Can't Use HomeDepot Search

[BeeCeeMan]

.... In discussing why your end cannot reproduce the problem, he suggested that perhaps your setup was redirecting you to homedepot.com since you are on that side of the border. ??
homedepot.com works well, no problems.

Well then this is clearly a mystery.... I opened the link you posted: https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home.html just now into a new tab and the URL I have after the tab opened and the page loaded is the same: https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home.html and once again I did my "hammers" search and had no problems.....

So thinking I'll try a couple of more searches after the "hammers" search (screen-shot not done for 'hammers" but it was fine) which was "ladders" and then "lawn mowers" I got what I would expect as illustrated below, first after a successful "hammer" search you can see in the first screen-snot my next "ladders" search results behind my next "lawn Mowers" search:ladders in background.png... and after clicking on the "search icon" I get the "Lawn Mowers" search results: lawn mowers after clicking on search icon with this in search box.png... so all looks well from my perspective as far as I can see.... don't know what to say.... literally did 10 page reloads of the last "lawn mowers" search and each and every time got the same exact page.

How for some reason you get virtually the same problem under just about every kind of different environment and yet I (and as far as I'm aware most if not all others) do not have a problem with this Home Depot page or the alternate Home Depot page for that matter is a total mystery...

One last question: What site are you using to install Pale Moon?

Thanks for taking the time to investigate this.

You have a better chance of reproducing the problem if you do not do any searches. Searches are misleading. It's the repeated access to the site that is the actual problem. Inconsistent returns using the same URL will reproduce the problem. (Reload the same URL several times))

Just reload the home page several times, you will/should get the problem.

I just tried https://www.oreillyauto.com/ and I get the same error as homedepot...

[BeeCeeMan]

I'm seeing the same situation with the O'Reilly Auto Parts website, http://www.oreillyauto.com. It works okay with Chrome and IE, but with Pale Moon it gets the "Access Denied. You don't have permission to access "http://www.oreillyauto.com/search?" on this server. Reference #18.4cdc6068.1524747790.1aae0a0" error that is described above.

I'm running Windows-7 Pro 32-Bit with the latest Pale Moon. I also tried it with the "unstable" version of Pale Moon, with the same results.

Thanks, I just tried https://www.oreillyauto.com/ here and I get the "access denied" error as well.
I tried 20 page reloads with https://www.oreillyauto.com/ and all returned "access denied".

I just tried 10 reloads with homedepot.ca, results as follows;
1/ Correct home page.
2,3,4/ "Access denied".
5/ Correct Home Page
6/ Correct
7/ Corrupted home page
8/ Correct
9/ Access Denied"
10/ Correct

[Pallid Planetoid]

.... You have a better chance of reproducing the problem if you do not do any searches. Searches are misleading. It's the repeated access to the site that is the actual problem. Inconsistent returns using the same URL will reproduce the problem. (Reload the same URL several times))

Just reload the home page several times, you will/should get the problem.

I just tried https://www.oreillyauto.com/ and I get the same error as homedepot...

Just reloaded the same page (URL you posted) 25 times and each time got the same thing as illustrated in the screen-shot:

... Looks good to me each time. What do you get?

Edit: Okay I see what you get as you have just posted your results while I was loading the page 25 times.... Very odd that some users are having these issues --- for some reason I have no problem with any of the sites that some others are having the various problems with --- I don't very often good luck -- but I guess this is the time for me.

[RedRamGT]

I have found with the oreilly.com website, it will load the first time... But, if I enter something to search for (I used "brake clean" to look for) I get the "access denied" message back. If I clear the history, the website will come up successfully - until I search for something.

I'm testing with Pale Moon Portable - with no addons or other modifications to Pale Moon.

[Pallid Planetoid]

I have found with the oreilly.com website, it will load the first time... But, if I enter something to search for (I used "brake clean" to look for) I get the "access denied" message back. If I clear the history, the website will come up successfully - until I search for something.....

Here's the search for "Brake Fluid" -- no problem --- I didn't need to clear history....

Tried it several times... same result -- appears to work in my case (whether I reload the same page 25 times or do a search multiple times).

[Frasier]

Been Playing with this for a little bit. Was having the same problem with both https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home.html and https://www.oreillyauto.com/.

Thought I'd try switching the compatibility mode from "Firefox compatibility" to "Native". Restarted Pale Moon and good to go. Switched back to "Firefox compatibility" and no good. Switched to "Native", good to go again on both sites.

Don't know if that is the solution or not but you might give it a try. Oh ya, I'm using Windows 7 64bit, Pale Moon 27.9.0 (32) portable.

[RedRamGT]

I expanded on Frasier's testing, and found it will work with "Compatibility" set to "Native" or "Gecko Compatibility", but not "Firefox Compatibility". Does the "Compatibility" setting change more than the default Useragent for Pale Moon?

[Cassette]

I have been unable to reproduce this problem, but this sounds a lot of like I problem I did have awhile back that others have also experienced.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18779&p=138244&hilit=kroger#p138224

You'll see that they solved it by doing a custom user agent override.

[Pallid Planetoid]

I've been using "Native" mode --- but just now switched to "Firefox Compatibility" mode and using the same auto parts website link as I did before refreshed the page 25 times and I get the same exact results as I did before --- each and every time the page loaded just as my former screen-shot shows in my previous post.

So the Pale Moon "Compatibility" (User Agent) Mode makes no difference in my case --- both "Native" mode and "Firefox Compatibility" mode works fine with this https://www.oreillyauto.com/ site.

[BeeCeeMan]

When I try www.oreillyauto.com the home page works once. If I reload that page I get the "Access Denied" screen.
If I reload the page 10 - 20 etc times, I still get the "Access Denied" screen.

However, if I remove the following cookie, "oreillyauto.com ak_bmsc", then I can reload the home page again. Then any reloads after will return the "Access Denied" screen.
If I delete that cookie again, I can reload the home page.

[Pallid Planetoid]

As reported, I can repeatedly load https://www.oreillyauto.com/ without any problems.

The first load has these cookies:

After that for each reload (refresh page) I have these cookies:

cookies after refresh.png (7.14 KiB) Viewed 1420 times

I use Cookies Exterminator 2.9.2... but Cookies are not "exterminated" until after I close the webpage so that shouldn't make a difference I would think....

So I do have the "ak_bmsc" cookie every time and have no problems reloading the page (previously tried 25 times on multiple tests as previously reported).

[BeeCeeMan]

I have add-on "Permit Cookie" on one of my computers. I blocked http://www.oreillyauto.com and removed only oreillyauto.com ak_bmsc cookie, leaving the others intact.
http://www.oreillyauto.com now works correctly, I can do searches, reload the site with no issues.

I have no idea what oreillyauto.com ak_bmsc cookie does, other than it prevents the site from working. There must be a clue in there somewhere.

[Pallid Planetoid]

.... I have no idea what oreillyauto.com ak_bmsc cookie does, other than it prevents the site from working. There must be a clue in there somewhere.

I have no idea why removing this specific cookie helps the site work in your case as opposed to my case where I can keep the cookie and the site works fine for me all the time.

Not much to know about the ak_bmsc cookie

[BeeCeeMan]

.... I have no idea what oreillyauto.com ak_bmsc cookie does, other than it prevents the site from working. There must be a clue in there somewhere.

I have no idea why removing this specific cookie helps the site work in your case as opposed to my case where I can keep the cookie and the site works fine for me all the time.

Not much to know about the ak_bmsc cookie

Have you considered trying another computer with a fresh load of Pale Moon ? I've tried 5 and they all exhibit the problem.

[coffeebreak]

Switched back to "Firefox compatibility" and no good. Switched to "Native", good to go again on both sites.

Same here (for HomeDepot), but there were other factors too. ˅

Have you considered trying another computer with a fresh load of Pale Moon ?

Using my everyday profile, I couln't reproduce the problem.
But with a new, fresh profile, I could reproduce it. (PM 27.9, Win 7 x86)

If either Native mode is used, or if EasyPrivacy is used (in an adblocker), homedepot.ca works just fine.
(Normally I do use both Native mode and EasyPrivacy.)

The "Access Denied" message did appear for me though when every one of the following conditions was met:

• The browser used Firefox compatibility mode.
• Cookies and local storage were both enabled.
  (local storage: dom.storage.enabled = true)
• And EasyPrivacy was not in use in my adblocker.

So either subscribing to EasyPrivacy, or using Native mode - either one solves the issue (for me).

(You could make a site specific user agent override for homedepot.ca using your native UA for the string. It would leave you free to use FF compatmode for everything else if that's your wish.)

[Frasier]

Well I've added EasyPrivacy, low & behold alls well, both the homedepot.ca and oreillyauto links work fine no matter which compatibility mode is in use. Although OreillyAuto was reluctant to load at first try.

Thank you coffeebreak! Much appreciated.

[BeeCeeMan]

Well I've added EasyPrivacy, low & behold alls well, both the homedepot.ca and oreillyauto links work fine no matter which compatibility mode is in use. Although OreillyAuto was reluctant to load at first try.

Thank you coffeebreak! Much appreciated.

I also added EasyPrivacy and all is well now.

Thanks coffeebreak !!!

[RedRamGT]

I'm getting the same error from www.kroger.com. I wonder how many websites will have this problem...

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.kroger.com/search?" on this server.
Reference #18.1fdc6068.1525214561.46449e6

[Pallid Planetoid]

I'm getting the same error from http://www.kroger.com. I wonder how many websites will have this problem...

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.kroger.com/search?" on this server.
Reference #18.1fdc6068.1525214561.46449e6

Apparently the reasons I haven't been having any problems with these sites is because I use "Easy Privacy" in ABPrime (which coffeebreak found was a way to solve the problem - that is use "Easy Privacy" in an adblocker of your choice which can include ABL or uBock Origin as well among others or as reported use "Native" mode for Pale Moon "Compatibility" --- actually I happen to be using both in my case but apparently either of the two should to the trick).

.... So either subscribing to EasyPrivacy, or using Native mode - either one solves the issue (for me).

--- refer to coffeebreak's post above for additional details.

[coffeebreak]

"Easy Privacy"..."Native" mode...apparently either of the two should to the trick).

With kroger.com that doesn't work. Same error message, but there's a different fix.

I'm getting the same error from www.kroger.com.

For Kroger, a vanilla Firefox UA override will fix this (native mode won't fix it).
A FF 52 user agent worked just now for me, FF 57 should work too.

See cassette's post above, middle of the page.
Follow the link in the post for more details.