Certain Websites No Longer Working Correctly on Linux
 

OK, I'm having an issue that's driving me nuts. I have not manually changed anything - that doesn't mean that something hasn't changed automatically via some tool or something.

Starting today I cannot log into www.netflix.com on Linux. Whenever I try to login, it just takes forever and then either Chrome or Firefox tell me that perhaps the site no longer exists. It works perfectly fine on Windows. Strangely it also does not work on my Roku box and is working sporadically on my PS3. I would think it was my ISP or my router if it wasn't working perfectly fine on Windows.

I AM NOT TRYING TO WATCH NETFLIX ON LINUX. I know that doesn't work. I'm just trying to update my queue. I'm having this problem both on Fedora and Ubuntu (latest stable releases on both). I know it's not just loading from cache on my Windows machine because I'm going to pages that I have never been to and it's working just fine. Now, I have not tried signing out and in because then I'll be up a creak. OK, I installed another browser on my Windows computer and I'm able to sign into Netflix just fine. So it's not a sign-in issue.

WHY DOES THIS WORK ON WINDOWS? It's the same browsers - Chrome and Firefox on Linux and Windows and the same network.

ALSO, flickr is not working correctly - I cannot make any comments in the discussions (but can on photos which is ajax-y).

ANYTHING to keep me from further tearing my hair out would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks!

update: also checked a Linux computer using Linux Mint that hasn't been turned on in 2 months. I know it was able to access Netflix back then. Nothing has been changed - not even updates. It also cannot access Netflix. Either taking forever to load Netflix.com or when trying to login.

via looking in Konqueror, I saw it's trying to go https://www.netflix.com/redirect.jsp...es.netflix.com and that's what makes it so that I cannot connect to www.netflix.com if it considers me to be signed in. And here's what Konqueror said:

The requested operation could not be completed
Connection to Server Closed Unexpectedly
Details of the Request:
URL: http://movies.netflix.com
Protocol: http
Date and Time: Thursday, February 24, 2011 22:56
Additional Information: movies.netflix.com
Description:
Although a connection was established to movies.netflix.com, the connection was closed at an unexpected point in the communication.
Possible Causes:
There may have been a problem with your network connection.
There may have been a problem at some point along the network path between the server and this computer.
A protocol error may have occurred, causing the server to close the connection as a response to the error.
Possible Solutions:
Try again, either now or at a later time.
Contact the administrator of the server for further assistance.
Contact your appropriate computer support system, whether the system administrator, or technical support group for further assistance.

Have you tried using Firefox's User Agent Switcher addon to id your browser as IE?

While I have not tried that it would not make sense for the following reasons:

1) On my Windows computer I am not using IE. I am using Firefox and Chrome (and it works!)
2) How would I do that on my PS3 and Roku and BluRay Player? (Which were all working and no longer are)

In other words, it appears that it is something different about the way Windows handles networking vs everything else in my house.

Update:

Still doesn't work on Linux. Tried on another Linux computer - my laptop and it still doesn't work. Also, Roku still doesn't work. PS3 spontaneously started working.

Did a wireshark on my main Linux computer - I got a packet being sent over and over again. So something's up with the TCP. That's as far as I can figure it out. Still convinced it's not a Linux issue since the Roku box is also affected (or maybe that runs Linux underneath everything).

Not quite sure why everything should work fine and dandy on Windows.

Reset my modem all the way (including pushing the little button in the back) but that didn't do anything.

Technician had me run (Well, he wanted me to run ipconfig /fushdns and that was the Linux equiv)

I'm thinking Windows TCP/IP stack ignores these dropped packets.

I'm not sure if it's 100% related, but Kopete seems to go nuts and take over my whole computer and that started about the same time as all this. Within Kopete I have it authorized to AIM, MSN, Facebook, and Gmail.

took another look at the TCP dump. Her's what jumps out at me:

The first 15 entries take 0.297 units of time. After that it gets [TCP Dup ACK 11#1] and then it gets larger and larger until 56.54 units of time. At that point I see TLSv1 Encrypted Alert. Then it goes until 467.2 units of time and the web page has timed out.


flickr posting to or deleting entries in conversation posts is not working - it keeps timing out
netflix - still cannot login - it times out (at one point early in things yesterday I was able to login but everything looked funky. After that I lost the ability to login)
on Firefox - Facebook - cannot post anything to wall - it times out

Verizon currently has a technician working on it after I exhausted all the help they could give on the phone

Update: Installed a fresh Fedora install on a Virtualbox VM in the Windows computer. This still did not work with the netflix website. (logging in) So it's not like my router was favoring the windows NIC or something. Also tried VM in Linux with no different results.

Update: Twitter does not work either. Basically, anything with authentication isn't working. This is maddening!

Wonder if your dns is not correctly using www or not www or even the actual sites? Guess you could test that with a hosts file or double check that your dns is same on all boxes.

nsloolup or other commands to test also maybe dig.

This is my resolve.conf:

192.168.1.1 is my broadband router/modem. On my windows computer, where it's working I have 192.168.1.1 as my DNS server. So I think that's probably fine. But let me know if something looks weird.

Probably working OK. I think it's somehow dropping packets or getting duped or something.From what I can tell from wireshark.

This was the www deal. http://movies.netflix.com

I'd also add in your ISP's addresses also. It could be your router flaking out for some odd reason.

Yes certain websites still don't support Gnu Linux. It's a Windows world being served by mostly Gnu Linux servers. Game sites are notorious for this lack of support.

The problem you have seems to be dns/resolv.conf. The 192.168.1.1 is provided as the dns and it sometimes will work very slowly or not at all with some ISPs for some reason. The previous ISP I had worked even if the dns was the same as the gateway while the new one does not work, except of course on Windows. This was fixed by manually putting in resolv.conf the name servers available on router via gateway ip.

Go to 192.168.1.1 and jot down or copy paste the DNS name servers and place them in the resolv.conf file. To make them permanent, the following link provides the howto.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=165862

Does anybody know what is "the some reason" causing this?

I went ahead and added in the name servers listed on my router's page. No luck. I also added the router's gateway as a nameserver - no luck there either.

Attached is a screenshot of a failed attempt to get to the netflix site after signing in.

More info:
It looks like my router is asking which IP address goes with my MAC address every 42 seconds. (ARP) Is that normal or does the router seem to be unable to remember my computer? Combined with my previously attached screenshot, does that give any clues as to what may be going on?

movies.netflix.com comes up with a different IP address every time:

At any rate, I added one of movies.netflix.com's IP addresses to my hosts file and still get the same results.

I have performed the experiment with similar results. I believe this is due to the likelihood that large web sites have many concurrent servers. This could be a method of balancing the load over the available servers known as round robin DNS.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...bsites-862522/

Check this one out as it is what I was trying to explain before. If this still doesn't work, there has to be another reason why some sites are not working on your gnu linux. Adding specific IP addresses for every non-working site doesn't seem logical.

I tried echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps and that didn't work.

So are you saying I should try google's name servers? I tried the name servers that my router has on it. The weird thing is that it is only an issue with sites using authentication and https and stuff (although not gmail.....) Anyway, if it were DNS would not all sites be unreachable?

so far I've found it to make me unable to sign into netflix in any browser, unable to post to Facebook in Firefox (but able to with Google), unable to post to certain groups in flickr and unable to delete posts in others, and unable to sign into Twitter. And my bluray player and Roku cannot reach netflix anymore. But everything works 100% perfectly with Windows. This is so frustrating.

Also tried turning off my router and unplugging it for 15 minutes, but it did not change IP address

It works in Windows but not in Linux.
So you are able to at least access the site but not log in?

And nameserver x.x.x.x don't do anything?
by x I mean the dns ip provided by your router box or that of google

http://how-to.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_...ly%29_in_Linux

Are you blocking cookies?
Did you try a live distribution?

Facebook should work. Something is not kosher.

See this:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-web-864092/

First of all, everything works perfectly in Windows.

I can get to the landing page of any of these sites. (If I clear cookies) If I try to login or if, via cookies, it expects me to be logged in, it just hangs. The browser spins its wheels metaphorically and literally and then I get a "this page may have moved or be offline" page. In the case of Facebook, for some reason since I'm already logged in with Chrome, I can post. But Firefox will not post. My wife cannot login (she's also using Linux).

I changed nameserver to the name servers provided by my provider. I have not tried Google yet. I will try it momentarily.

I don't think I'm blocking cookies but since my ROKU and BLURAY PLAYER don't work - I don't think that's really an issue. I tried a live distro in a vm on my windows computer and it didn't work.

Update - twitter is now working for me. I have changed nothing. Netflix and flickr continue to be broken - they have been the most consistent in all of this. Could it be something wonky going on with the network on Verizon's side of things? This inconsistency is so annoying. I wish it were all consistent across all sites and computers. I will give the google nameservers a try to see if that changes anything.

Something I've noticed by haven't written - the icon here (linuxquestions.org) that shows what OS I'm on. (left-most of the 3) shows as a broken icon to me

Added in the google 8.8.8.8 DNS to resolve.conf (via network manager) and confirmed it changed the resolve.conf. It's still not working for netflix. I can't login. I'm on a different computer than before - so it's across computers. That was even Fedora and this is Lubuntu.

Switching user agents didn't work - of course. Because that would be impossible on my bluray player and Roku box.

Taking a look at my router, here's what the port forwarding says for my windows box:
Port Forwarding Services:
Teredo
libtorrent/0.15.3.0 at 192.168.1.3:54538
libtorrent/0.15.3.0 at 192.168.1.3:6881
libtorrent/0.15.3.0 at 192.168.1.3:6881
libtorrent/0.15.3.0 at 192.168.1.3:54040
libtorrent/0.15.3.0 at 192.168.1.3:50240
Skype UDP at 192.168.1.3:6416 (1518)
Skype TCP at 192.168.1.3:6416 (1518)

There is nothing listed for my Linux computer. The Playstation had some UDP thing.

Can't see anything else that could possibly be affecting anything. (Not that I'm saying these are affecting it either, it's just the only thing I could think of)

If it is working on windows, it should work on linux without any tweaking, aside from those occasional dns issues. This is really odd. How is your router setup?

the router's setup on out of the box defaults - they had me reset it as part of teh tech support process

perhaps "proof" that verizon's not doing this on purpose: I can't sign in to the verizon website.

I think it is this one small thing throwing it all off. Is your network infected with a virus?

Why not call verizon?

I did call them. Their tech support is just going through a script. They were useless.

Also, what part of the network would have caught the virus? And why would it not be affecting the windows computer?

Some ISPs sometimes reduce or close the connection on clients who have a virus.

The sites used to work, right?

Good luck with this because I can't seem to figure out what is causing this.

I can't say that makes sense since it works on Windows and PS3

Apparently, it's affecting macs too. Someone came onto the Verizon forums and posted:

We've exhausted the troubleshooting list of problems, unless there is more we didn't mention. The last big problem as it seems is them.

Yup. Just wanted to keep people up to tabs. I hate when I find someone with the exact same problem as me on LinuxQuestions.org and no resolution. Did they give up? Did they forget to come back and tell us how they figured it out? I'll be back w/ an answer once it's all resolved.