Mark Sealey

Q: Only for Google links: Safari Can't Open the Page

Safari Can't Open the Page "https:/www.gogle.com/url?xyz" because the server where this page is located isn't responding.

 

Of course the page is perfectly reachable; and always appears when I dismiss this error and reload.

 

This disappeared for a while, but now is back :-(

 

Only in Safari, only when clicking on links which are the result of Google searches.

 

GoogleError.jpg

 

Anyone any ideas, please?

 

TIA…

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Clean machine... no haxies; no Microsoft etc

Posted on Oct 29, 2015 4:06 PM

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Q: Only for Google links: Safari Can't Open the Page

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  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey Mar 13, 2016 11:41 AM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 13, 2016 11:41 AM in response to Mark Sealey

    I had been clear of this for about six months. Totally clear.

     

    Two weeks ago I was caught by this ethernet update and could get nothing.

     

    Eventually - with the help of AppleCare - it was resolved completely by removing these two files in my System's Library Preferences SystemConfiguration folder:

     

    1. NetworkInterfaces.plist
    2. preferences.plist

     

    (this is documented).

     

    Unfortunately, the bug whereby Google links are no longer reachable has returned.

     

    I'd have thought that this was indicative of something?

  • by calmasacow,

    calmasacow calmasacow Mar 16, 2016 2:52 PM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2016 2:52 PM in response to Mark Sealey

    I I just started having this issue and for me the issue is the Adblock and Adblock Plus Safari extensions. When I stable them everything starts working fine.

  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey Mar 16, 2016 5:28 PM in response to calmasacow
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 16, 2016 5:28 PM in response to calmasacow

    I don't have such extensions at all and still get it.

     

    I tried to open a new bug report with Apple; but it was closed as a duplicate. So they must accept that it is happening.

     

    I included a link to this thread.

     

    Please, the more people that report it, the more likely we are to get a fix.

  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey Mar 16, 2016 7:59 PM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 16, 2016 7:59 PM in response to Mark Sealey

    What really needs emphasizing here is this: my very first experience of the bug was - amazingly - when I took my new iMac out of its box and did only one thing - used the MAS to upgrade to the then latest dot version of El Capitan… probably 10.11.1

     

    IOW it was literally a brand new machine, with literally not a single non-Apple (or other third party) app installed.

     

    In order to give my new iMac a check I opened Safari - possibly itself only the second launch of anything (the first being the App Store s/w) since the first time the machine was booted… an ideal debugging environment.

     

    And literally the first site I accessed was Google, and I probably put in something like 'Apple' only to be told that the server wasn't responding. Of course, on reloading, the Google link worked.

     

    I doubt it's much easier than that to rule out Safari add-one, configurations or other potentially 'interfering' software!

  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey May 22, 2016 11:31 AM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    May 22, 2016 11:31 AM in response to Mark Sealey

    I am now on 10.11.5 with Safari 9.1.1

     

    I really had hoped that Apple would have fixed this by now.

     

    Are others still experiencing it:

    1. enter a search term in Google
    2. page(s) of results come back instantaneously
    3. click on a link for one of those results
    4. 25% of the time, the connection either times out altogether or returns a 'server' cannot be found error?


    But report with Apple… the last time they responded it was to say they thought it had been fixed.

     

    NB, all the usual troubleshooting techniques tried - and I do mean all of them, viz: this began happening on a clean install of Apple software only (not one single third part app installed + no Safari extensions) using the User account created on shipping… brand new machine lifted from the box!

     

    Only Google. Only Safari!

  • by Jonathan Payne1,

    Jonathan Payne1 Jonathan Payne1 May 22, 2016 1:54 PM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 22, 2016 1:54 PM in response to Mark Sealey

    I think you're suffering from a different/related bug.

     

    Does this happen if you are connected via ethernet cable?

     

    What kind of Mac do you have? Is it a laptop (or anything else I suppose) that has 802.11/ac wifi in it?

     

    What is your network setup? Do you have a cable modem? Is it in modem mode? Or is it a router? Do you use its wifi or do you have another router?

  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey May 22, 2016 2:20 PM in response to Jonathan Payne1
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    May 22, 2016 2:20 PM in response to Jonathan Payne1

    Thanks, Jonathan!

     

    What's your theory, please?

     

    Help appreciated… :-)

     

    Both ethernet (my default, AT&T U-Verse) and Wi-fi (to test/eliminate).

     

    iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Mid 2015) - Technical Specifications desktop

     

    Direct Ethernet from AT&T (to test: same bug) or via Airport Extreme, recently replaced - same phenomenon in both cases.

     

    In short, this began with the simplest out-of-the-box wired environments.

     

    Only Google results links. Everything else loads instantly all the time!

  • by Jonathan Payne1,

    Jonathan Payne1 Jonathan Payne1 May 22, 2016 11:30 PM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 22, 2016 11:30 PM in response to Mark Sealey

    Darn - my theory was based on some impressively bad wifi issues involving 802.11/ac.

     

    I have given you false hope I am afraid. The reason I thought it was related was the fix you applied that involved removing some network configuration files.

     

    Here's the discussions post where I describe my issues.

     

    Re: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

     

    I don't think they can be the same issue since my issue goes away if I use ethernet.

  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey May 23, 2016 7:15 AM in response to Jonathan Payne1
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    May 23, 2016 7:15 AM in response to Jonathan Payne1

    Thank you Jonathan - no problem; I appreciate your help and suggestions :-)

     

    I can well see how Wi-fi might add to the complexity of this… slower DNS for example.

     

    I still have to believe that it's something about the way in which Safari began handling/parsing specifically the strings which compose Google results URLs in Yosemite.

     

    Too many (advertising) tracking characters, incorrect formation, random top-bit set characters???

     

    Only Google (mostly results URLs), only Safari, both direct ethernet, ethernet via Airport (cat5 to iMac) and wi-fi when my Airport unit was excluded.

     

    Apple seems to have acknowledged this - even seems to believe t's fixed - but not yet done so.

     

    Thanks again!

  • by Jonathan Payne1,

    Jonathan Payne1 Jonathan Payne1 May 23, 2016 7:25 AM in response to Mark Sealey
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 23, 2016 7:25 AM in response to Mark Sealey

    You know, I had problems just like the ones you're talking about. Except with me it was t.co URLs all the time. It didn't matter if I stripped off the extra parameters or not. It's as though Safari uses a content cache infrastructure that is shared among all the safari processes and webkit plugins running in, e.g., Mail or quick look processes, that got bogged down on a particular host, for some reason, refusing to do more connections to that host until after some timeout.

     

    Which explains why the other browsers had no trouble: they have their own content caches.

     

    And then that problem went away after one release. But I saw that it went away for me but was still an issue for other people, and that and the fact that Apple was trying to blame it on ISPs sometimes, plus the fact that deleting some networking config files seemed to do the trick - well all that led me to assume it was the same problem I have seen with wifi.

     

    This level of flakiness is astonishing, really. Stuff like this should solidify over time but I think Apple keeps on innovating and with innovation comes breakage. The appalling thing is how long we sometimes have to wait for a fix and/or even just an acknowledgement. Still, as a programmer myself, I know how bizarre and complex these things can be, and when I file bugs at bugreport.apple.com, I almost always get some serious interaction with Apple to try to resolve it.

     

    Let's hope 10.12 is everything we ever dreamed of in terms of stability. El Capitan was, in my opinion, the best release since Snow Leopard, despite this particular pair of problems that have been around for so long.

  • by Mark Sealey,

    Mark Sealey Mark Sealey May 23, 2016 7:47 AM in response to Jonathan Payne1
    Level 2 (362 points)
    Desktops
    May 23, 2016 7:47 AM in response to Jonathan Payne1

    Thanks, Jonathan - I agree entirely.

     

    Or even some response on Safari's part to urls cached or best available via a cdn etc, which webkit treats as suspicious.

     

    We need t stand still for… a whole year!

     

    :-)

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