Firefox just quit working. Why?

[Craig White]

On Sat, 2010-02-20 at 21:08 -0700, Technomage wrote:
> On 2/20/10 9:00 PM, Josef Lowder wrote:
> > I have Firefox 3.5.6 running on two identical Thinkpad computers.
> >
> > It has been working fine on both for several months, but today, it
> > just quit working on one of them with the message quoted below. Both
> > are wirelessly connected on the same network. No changes were made on
> > either one. I have rechecked that all the settings are identical on
> > both computers.  The one on which Firefox just quit working works fine
> > with Konqueror.  I have checked and rechecked everything I can think
> > to check.  I tried reinstalling Firefox from Synaptic.  What could
> > have caused Firefox to just quit working?  What can I do to get it
> > working again?
> >
> > Server not found
> > Firefox can't find the server at www.google.com.
> > * Check the address for typing errors such as
> >    ww.example.com instead of www.example.com
> > * If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
> > * If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy,
> > make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

> >    
> Its not a firefox issue. its a dns issue. How identical are the machines 
> in question?
> running all the same processes? can you ssh from/to them?
> 
> I see a lot of such errors, not just with mozilla firefox, but also with 
> safari, IE and even opera.
> Generally, it turns out to be a dns lookup failure.
----
that's not all that helpful because he clearly stated that Konqueror
browses the web fine on the same computer where Firefox does not.

Seems pretty clear from the evidence above that Firefox that isn't
working is trying to use IPV6 DNS which is failing whereas Konqueror
does not.

- Open Firefox...

- type 'about:config' in the address bar and lie to Firefox and tell it
you'll be careful

- type 'ipv6' in the 'filter box and you will see a setting for... 

  network.dns.disableIPv6

  which is undoubtedly set to 'false. Double click it to change it to
true.

I would bet that this fixes the problem which would mean that the
Firefox that works only has IPV4 running and the one that doesn't has
both IPV4 and IPV6 running but you cannot resolve DNS via ipv6.

Craig


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