the Cache directory.
> > The _cache_xxx_ files can't be deleted but the rest vanish.
> > 
> > retry the 3 URLs above.  None work.
> 
> Is the only problem that Firefox gets confused if its cache files are
> deleted?
> 
> Maybe it needs to report the error better, and/or re-sync its idea of 
> what it has cached.


I am going to suggest:

1. If the URLs in question work, then the Report is WORKSFORME
2. If the problem is caused by deleting Firefox's files then the Bug is probably
INVALID
3. If it solved by recreating the cache (using normal methods), then there is
an easy workaround.
Well I have not seen this behavior happen in any other way than the cache -
bonking, and I don't know if Richard, the original reporter, has another way to
generate the behavior.

So your suggestion is fine by me now.

But for the months that I didn't know what was going on, and for any current
user who's accidentally triggering this behavior (admittedly this is probably
darned few, considering ...) and doesn't have any idea what's going on it may
not be a great solution.

(In reply to comment #21)
> I am going to suggest:
> 
> 1. If the URLs in question work, then the Report is WORKSFORME
> 2. If the problem is caused by deleting Firefox's files then the Bug is probably
> INVALID
> 3. If it solved by recreating the cache (using normal methods), then there is
> an easy workaround.


Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-ZA; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511
I have gotten similar results testing on Mozilla 1.7.8 and Firefox 1.0.4 on
several Windows PC's using 56k dial-up and DSL. It is not reproducable on IE as
far as I can tell. It is a pity that that the alert pop up does not specify why
the url could not be foud (athough I'm not even sure if that is possible). I
suspect slow DNS is usually the problem. I suggest the following change:

In the alert pop up rename the 'ok' button to 'cancel' and add a 'retry' button
which should be equivalent to the 'go' button ('retry' should be the default
button).

This may not make the problem go away but at least it will improve user
friendlyness by allowing the user to retry with a single click only.
Ok, I know my last post wasn't very helpful so I have done some proper testing
and I believe I might have found the source of the problem. I performed the
testing as follows:

1: Created a list of fifty randomly chosen URL's and verified that they were
valid so that the tests could be standardised.

2: Conected to the internet over a 56k modem with the network settings being
dynamically assigned by the ISP. I used the Deer Park nightly 2005-06-01 and did
not clear the cache first. I visited the URL's mentioned above and the "url
could not be found" message popped up on 8% of the URL's.

3: I then tested the URL's on another pc which connects to the internet over a
network with ADSL and stacic network settings. I used the Deer Park nightly
2005-06-02 and cleared the cache first. The error occured on 38% of the URL's.

4: I then tested IE6 (cleared cache first) on the same pc as in #3 and got IE's
"page could not be displayed" error meassage on 22% of the URL's.

5: I then checked the network settings on the pc in #3 & #4 and found that the
secondary DNS address had a typo in it. I changed the address to the correct DNS
address and retested with the Deer Park nightly 2005-06-02 and the error did not
re-occur.

I still have to perform more tests on the 56k connection to be sure but, I also
noticed that when I connect successfully to a site the messages in the status
bar go in this order: Looking up url; connecting to url; connected to url;
transferring data from url, but whenever the error occurs the message on the
status shows "Looking up url" but never anything else and whenever anything else
shows on the status bar the error never occurs. So I am sure the source of this
problem is DNS failure. It also seems to particulary important to have both
primary and secondary DNS addresses set up.

Of course we can't really blame a browser for DNS failure but I think there are
two changes you could make to improve the browser. The message that reads "URL
could not be found. Please check the name and try again." Could have the
sentence added: "If you are sure the name is correct then check your DNS
settings." or something similar. Also (I know I said it before but it bears
repeating) it is really annoying to have to click twice to retry when it could
be done with one click by having two buttons on the pop up: "retry" & "cancel".
This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Apart from the hint not to delete FireFox's cache files whilst Firefox is
using them (!), this Report is about error reporting when DNS lookups are slow.

It would be good if the Reporter (and others with this problem) could confirm
that things are better with the current release, but this is almost certainly
WORKSFORME.
IMHO this has been fixed. It was caused by DNS lookup problems but in the latest release a less confusing error report is given.
Assignee: bross2 → nobody
Closing this bug as WFM. It was almost certainly caused by DNS problems.

(If you can reproduce something like this and aren't having DNS problems, please file a new bug.)
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 18 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
> Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
> Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
> 
> The browser often cannot load a known valid url. Alert applet comes up : "[url]
> could not be found.  Please check the name and try again."   The problem occurs
> on all three of the PCs that are running Firefox browser.  Have reloaded
> Firefox
> but  problem persists.  Not a showstopper, but frequent enough to be annoying. 
> 
> Thanks. 
> 
> Richard Moscatiello
> rmoscat@comcast.net 
> 
> Reproducible: Sometimes
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Click on bookmarked url
> 2.  
> 3.
> 
> Actual Results:  
> The browser often cannot load a known valid url. Alert applet comes up : "[url]
> could not be found.  Please check the name and try again."   The problem occurs
> on all three of the PCs that are running Firefox browser.  Have reloaded
> Firefox
> but  problem persists.  Not a showstopper, but frequent enough to be annoying. 
> 
> Expected Results:  
> Browswer should be able to find  valid url and load same.
> 

I've found since upgrading to Firefox 2.03 I get this error, 'cannot find url, etc..'.  It shows up then proceeds to the requested URL. Opens it and I can use, play or surf the site.. 
When I go back to Firefox 2.0 it works fine..
Any ideas I can use???
I should add, these are sites on my desktop. 
I use win XP  with a cable internet.
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