I am woking in mainland China, so I have to use VPN to open the page of youtube when I am in China. However, since November 2012, I can't open it again with my MacBook Pro (OSX10.7.5 Lion) through the VPN account. But I can open the page of youtube with my old PowerBook G4 (OSX10.4.11 Tiger) through the same VPN account. Why? Can anyone help me to fix this problem? Thanks
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Possibly blocked by the Government.
Can you open other pages? What happens when you try to open YouTube? Have you tried a different VPN?
Dear Linc Davis, I can open the other pages except those are blocked by the Chinese government ( youtube, vimeo, etc ). But I don't understand why my PowerBook G4 running with Tiger and Saferi 4.1.3 can open those pages with the same connection and the same VPN account ( as I run both Macbooks side by side since this problem occurred ).
When I try to open youtube, it appears a blank page with the statement of
"Safari can’t open the page “http://www.youtube.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again."
Listed below are the information from Page Source:
<!-- LOCALIZERS: Each localizable piece of the page is marked with a comment -->
<HTML>
<!-- LOCALIZERS: If in a right-to-left locale, add dir="rtl" to the HTML element. -->
<HEAD>
<LINK rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="page-load-errors.css">
<!-- LOCALIZERS: You might want to change the font family. You can also add styles to override sizes, etc. -->
<STYLE>
BODY {font-family:'Helvetica Neue';}
</STYLE>
<!-- LOCALIZERS: The next line contains the page title that appears in the window's title bar -->
<TITLE>Failed to open page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<div class="error-container">
<div class="icon" alt="Safari Icon" role="img"></div>
<div class="text-container">
<!-- main title here, repeated 3 times -->
<P aria-hidden="true" class="error-title error-text-engraving">Safari can’t open the page <A id="help-button"></a></P>
<P aria-hidden="true" class="error-title error-text">Safari can’t open the page <A id="help-button"></a></P>
<P class="error-title error-text-inner-shadow">Safari can’t open the page <A aria-label="Help" role="button" id="help-button" class="" HREF='open-help-anchor:ibrw1071'></a></P>
</div>
<div class="text-container">
<!-- error message here, repeated 3 times -->
<P class="error-message error-text-engraving">Safari can’t open the page “http://www.youtube.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.</P>
<P aria-hidden="true" class="error-message error-text">Safari can’t open the page “http://www.youtube.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.</P>
<P aria-hidden="true" class="error-message error-text-inner-shadow">Safari can’t open the page “http://www.youtube.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.</P>
</div>
</div>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Listed below are the information from Page Resources (page-load-errors.css) :
/*
This file has a UTF-8 BOM in it so it can be included from a UTF-16 page
without specifying an explicit character set. When editing it, please be
sure to preserve the BOM (first three bytes of the file, EF BB BF).
*/
body {
background-color: rgb(237, 239, 238);
background-image: url(ErrorPageBackgroundTile.png);
background-size: 100px 100px;
text-align: center;
-webkit-user-select: none;
cursor: default;
}
.error-container {
margin-top: 128px;
padding-top: 0;
}
.error-container, .suggestion-container, .action-container {
position: relative;
width: 500px;
min-height: 90px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
padding-left: 93px;
padding-right: 93px;
padding-bottom: 0;
}
.suggestion-container {
margin-top: 25px;
padding-top: 20px;
background: url(ErrorPageDividerLine.png) top center no-repeat;
background-size: 686px 1px;
}
.icon {
position: relative;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
width: 113px;
height: 120px;
background-image: url(ErrorPageCompass.png);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: 113px 120px;
}
.reading-list-glasses {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
top: 2px;
margin-right: 8px;
width: 35px;
height: 16px;
background-image: url(ErrorPageReadingList.png);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: 35px 16px;
}
.error-text-engraving .reading-list-glasses, .error-text-inner-shadow .reading-list-glasses {
/* Hide the duplicate Reading List glasses that are next to the envgraving and the shadow of the
inner text. The images are just there for horizontal spacing of the components of the error text,
we don't want to show them. */
visibility: hidden;
}
html[dir=rtl] .icon {
left: auto;
right: 7px;
}
.text-container {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
margin: auto;
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}
.error-text, .error-text-engraving, .error-text-inner-shadow
{
margin: 0;
word-wrap: break-word;
}
.error-text {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
background-repeat: repeat;
-webkit-background-clip: text;
-webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;
}
.error-text-engraving {
position: relative;
top: 1px;
width: 100%;
color: white;
}
.error-text-inner-shadow {
position: absolute;
top: 1px;
left: 0;
right: 0;
color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25);
}
.error-title
{
font-size: 18px;
line-height:24px; /* This needs to be the same as the 2nd color stop position in -webkit-repeating-linear-gradient of error-title.error-text. */
font-weight: bold;
}
.error-title.error-text {
/* the position for rgba(124, 128, 130, 0.9) needs to be the same as the line-height in .error-title */
background-image: -webkit-repeating-linear-gradient(rgba(79, 82, 85, 0.9) 0, rgba(124, 128, 130, 0.9) 24px), url(ErrorPageBackgroundTile.png);
}
.error-title.error-text-engraving {
margin-top: 22px;
margin-bottom: 25px;
}
.suggestion-form input
{
font-size: 16px;
margin: 0;
}
.suggestion-prompt
{
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
.suggestion-prompt, .error-message {
font-size: 14px;
line-height: 17px;
}
.suggestion-prompt.error-text, .error-message.error-text {
background-color: rgba(101, 105, 107, 0.9);
}
.suggestion-prompt.error-text-engraving {
padding-bottom: 0px;
margin-top: 6px;
}
.action-container {
margin-top: 8px;
}
.action-container .suggestion-form {
display: inline-block;
margin: 5px;
padding: 0;
}
.action-container .suggestion-form input {
width: 132px;
margin: 0;
}
.error-text a, .error-text-inner-shadow a {
visibility: hidden;
}
.error-text-engraving a {
z-index: 1;
position: relative;
top: -1px;
}
#help-button {
display: inline-block;
width: 25px;
height: 24px;
vertical-align: bottom;
background-image: url(HelpButton.png);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: 25px 24px;
-webkit-user-drag: none;
margin-right: -35px;
visibility: visible;
}
.error-text-engraving #help-button, .error-text #help-button {
background-image: none;
visibility: hidden;
}
#help-button:active {
background-image: url(HelpButtonPressed.png);
}
html[dir=rtl] #help-button {
margin-right: inherit;
margin-left: -35px;
}
@media (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:2) {
body {
background-image: url(ErrorPageBackgroundTile@2x.png);
}
.suggestion-container {
background-image: url(ErrorPageDividerLine@2x.png);
}
.icon {
background-image: url(ErrorPageCompass@2x.png);
}
.reading-list-glasses {
background-image: url(ErrorPageReadingList@2x.png);
}
.error-title.error-text {
/* the position for rgba(124, 128, 130, 0.9) needs to be the same as the line-height in .error-title */
background-image: -webkit-repeating-linear-gradient(rgba(79, 82, 85, 0.9) 0, rgba(124, 128, 130, 0.9) 24px), url(ErrorPageBackgroundTile@2x.png);
}
#help-button {
background-image: url(HelpButton@2x.png);
}
#help-button:active {
background-image: url(HelpButtonPressed@2x.png);
}
}
I don't know whether these information can help to solve the problem.
Thanks
If the other end of the VPN tunnel is outside China, and the tunnel is working, then you should not be affected by the Internet restrictions in China. From your description, it seems that the tunnel is not working, or the endpoint is inside China. It may be that the authorities have found a way to break into the tunnel. Please use caution. That's all I can tell you from the information provided. I don't know why it's working on your other computer.
Dear Linc, sorry for late replying your message. I have forgot to tell you that I can open the page of "Facebook" which is also blocked by the Chinese government with my new MacBook Pro. However, it can't open those pages which contain video contents, such as youtube, vimeo, etc. It's strange!
Anyway thanks for your advice.
I can think of one possible reason why you might get different results from the same VPN with two different computers.
Your browser sends a user-agent string to server, identifying its version and the platform it runs on. Some web servers adapt the content they server to the agent. For example, if you connect from a mobile device, you may get a different version of the site optimized for such devices.
If the VPN passes through the agent string, the server may decide that an old PowerBook can't handle the same video resolution as a new MBP. So maybe it sends higher-bandwidth video to the MBP. Maybe also the VPN can't handle that higher bandwidth.
You can test the theory by copying the agent string from Safari on the PB to Safari on the MBP. I don't remember how you do that in Tiger, but in ML you enable the Develop menu in Safari's Advanced preferences.
Dear Linc, I find that the user agent strings to open "Facebook" and "Youtube" are the same on my MacBook Pro, which is
"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_5) AppleWebKit/536.26.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.2 Safari/536.26.17"
And I have tried the other user agent strings from the Develop meun, (such as Googlr Chrome 19.0 - Mac, Firefox 11.0 - Mac, etc), it can open "Facebook", but can't open "Youtube"
The user agent string doesn't depend on which website you're connecting to. It only depends on the browser. What I'm suggesting is that you copy the user agent string from the PowerBook and test it on the MBP.
I have just copy the user string from my Powerbook
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_4_11;en) AppleWebKit/533.19.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.1.3Safari/533.19.4
and test it on my MBP. However, I still get the same result that it can open "facebook" but not "youtube".
P.S., in facebook, I can't view those videos being shared by my friends from youtube
I have typing a wrong user string to you.
The correct one is "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U;PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11;en) AppleWebKit/533.19.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.1.3 Safari/533.19.4"
Sorry.., May i ask you some question? I am cambodian who live in china. Facebook & Youtube are blocking by china. so how can i open it without use VPN? because i use within network on school. i don't have wifi to connect VPN, can you help me? I'm sorry about my English. 🙂 and thanks you for you advice.
I can't open the page of youtube with my MacBookPro (OSX 10.7 Lion) through VPN in China
