Safari/Firefox Help

G

GSR13

Registered
Hello all:

I am hoping to get some help with this one. I was using Firefox yesterday and clicked on a link to a site. The site opened in the background and my original page switched to another page. I closed Firefox, cleared all the history and cache and reopened. Now, if I simply type "myspace" in the address bar, I get redirected to a Domain Hosting site. If I type "nascar", I get nothing. If I type "cnn", it resolves correctly to html://www.cnn.com.

I am running 10.4.2 with the latest version of Safari and Firefox 1.5Beta1. This problem happens with both Safari and Firefox. I have dumped the preference files for both and it did resolve the issue. I also created a Guest account on my system and it does the same thing. This would indicate to me it is a system wide issue, not just my user account.

I have checked /etc/hosts and it contains the following:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost

Any suggestions? I assume this has to be a file or setting that is independent of either browser, since it happens in both. I just don't know what to dump or edit to get this resolved.

I find it relatively interesting that this can occur under a *nix based system, so I hope to get it resolved.

Thanks in advance.
 
One more thing...

I have added an Airport Express doing WDS for my Linksys router. I wouldn't think this has anything to do with it, but I figured I would throw it in there.

**UPDATE**

I took the AX out of the equation and it did not resolve the issue. I have also started going through /etc and /library looking for anything that has been modified around that time, or after. No luck so far.
 
I should also add that I connected to my iMac over VNC and verified that it still functions properly. If I type "nascar" I am directed to www.nascar.com, which is what my PowerBook used to do. Also, typing "myspace" resolves to www.myspace.com. Again, the same thing my PBook used to do.

**UPDATE**

So, just to give it a try, I downloaded OnyX and ran the clean up utility and still no dice. I used the defaults, so it didn't trash the system and kernel caches.

This is so strange. I found one other post like this, at discussions.apple.com, but there was no resolution posted. He just seemed to be having the same problem.
 
So, I ran OnyX again and decided to clean up the system and kernel cache's. Same result.

If I type "myspace" I get redirected to buydomains.com. If I type "macfixit" I get redirected to domaindirect.com.

Any idea's?
 
Well, now I am really starting to think this has everything to do with Comcast. I booted to my external drive, which has a clone of my Tiger installation, and it does the same thing. The clone is from well before my little incident with Firefox, so I am going to right this one off.

I suppose that is a good thing. I was really starting to be concerned there was a vulnerability there.

I would still be interested in any input from you guys. Thanks.
 
Sorry for the delay in response from anyone.

Have you tried trashing the .plist file in ~/Library/Preferences? You might also want to check the global Library folder to see if maybe there are some .plist files for Safari and Firefox in there. Make sure when you do this that the applications aren't running.

Once you've trashed those .plist files, relaunch each browser and try the links again.

Hope this helps.
 
1) /etc/hosts is looking exactly like it should. There's nothing wrong with that file. You shouldn't be that concerned with anything bad happening in the Unix part of the system as modifying files there will demand at least administrative rights and a prompt for your admin password.

2) when you type something like 'cnn' into the location bar, the browser at first tries an URL with the *exact* string you've typed. When the DNS servers respond with an error message, the browser tries pre-pending 'www.' and a-pending '.com' to the string. So the correct behaviour is dependent on two things : a) getting an error message from the DNS servers b) that you have the mechanism described activated in your browser.

3) the DNS lookup request goes through a service called 'lookupd'. It caches the responses from the DNS servers. I don't know whether Onyx clears the lookupd cache, but otherwise you can do it yourself. Start terminal and enter:
sudo lookupd -flushcache
Now, clear the caches of your browser(s) too and restart them

4) some DNS servers have been set up to re-direct to domain selling web sites instead of sending an error response, so what you are experiencing is quite normal and in no way indicative of having bad software or bad settings. That behaviour is completely out of your control and is completely outside your computer. The only thing you can do about that is entering the full URL - or modifying the /etc/hosts file, but this last thing isn't recommended.

I hope this resolves the issue
 
Thanks for the help guys. Interestingly enough, once I downloaded and installed the update to 10.4.3 the issue is resolved.

I consider this a little strange. I was prepared to right this off to something outside of my machine, but now I am not so sure. At any rate, the issue is resolved and back to normal. It makes me lean towards lookupd, since I didn't flush it, but who knows. I hate things like this.

Anyway, I really appreciate the help.
 
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