Certain Sites Simply Will Not Load
I have used Firefox since its inception. Within the past 6 months, certain websites that used to work properly simply will not load anymore. For example: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/web/3419721/today/graph/hours?v=3.4.0 . I have tried refreshing, removing and restoring, creating a new, blank profile from scratch, starting in safe mode, and other browsers. In this particular instance, Chrome, Edge, and even my old Internet Explorer work just fine, with no alterations or modifications, as well as with my current extensions (Roboform). So does an old version of Firefox (76.0.1). However, current versions of Firefox simply show "Connecting to Gateway", and then time out. I have even set Firefox to refresh the page on EACH access, to no avail...
The ONLY thing that works with the new versions of Firefox is to delete the Cache, and on the next load of Firefox, these and other sites will work. However, returning to the site a second time results in the same error. This makes no sense to me, since forcing Firefox to reload the page on entry, in my mind, should be the same as clearing the cache for the offending page. I have no idea whether the problem is with the website coding, or with the Firefox coding. In this particular case, the Enlighten website states that recent versions of Firefox ARE supported, along with Edge and Chrome. But the fact is, only Edge and Chrome work flawlessly with no issues.
I am open to any and all suggestions, because I have been working with the same errors across several websites, and Firefox is the only browser that has problems with the site.
All Replies (3)
Oh, that page appears to require an account, so we can't get a look at it. If there is a more public site, that would be useful.
Meanwhile, let's check whether that overlay is a cross-site frame, i.e., loading from a different server compared with the server listed in the address bar. Right-click that area and look for This Frame on the context menu. If that appears, click that to expand a fly-out menu and use View Frame Info to check whether it is the same server or a different server. That affects such things as permission to run scripts AND whether cookies are shared between the sites.
As a possible shortcut to clearing the cache, you can try one of these methods to reload the page bypassing the cache:
- Shift+click the Reload button in the toolbar
- Press Ctrl+Shift+R
- Press Ctrl+F5
Right clicking on that website page does not bring up a context menu. I'm guessing they have it disabled in the coding. I did try all three shortcuts, and there is no change in the behavior.
UPDATE: HACK
Totally exasperated with fooling with this, I installed Firefox Portable (latest version) and the site worked perfectly. I then took the profile that was created by Firefox Portable, and copied the entire thing to the directory where the Firefox 104.0.1 (64-bit) profile was located, after first deleting all of the files in that directory while Firefox was NOT running. Everything worked perfectly. I then used the Firefox install .exe to reinstall Firefox desktop edition. And everything is still working perfectly, not only with the site in the example, but with all of the other sites I was having trouble with as well. After installing Roboform, and two other extensions, everything still works, and I have removed Firefox Portable from my system. I have concluded that there is something about the Firefox Portable install .exe that has corrected the specific problem on my system, because reinstalling Firefox Desktop, both the .exe and the .msi versions, repeatedly, made no difference with the issue. If I have broken something by utilizing this approach, I haven't found it yet, however, I am not marking this issue "solved" because my procedure is clearly NOT what was intended.
Firefox Portable is built by an independent team, and it's possible that because of its need to keep all its files together that it has some different settings than the regular release of Firefox. I'm not sure where that would be documented, if anywhere, but it would be interesting to review the list and see whether anything could explain the difference.