I’ve noticed an odd Firefox behavior on my Macbook Pro developing for 6 months or so. Some links to certain web sites would not work any longer. It started with anything yahoo. No matter what I tried I just couldn’t view the site. Then I started to notice sometimes links pointing to Facebook wouldn’t load right. I had no trouble going to these sites directly, it was only when linked from another site. Even when it was a result in a Google search.
At first I thought it was Google simply trying to keep me from the competition. But I started noticing it with links from any other site as well. I tried deactivating extensions, even removing them, one at a time. Nope. Tried cleaning various caches and preferences. Nope. Even updates to Firefox itself didn’t seem to make a difference.
Ultimately, a few days ago, I opted for the extreme solution. Rip out Firefox including all support files, and reinstall anew. So far, that fixed it, no more ‘blocked’ sites. It’s been a minor hassle but well worth it to get full functionality returned. I still don’t know what caused that, but the reinstall suggests it was a setting or preference somewhere. At this point I’m just going to attempt to pay closer attention to each extension reinstall or any other mods I make to the about:config file and see if I can track it down.
I’d be interested in knowing if anyone else has seen this before.
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