Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

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bigphil
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Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by bigphil » 2018-03-20, 13:53

Hi all,
I'm running Palemoon 27.8.1 32bit under Puppy Linux.
When attempting to access website cpc.farnell.com the homepage loads but when I attempt to do anything it hangs up, sits 'waiting for cpc.farnell.com' and then times out.
I have used Palemoon previously with this website with no problems, Firefox also exhibits the same problem.
I have Noscripts installed but have allowed scripts on this website.
I have contacted cpc.farnell re. this problem, they are aware of it but either can't or won't resolve it.

Do any of you clever people know of a workaround that does not affect security.

Regards

Phil

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Moonraker » 2018-03-20, 15:57

Phil have you tried the site with all extensions disabled.?
The site appears to work just fine on my end and i use ublock origin.
Last edited by Moonraker on 2018-03-20, 15:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Isengrim » 2018-03-20, 17:48

bigphil wrote:I have Noscripts installed but have allowed scripts on this website.
NoScript has been known to break things, even if you allow scripts. Try starting the browser in safe mode and seeing if the problem persists.

See also: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=17619
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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by bigphil » 2018-03-20, 20:12

Hi all and thanks for the replies.

I have started Palemoon in safe mode and still the same problem exists.
I have removed noscripts, cleared cache etc. as detailed in the link supplied by Isengrim but still no go.

The website works just fine with Google Chrome but I am reluctant to use it as they stopped supporting the 32bit version sometime ago hence no security updates. I'm paranoid about security when giving my credit card details online which is why I like Palemoon (regular updates).
However I did notice that the website takes a long time to respond (or maybe Chrome is very slow) and maybe Palemoon times out to quickly but I can't find a way of increasing the time out.

I use Palemoon all the time and have had no problems with other websites.

Moonraker - what operating system are you using?

The version of Puppy Linux that I use comes with Palemoon pre-installed and I'm wondering if their are some libraries not supplied (if any) with the Palemoon update that are out of date.

Regards

Phil.

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by bigphil » 2018-03-20, 20:15

Moonraker - apologies I've just noticed that your post states the OS you use

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by tooshorttoolong » 2018-03-20, 20:27

The site seems to work fine here, with PM 27.8.1 64 bit on Gentoo (using the official build, not a self-built version).
With uMatrix, uBlock and a few other addons.

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Moonraker » 2018-03-20, 20:35

@phil.
I use the PM installer to update palemoon here on my linux lite computer.I did initially try puppy linux but i was having issues with the network manager plus it would not recognise a mobile broadband usb dongle so i sadly had to give up trying.
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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by RJARRRPCGP » 2018-03-21, 02:09

Puppy=You probably have to force-overwrite previous versions of libs specific to PaleMoon (for libs that other programs don't use) or symlink to the ones bundled with PaleMoon.

A hang is a known symptom of dependency bull...

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Lunokhod » 2018-03-21, 21:22

It showed me the home page once, but when I clicked on a link on that it said this, and now any cpc.farnell page I tried, even the homepage gives the same error:
The connection has timed out
The server at cpc.farnell.com is taking too long to respond.
The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Pale Moon is permitted to access the Web.

But this is using Void Linux updated earlier this week and using palemoon-27.9.0a1_180305.linux-i686.tar.bz2 which is the latest but one unstable 32 bit build. So I'm pretty sure it's not outdated libs for me. I tried www and https prefixes as well as http but no change.

Perhaps try farnell.com as a workaround for now, it might have what you need?
https://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy/cp ... 59235-.htm

I also just tried Firefox 50 - last barely usable version I downloaded before I gave up and moved to Pale Moon, and keep around for testing (took about 10 minutes, not helped by swapping as PM was open too...) - and that redirected me to (myregion).farnell.com when I typed in cpc.farnell, and didn't go to cpc.farnell at all, even with the exact address in the address box
Wait, it's all Ohio? Always has been...

Lew Rockwell Fan

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Lew Rockwell Fan » 2018-03-22, 03:26

For what it's worth, that subdomain times out on me, but Farnell.com loads fine. Looking at the main page, there is no link to that subdomain there. I'd say they've screwed up. But as a practical matter, if you can use the page with a different browser, why not just do so? Copy the basket page and email it to them. Then call them on the phone with your cc#. And tell them they need a new geek.

Come to think of it, why not try some other browsers? There are a ton of lesser known browsers in most repos. Or maybe they are ALL out of date. I dunno.
Last edited by Lew Rockwell Fan on 2018-03-22, 03:28, edited 1 time in total.

Lisguard

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Lisguard » 2018-03-27, 12:08

Just a "Me too".

cpc site hangs as others have reported. Using 27.8.2 under Debian Linux (I haven't yet moved to Devuan).

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by bigphil » 2018-03-29, 19:08

Thanks for all the replies, at least I know it's not just me.

@Lew Rockwell Fan - I have tried a phone order but they tell me (for some reason) their is a £6 surcharge for phone orders which almost doubles the cost of my order.
Re. other browsers - as I stated earlier the site works with Google Chrome but they have stopped supporting the 32 bit version some time ago hence no security updates (I've only got a 32bit machine at the moment). Opera browser works OK but I'm a bit nervous of this browser as it is now supported by the Chinese.

It is a bit strange that PM works OK on some systems though.

Regards

Phil.

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Simon P » 2018-03-31, 11:52

I've had this problem for quite some time, using Debian testing, 32bit. I seem to have fixed it with this UA override:

Code: Select all

preference: general.useragent.override.farnell.com
value: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
I'm now able to browse the site & login to my account. I note that several of the other users affected are also using 32bit systems, and this override specifies 64bit...

In case it's of help to anyone, I'll add that, while investigating this, I found that deleting the ak_bmsc cookie allowed largely-successful page reloads. It seems this is something to do with Akamai Bot Manager.

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by bigphil » 2018-03-31, 19:35

@Simon P - thanks for your help m8.
I looked under preferences, general and their is no useragent. however their is a Compatibility - user agent mode:. The default is Firefox compatibility and the drop down menu allows Gecko compatibility and Native as well as Firefox compatibility. I found that if I select either Gecko or Native then I can browse the site and login.
I'm not clever enough to understand the implications of this but hope it doesn't affect the security of the browser.
Last edited by bigphil on 2018-03-31, 19:38, edited 1 time in total.

Ez-waker

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Ez-waker » 2018-03-31, 20:02

bigphil wrote:@Simon P - thanks for your help m8.
I looked under preferences, general and their is no useragent. however their is a Compatibility - user agent mode:. The default is Firefox compatibility and the drop down menu allows Gecko compatibility and Native as well as Firefox compatibility. I found that if I select either Gecko or Native then I can browse the site and login.
I'm not clever enough to understand the implications of this but hope it doesn't affect the security of the browser.
It shouldn't affect the security of the browser, to my knowledge. All you're doing there is telling the webpage to render things differently for you. Glad you found a workaround.

If you'd like to consider it at a later point, you can add a useragent override specific for this site. This is not PM specific, so be careful, but it should be enough to get you pointed in the right direction: https://superuser.com/questions/98798/how-do-i-change-firefoxs-user-agent-via-aboutconfig
Last edited by Ez-waker on 2018-03-31, 20:03, edited 1 time in total.

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2018-03-31, 20:04

No altering the user agent won't affect the security of the browser. The user agent is like a name tag.

It has no actual effect on how things are rendered there is no functional magic on the browser side.. But many sites use sniffing the user agent to decide what exactly to send to the browser.. This practice has long been a primitive and ill advised way of giving different browsers different things.

The modern and proper way is to do true feature detection instead of guessing what a broswer supports and should work properly based on its name tag.
Last edited by New Tobin Paradigm on 2018-03-31, 20:08, edited 1 time in total.

DonMilne

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by DonMilne » 2018-05-07, 11:11

Hi. I just joined up to say that I also had this problem but following the hints from this discussion I discovered that the solution in my case was:
  1. In Tools|Preferences|Advanced set the User Agent compatibility to "Native" (it was set to Firefox for some reason - maybe that was me when I first migrated from Firefox).
  2. The Farnell site will still hang after step 1. The second step is to go into Tools|Preferences|Privacy|Show Cookies and delete the Farnell.com cookies. Now the browser works.
Thanks for the people who drew my attention to both areas. I suspect that the people not seeing this problem have been using "Native" user agent compatibility from the outset.

DonMilne

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by DonMilne » 2018-05-29, 13:03

Oh well. I discovered the reason why my user agent compatibility was set to FireFox: it was because the BBC news website insists that I install flash player in order to view videos, because for some reason it doesn't think my browser can play HTML5. I had similar problems on a couple of other sites. Obviously I do not want to install Flash Player.

My corrected solution is to leave the default user agent set to native, and added a user agent override for the "bbc.co.uk" site. The method was discussed elsewhere on this site: viewtopic.php?t=17274. So far so good, the bbc site works and so does the Farnell site.
Last edited by DonMilne on 2018-05-29, 13:04, edited 1 time in total.

DrTeeth

Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by DrTeeth » 2018-06-01, 16:43

DonMilne wrote:Hi. I just joined up to say that I also had this problem but following the hints from this discussion I discovered that the solution in my case was:
  1. In Tools|Preferences|Advanced set the User Agent compatibility to "Native" (it was set to Firefox for some reason - maybe that was me when I first migrated from Firefox).
  2. The Farnell site will still hang after step 1. The second step is to go into Tools|Preferences|Privacy|Show Cookies and delete the Farnell.com cookies. Now the browser works.
Thanks for the people who drew my attention to both areas. I suspect that the people not seeing this problem have been using "Native" user agent compatibility from the outset.
Hi DonMilne,

I got a link to this thread from one that I started with the same problem. I can confirm that your fix worked for me.

Many thanks

DrTeeth

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Re: Palemoon fails accessing cpc.farnell.com

Unread post by Moonchild » 2018-06-01, 16:46

It's a server misconfiguration and perfect example of the major problem using nothing but UA sniffing and trying to match browser features to it, and failing because it doesn't know what to do with a firefox-class UA that isn't exactly firefox.
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