Safari intermitantly not loading pages/images
 

I have this weird issue with Safari (1.3 on OS X 10.3.9). It has been around for a while (since the previous version at least). Basically, sometimes when I click a link or type an URL in, it gives the "Can't connect to the server" error straight away (no delay whatsoever). If I click again it usually loads fine.

Also, quite often on pages with a lot of images, most of the images will fail to load and just display the blue questionmark boxes. In the activity window it shows "Can't connect to host" for the affected images. If I reload the page, they will often load fine.

This is really bugging me. It's not like the pages or images are timing out, because it displays the error or bluebox immediately. Is anyone else having this problem?Here's an example

This is probably a DNS timing issue. Since all DNS servers are in the States I have a theory that resolving URLs into IP addresses takes longer if Americans are awake, and surfing. Certainly the problem seems more prevalent in mid-afternoon my time. I keep thinking I must test this theory some time.

This doesn't mean that Apple couldn't provide a longer delay before throwing up a error message, of course. It's worth pointing out that Firefox and Opera also see this problem.

i don't know but I assume the instant response may come about because the DNS server your ISP is using can simply tell your browser that "it's too busy please try later" Browsers that don't show this problem may simply be ignoring the error and trying again.

The example you've shown seems to be of the little icons on the webpages here. The URLs for these icons needs to be resolved as above, and also everybody posting (or viewing) here will need them. A significant fraction of Rob's bandwidth probably goes on getting those icons out to users - so the system will cough a little from time to time.

Bramley, not all root-servers are in the US anymore.
To learn more about it than you'd care for, have a look here:

http://www.root-servers.org/

It would be interesting to investigate the issue further.

I have a linux router/firewall (ipcop.org) with a dns-cache, it would never give me some "I'm busy, call me later" message, it works only for me...

But I still get these annoying errors from time to time.

To me it looks a lot like either the resolver or some code calling it is broken and has been for quite a while now...

My mistake. I recently read an article in ..... something fairly reputable (but I can't find the reference right now) which expressed concerns about the vunerability of DNS servers to attacks as they weren't distributed widely enough. The implication was they were in the States, which is clearly not the case. From your reference it's clear that they are mostly in the States.

Maybe for sites not in the cache?

I see the DNS server I'm using is not shown on the list. I might ping this a bit over the next 24 hours to see what kind of times I get. I have to say that I haven't had too many errors recently though. I think the last time I had an error was pre-10.3.8.

DNS has lots of problems, crappiness of BIND coding, still too US-centric, no working secure DNS and assorted spoofing problems...

It is good practice not to use root-servers directly, they are badly overloaded anyway and only other DNS-servers should consult them directly when they don't have a top-level registries DNS in cache.

And yes, the problem occurs less often, but even with IPv6 off, I get it from time to time, just not often enough to hunt it down with determination.

Clearly what I don't know about DNS stuff is much larger than what I actually know. :)

Hmm, well I guess DNS could be the problem, but it seems unlikely to me. First off, the error is "could not connect to host" not "could not resolve host", and second I see it even on pages I have just visited. The DNS for these should be cached shouldn't it? It doesn't have to do a separate DNS lookup for every image on a page, if they're all hosted in the same domain, does it?

Those are perfectly sensible observations.

The IP of a machine should indeed be cached once the name has been resolved.

If you have these problems again, you might want to try to get more info about the issue by running the 'debug_http' command that I outlined in this other thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpo...91&postcount=7

It will show you the times that were taken for the various stages involved in getting a web page.

I didn't say I thought this error was the result of DNS issues, but primarily the inability of the site to pass the requested data due to the demands placed on it.

You need to re-read your original post, before reading mine, or at least be clearer about what your problem actually is.

Ok, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying the not-loading-images problem was DNS related.

Anyway I have figured out what the problem is, and I'll post it here incase anyone else has the same issue. I am running Privoxy and I think it was getting bogged down with too many requests at once. It acts as a proxy server, filtering out annoying things like popups and tracking cookies. I think when I had a lot of web pages with lots of images loading at once it couldn't accept all the requests from Safari and dropped the ones it couldn't handle. If I don't use a proxy the problem goes away.

Note that you need to manually rotate or truncate the log file that Privoxy writes. This log file will build up over time to many megabytes.
To rotate it, go to a Terminal window with an admin account and then:
1) cd /Library/Privoxy (or wherever it is installed)
2) Run the StopPrivoxy.command script
3) sudo mv logfile logfile.old
4) sudo touch logfile
5) Run the StartPrivoxy.command script
6) The file "logfile.old" is now no longer being used so you can compress it delete it as you wish.

Yeah, I noticed that a couple of months back (it was about 200 megs!) and I symlinked it to /dev/null

Not sure this is related - but since updating to 10.3.9 - my Safari has been giving me lots of issues with my cable modem when downloading. For some reason - not every download... but many... the download will start and then just crap out. I finally traced it to the cable modem/LinkSys Router. At least thats the solution - resetting the modem/router. I can try the same download in teh terminal and Firefox and no problems. Try it over and over in Safari and it causes some issue that requires the modem/router reset.

Any one have any clues on a solution for this? I have had the modem/router working perfectly for over 3 years now and this is the first issue I have ever had with them.

Try reinstalling the 10.3.9 update
 

I had this issue a while back, on an older version of 10.3. I thought the issue had been resolved, though. There was a bug in something with the DNS that caused this to happen. I would try reinstalling the 10.3.9 update (from a combo-update). If for some reason, the fix wasn't applied to your computer, maybe this will correct it. I hope this helps.

Juz10mac

Ok, the Privoxy FAQ has an entry on this I hadn't noticed - apparently it has to do with IPv6 and setting the proxy address to "localhost" - if you set it to 127.0.0.1 the problem goes away.

I am getting similar issues with Safari & Firefox
 

I am reading this thread and I cannot really see if there are any solutions. I am using Mac OSX 10.3.9 ( I have been getting this issue with earlier Panther releases as well). I have Norton Firewall Disabled

Intermittently my bowsers get this issue. Usually a reboot fixes it, but it's just a matter of time before it "dies again". Here' some of the info I have:

Firefox : The connection was refused when attempting to contact www.apple.com"

Safari: "Safari can't connect to the Server"

curl www.apple.com -o /dev/null returns "curl: (7) Failed to connect to www.apple.com IP number 1: 51"

Pinging www.apple.com comes back with an ok response. So this does not seem to be a DNS issue. I seem to get the same issue when I try go direct to an ip address.

I have the same errors when I try go to a local website (one of my routers).
I get the same issues if I am using the Airport or straight Ethernet on my mac.

I am connected to the same network with one Windows machine and one Linux machine - they do not get this issue.

Any ideas?

Does the problem occur if you log in as a different user?
Does it occur if you disable all your Startup Items?
Note that Norton software does not enjoy a very good reputation on OS X and I would recommend uninstalling (not just disabling) all Norton software.

Problem still ocurring
 

I logged in as another user (no reboot). The problem still occurs.

I have not uninstalled Norton yet, I looked in Application/Installers there is no uninstall for Norton. Being new to Mac can you please give me soe hints on how to do this properly. I was tempted just to throw Norton into the Trash, but thought I'd doublecheck if there was a cleaner way to uninstall.

Also, I have noticed something else that may help. When I open Firefox and open a bunch of links at once "Open In Tabs": a few of the sites load and then some hang. If I then try to open a new tab and navigate to anything else I get the "Cannot connect..." error.

Also, anything I have that needs to connect to the internet including Safari, Yahoo Messenger, iChat etc etc all get similar problems. I can still ping outside of the internet ..... very very weird.

You want to find Norton's uninstaller. I don't have the product so can't help, but the uninstaller is often on the same CD that you used for installing it. Otherwise check the Norton web site for help.

moving forward
 

Ok, I found the "uninstaller" for Norton...I had version 1 and they only supplied it in Version 1.0.1.

Since uninstalling - so far so good. No issues in the last few hours. So I'll watch it for the next few days till I am more certain.

Thanks for the help.

No Norton on this end. And IPv6 is completely disabled already. Really starting to tick me off - happening in Safari 2-3 times a day. If I use Firefox - never happens.

... OK... I confess to be a network novice, but I recall having the same sort of problem before... And there were suggestions on fixes.... (I apologize if this it dismissed as patently wrong, but without question, it was posted as a solution to the sporadic "can't connect" issues... Then again.... I thought it turned out to be a DNS timing issue that was resolved in an Apple update....)

So anyway....

The fix was to contact your IS provider and obtain the DNS servers they use and enter them into the network configuration on your machine....