laonikoss
Level 1 (2 points)

Q: I can't browse certain websites

Hi,

 

I am on a 2008 aluminum body Macbook running osx 10.9.5, using Chrome mainly. As of yesterday, I have been unable to access certain Google websites (in particular) and the behaviour is as weird as it is excruciatingly frustrating. I can access those websites perfectly fine from other devices (e.g. my android phone). This behaviour persists on both Wi-Fi and Ethernet (only with my macbook).

 

I can access google.com (and search, so it's not a cached page.) and GMail (I receive new emails just fine). Yesterday I couldn't access any other google pages (support, books, drive, docs, youtube). Even embedded youtube videos wouldn't show up (on facebook, e.g.). Any and all other websites that I normally use load perfectly.

 

The error I get on Chrome is "This webpage is not available. ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED" and I get similar errors on other browsers.


Today, for some bizarre reason, YouTube was working briefly (other google sites remained inaccessible) - even loading videos I've never watched before, so it wasn't cached. Now, I can't access YouTube anymore.

 

 

Here's what I have tried / noticed so far:

 

– There is no google-related websites or IP addresses in my hosts file. (In fact, hosts file has never been edited.)

– I have deleted my Network profiles, re-created a profile and Wi-Fi connection, and deleted my network and re-created it and inserted the password manually

– I have reset the router, and restarted my computer.

– All other devices access these sites perfectly fine, and this behaviour persists on my macbook on both Wi-Fi and ethernet.

– I cleaned all caches with Yasu.

– I don't have PeerGuard or similar apps.

– I have no proxies set-up anywhere.

– Nothing strange in my firewall settings, and I haven't changed anything there in months anyway.

– This behaviour persists across browsers (latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari), also other apps (e.g. Google Drive app can't connect.)

– I can ping drive.google.com, for example, and pings normally. However, if I try to traceroute the same address, I only get this: 1 * * * , 2 * * * , 3 * * *. Not sure what's happening there.

– I've disabled firewall entirely, problem persists.
– I CAN access said websites (e.g. youtube, google support) if I use a VPN/proxy (e.g. hide.me) just fine. (Which would imply something is happening with firewall settings?)

– I tried changing my DNS settings to google public DNS (8.8.8.8, and 8.8.4.4) but this is even worse - not even google.com works in this case. (Reverting to my old DNS settings at least I can access google.com, but none of the other google websites.)

– I tried changing DNS settings both at router-level, and on the computer's Ethernet/Wi-Fi connection settings, same result.

 

 

Could someone help, please? I don't know what to do anymore. As far as I can tell this started yesterday, and I don't remember doing anything weird or unusual, or it starting after doing a particular action. This is beyond frustrating, as all these sites work perfectly on other devices, except this one.

 

Thank you in advance - I tried searching the forums (and the net in general) but to no avail so far.

MacBook, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), null

Posted on Sep 25, 2015 12:06 AM

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laonikoss

Q: I can't browse certain websites

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  • by laonikoss,

    laonikoss laonikoss Sep 25, 2015 6:00 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (2 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 6:00 AM in response to laonikoss

    ok - in case others have a similar problem, here's the solution I found:

     

    After speaking with three different assistants from Apple Support, the third of which stayed with me on shared screen for over an hour trying to help me resolve this, I bumped into a solution on my own, so I'm sharing it here in case it helps other people:

     

    First back-up (just in case) and then delete the following folder:

     

    /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration

     

    Then, reboot (and the system will re-create the folder with default settings.)

     

    You will have to enter your network's credentials again (password etc).  It worked for me.

     

    The weirdest thing was that, I don't remember doing anything in particular that caused this to happen yesterday (when the problems started) so I have no idea what exactly went wrong - all I know was that deleting all the configuration files sorted it out.

     

    Hope this helps!

  • by LaLa Puddle,

    LaLa Puddle LaLa Puddle Sep 25, 2015 7:37 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 7:37 AM in response to laonikoss

    Thank you !!

    It seems a few mac users are having this problem.

    It started for me today, any google related sites won't connect.

    I tried clearing DNS cache , clearing browser, heaps of things.

    So Ive run into other mac users having the same problem on other sites but no one has had a solution.

    Pity you have to reboot , as i had to do this a couple months ago for other issues.

    But if it fixes it then I'll give it  try.

    Apple isn't what it used to be. =(

    Thank you heaps , will reboot during the night.

    ; )

  • by chadmorris123,

    chadmorris123 chadmorris123 Sep 25, 2015 8:16 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 8:16 AM in response to laonikoss

    Good Morning.  I'm having the same issues with 200+ 10.9.x computers.  Very strange.  Only a few Google Sites.  Youtube.com  drive.google.com

     

    I have tried your fix above but no luck.  Looks like others are having similar issues.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Sep 25, 2015 8:44 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 9 (69,659 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 25, 2015 8:44 AM in response to laonikoss

    Try looking/posting here.

     

    Chrome  Support

  • by nktsn,

    nktsn nktsn Sep 25, 2015 8:55 AM in response to chadmorris123
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 8:55 AM in response to chadmorris123

    similar issue here. your fix not helps, youtube.com ping just ok but not open at all :-(

  • by laonikoss,

    laonikoss laonikoss Sep 26, 2015 6:02 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (2 points)
    Sep 26, 2015 6:02 AM in response to Eric Root

    This wouldn't have helped in my case, as I couldn't access support.google.com at all.

  • by laonikoss,

    laonikoss laonikoss Sep 26, 2015 6:06 AM in response to chadmorris123
    Level 1 (2 points)
    Sep 26, 2015 6:06 AM in response to chadmorris123

    You are right - I was a bit hasty to post my fix here. It worked for a few hours, then suddenly (and seeingly randomly, again I don't remember doing anything out of the ordinary when this started happening) the same sites stopped working. Occasionally, I can get through to the offline version of docs.google.com or drive.google.com, accompanied with a note saying "Warning: you are offline" and of course I can't access any of my files (though I can see a cached list of my directory.)

     

    This morning it seems to be working fine - again, occasionally I get the "can't connect" error, only to be forwarded soon to the actual page. I can access the pages more often than I cannot, but from time to time I am not able to access them.

     

    I am very reluctant to pay 30 dollars to Apple to help me solve a problem that seems to be a bug or the operating system, rather than my own misuse of it. I will try again with the complimentary support if the problem persists.

     

    The only thing I did was I updated iTunes to version 12.3 a few days back (probably around the same day that the problem appeared) - though I can't see why updating iTunes should cause this to happen.

     

    Do you remember updating anything?

  • by KBLux,

    KBLux KBLux Sep 27, 2015 12:23 PM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 27, 2015 12:23 PM in response to laonikoss

    I have had the same problem, unable to browse to websites, since last week, on my Macbook Pro, on Chrome, Safari & Firefox.

    My Imac, on the same wifi connection, does not have any problems.

     

    1. I have confirmed that the problem does not persist if I boot into Safe Mode - all websites accessible

     

    2. I have also tried Recovery Mode - Safari works fine there.

     

    3. I have tried the OpenDNS and Google DNS servers - no luck

     

    4. I have checked that I do not have any proxies active, that the MacOS firewall is not the issue etc.

     

    5. I have deleted the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration folder and rebooted - still not working

     

    6. I have noticed that running NetStat to display the routing table information takes 35 seconds to load (2 seconds on my Imac)

    localhost  shows  48 Refs and 9349 Use, 1 minute after rebooting - is this relevant?

     

    7. I can ping main sites such as BBH & Facebook.

     

    8. I've tried creating a new network location from scratch - no luck

     

    Mail, backup, anti-virus, google.com, youtube.com, yahoo.com all seem to still work.

     

    But, any site listed in Google search fails to load,

    I've tested with BBC.CO.UK, FACEBOOK.COM etc

     

    All three browsers return errors such as

    ERR_CONNECTION_RESET

    ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

    ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED

     

    Any further suggestions of what can fix this?

  • by Niekert,

    Niekert Niekert Sep 29, 2015 1:47 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 29, 2015 1:47 AM in response to laonikoss

    I disabled IPv6 and every page started loading again. I was also mainly having trouble with Google sites.

     

    Here's a guide on how to turn it off and back on:

    http://osxdaily.com/2014/04/18/disable-ipv6-mac-os-x/

  • by KBLux,

    KBLux KBLux Sep 30, 2015 12:01 PM in response to Niekert
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 30, 2015 12:01 PM in response to Niekert

    I tried disabling IPV6 - no change.

    i've also creating a new user from scratch - problem continues in the new account.

     

    i've noticed on the error pages in Safari/Firefox/Chrome that it appears that the websites are refusing to connect because a secure connection cannot be established.  I also noted error messages in Console about failure of SSLHandshake etc.

    is it possible that the certificates on the MacBook have been corrupted?  But, if so, why do the browsers work in Safe Mode?

     

    any suggestions welcome - my local Apple dealer could not think of any fix, so I am looking at a full re-install if one of you can't think up an elegant solution!

  • by KBLux,Helpful

    KBLux KBLux Oct 3, 2015 8:16 AM in response to KBLux
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 3, 2015 8:16 AM in response to KBLux

    Er, problem turned out to be easy to resolve.

     

    Disabled Sophos Anti-virus for Mac - problem gone.

  • by moniikat,

    moniikat moniikat Dec 11, 2015 10:35 AM in response to KBLux
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 11, 2015 10:35 AM in response to KBLux

    I had Avast Security and deleted it, everything works fine now! Thanks for the help.

  • by skaminulazim,

    skaminulazim skaminulazim Dec 19, 2015 5:58 PM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2015 5:58 PM in response to laonikoss

    I am having the same problem as him... As we see here, I am able to post in google.   I have access to facebook and youtube and google. I cannot connect using ANY of my saved links in my favorites.  This is happening with google chrome, firefox and internet explorer.  it all started about the same time as his quit working.  I have did many of the things he tried with no good results.  HELP.

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