Firefox refuses to load some common websites
Firefox has been white-screen blocking my access to some common websites including CNN, Amazon and possibly others. No error messages, just a blank white screen. This is a sudden change and has never been a problem in the past. Chrome and Firefox on my other computers are not affected. I have cleared caches and deleted all tabs with no change in symptom. I've also checked CPU and memory resources and both appear normal. No sites are being blocked by settings either, though I would expect Firefox to give me a "This site is blocked" message of some kind if that were the case. How do I fix this?
All Replies (6)
Show what you're getting. Did you tried Firefox in Safe Mode? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode#search
Try clearing site cookies and disabling Tracking Protection for the site.
Does it still happen in Troubleshoot Mode?
Apparently it is my VPN that is causing the problem. Once I disable it the sites load normally. Now I have to find out what is wrong with my VPN and fix it if I am to stay protected while surfing the net.
(rant)... I wish programmers would do a better job of identifying errors than simply letting their machines stop processing. The computer knows what's wrong with it, it just can't tell the operator what's wrong with it. This reminds me of my lovable 18 year old dog who just refuses to move when he wants to stop walking, but I digress. Just give me an error code in English and let me know what's really happening and a lot of the time I waste troubleshooting blank screen problems like this one will disappear... (end of rant).
Do older versions of Firefox work with your VPN, like the ESR version (115)?
Clearing cookies for each affected site seems to have worked. I was not aware that I could clear cookies for individual sites. I now have some login issues to solve with various vendors but they cannot be resolved until morning. If at that time I continue to have problems I will update this thread. Thank you for your help.
It is likely that something goes wrong with the DNS lookup when you use the VPN, you can test this via the DNS Lookup tool on the about:networking page. See also: