Hi,

Usually it's not my style to write such vague subjects, but I admit I'm puzzled by what's happening. Let me try to explain.

Yesterday I installed Slackware64 14.2 on a sandbox machine in a datacenter I use for experimenting.

The machine's hostname provided by the french provider Online is sd-41893.dedibox.fr:

I also have two "dummy" domain names I purchased a few years ago, which I use for experimenting:

Right now I'm fiddling with Apache Virtual Hosts, in order to update my documentation. I have setup a handful of static websites on this machine, for example:

• http://slackware.slackbox.fr/
• http://freebsd.slackbox.fr/

I also have a default page for the server:

• http://sd-41893.dedibox.fr

Now here's what's weird. This default page is displayed correctly on every single host on my office network... but not on my workstation. When I try to open it in Firefox, I get a message "Connecting to sd-41893.dedibox.fr...", and nothing happens.

My first reaction was to check if it was a cache-related problem on my LAN server (which acts as a gateway/firewall/proxy). I restarted Dnsmasq and Squid, to no effect (and then, the other hosts on the network would have that problem too).

Next thing was to open my Firefox preferences and empty the cache. Nothing.

The public machine ran Slackware64 14.1 before, and used a few LetsEncrypt certificates with my two test domains. So I opened Firefox preferences again and erased all stored certificates. Still nothing.

Now I'm clueless. Any suggestions?

Edit: on that same workstation, I can open http://sd-41893.dedibox.fr just fine using Seamonkey or Links.

Can you ping sd-41893.dedibox.fr from your workstation?

Of course. Since the corresponding webpage opens perfectly using two different browser (Seamonkey and Links).

Ah, but you added that information about Seamonkey and Links just as I was replying to your opening post.

You could try downloading what effectively is a portable AppImage version of Firefox (https://bintray.com/probono/AppImage...1.0.glibc2.3.3) in order to check what happens with a "pristine" Firefox.

I was thinking that could be a problem with your gateway machine,
but since you have access with other browsers, you could try running
Firefox with a brand new profile, firefox -P or firefox --ProfileManager

Just to report, I can access your three virtual hosts with Firefox,
Slackware Essentials, Manuel FreeBSD and the 'bleu Le Chef' (the link to
Microlinux works too.)

Did you perhaps set up unique Squid rules for Firefox on your workstation?

No. Squid is running on the server transparently, e. g. with port redirection using iptables. This is a real mystery.

Yes, I'm aware Squid is not on the workstation, but I thought perhaps you might have had ACL rules restricting browsing from the machine you use to administer Squid - assuming you do so from that workstation of yours.

Make sure that the Firefox process is running on your local machine by starting Firefox with -no-remote.
Ed

Yes, and my workstation is on the everything-allowed list.

Could be local dns cache, I'd check first if the same problem happens when ~/.mozilla and ~/.cache/mozilla are removed.

This sounds like a "bind" issue. and it was updated. did you restart your server after the bind update. just a thought.

Problem solved, though I'll never know exactly why. Something stale in ~/.mozilla prevented the site from being displayed. So I simply saved my bookmarks, renamed ~/.mozilla to ~/.mozilla.bak and made a fresh start, and the page showed up correctly. Thanks everybody for your suggestions.

mmm fascinating corrupted data. Usually happens with add-ons. yes that would cause the issue.