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 MehdyHaghy,

    MehdyHaghy MehdyHaghy Mar 2, 2016 11:18 PM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 2, 2016 11:18 PM in response to laonikoss

    It seems this issue is caused by incompatibility between latest version of OS X El Capitan and antivirus / web filtering engines for Mac OSX.

    from terminal you can ping any website and you can see host names are getting resolved by dns.

    but browsers (firefox, safari, chrome) can't resolve websites except a few of popular ones (google, facebook, gmail, ..)

    by uninstalling internet security software (in my case ESET Endpoint Security) the issue can be fixed.

  • by MichaelWal,

    MichaelWal MichaelWal Apr 9, 2016 8:13 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 9, 2016 8:13 AM in response to Eric Root

    I have Avast and decided that I didn’t need to run it anymore, did not uninstall, just turned it off.  Well I started to have the same issue where in Safari / Firefox I was getting “not a secure site, certificate is unrecognizable, etc” and on Chrome “connection was lost or could not be done”  Well I installed Avast and rebooted and the issue went away,

     

    Thanks KBLux

     

    Mike

  • by Lowheader,

    Lowheader Lowheader May 4, 2016 4:06 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 4, 2016 4:06 AM in response to laonikoss

    I found this issue cropping up regularly since I created an "administrator" user. Logging in to the "standard" user from that point on was giving me various connection errors. These seem to come in bursts rather than be consistent.

    Logging on as the "administrator" user and the issue has disappeared although I will monitor for a few weeks and report back if this has not completely removed it.

  • by lc general,

    lc general lc general May 29, 2016 8:05 PM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 29, 2016 8:05 PM in response to laonikoss

    I fixed it! I just spent hours on this, trying various solutions, talking to tech support, getting lost in tech jargon. What fixed it? Clearing my DNS cache. Instructions here: Reset the DNS cache in OS X - Apple Support

  • by CarlosDuranmx,

    CarlosDuranmx CarlosDuranmx Jun 26, 2016 11:34 PM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 26, 2016 11:34 PM in response to laonikoss

    I need help, I've tried everything, using Safari, Chrome or Firefox on both of the WiFi servers(different companies) at home won't fix the problem. I've changed the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and it wouldn't work, neither clearing the DNS cache or removing extensions from Safari or Google. I tried turning off the Ipv6 but I couldn't do it from System Preferences. Pleas help! I'm on a MacBook Pro from mid 2012 with OS X El Capitan(10.11.5).

  • by lc general,

    lc general lc general Jun 27, 2016 6:33 AM in response to lc general
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 27, 2016 6:33 AM in response to lc general

    ADD'L NOTE: I went back to having problems. Turns out, the website (my work website) I was trying to access blocked my IP address. I had run a broken link check and the web host blocked me for too many failed login atttempts (our website requires people to log in to access PDFs and the broken link check kept repeatedly trying to log in to the hundreds of PDFs).

  • by lc general,

    lc general lc general Jun 27, 2016 6:34 AM in response to CarlosDuranmx
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 27, 2016 6:34 AM in response to CarlosDuranmx

    I had it fixed but then went back to having problems. Turns out, the website (my work website) I was trying to access blocked my IP address. I had run a broken link check and the web host blocked me for too many failed login attempts (our website requires people to log in to access PDFs and the broken link check kept repeatedly trying to log in to the hundreds of PDFs). You could try contacting the website host and seeing if your IP address is blocked, or asking the website administrator to check with the webhost.

  • by RickLezan,

    RickLezan RickLezan Jul 10, 2016 10:09 AM in response to moniikat
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 10, 2016 10:09 AM in response to moniikat

    I had the same issue and tried everything I could find on the boards. This older mbp had normal http connectivity over en1: but many sites would not connect over wifi. Problem went away in safe mode, obviously indicating something getting launched in normal boot was the culprit. I snagged a copy of LaunchControl from http://www.soma-zone.com/LaunchControl/ and disabled all global daemons (except /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.soma-zone.LaunchControl.Helper!) and rebooted, problem gone. After that it was a simple matter of isolating the offending code. It was something called Tantra that was installing a packet filter.

     

    LaunchControl got the 10 bucks they were asking for the tool. Better than having to manually edit plist files in /Library/LaunchDaemons setting Disabled keys to true, but that would have worked just as well.

  • by Stephen Flemming,

    Stephen Flemming Stephen Flemming Jul 10, 2016 10:14 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 10, 2016 10:14 AM in response to laonikoss

    I had this problem to. For me a change of the DNS adress worked. I have the DNS adress 208.67.222.222 running and the problem is gone.

  • by Rishi_Bhavya,

    Rishi_Bhavya Rishi_Bhavya Aug 14, 2016 4:18 AM in response to laonikoss
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 14, 2016 4:18 AM in response to laonikoss

    Hey...Download MalwareBytes application from their official website and scan your MAC. After this scan if worked for me. Official Apple Customer Care guy advised me this to proceed before formatting MAC and hurray...finally no format...no backup..Hope this helps for at least one like me.

  • by sonalieeeee,

    sonalieeeee sonalieeeee Aug 24, 2016 10:17 AM in response to skaminulazim
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 24, 2016 10:17 AM in response to skaminulazim

    hey, same is the problem with my mac 2013 model. Could you please let me know how you were able to fix it, i am unable to upgrade to OSX EL Captain, also all desired links are prompt "google refused to connect" or 'this site cant be reached".

    help

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Aug 25, 2016 8:21 AM in response to sonalieeeee
    Level 9 (69,659 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 25, 2016 8:21 AM in response to sonalieeeee

    You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one. Please post in the community that covers the OS you are using.

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