"This Site Can't Be Reached" Before Doing A Search. What's Up With That??

[Jennings92]

Yeah, it's a bit of a weird issue I've noticed over the last month or so. But I haven't been able to make much sense of it...

I get this message before I do an online search, & the issue does also occur when I click on any of the pinned sites on the Start Page, but the later happens only some of the time. Thankfully, I haven't had any other issues & the browser has been able to update successfully each time. While I'm at it, the fact that you can't reset your browser settings --[From what I've noticed at least. If I'm wrong/mistaken, feel free to correct me.]-- somewhat complicates things, but I'm not too upset just yet.

With that all being said, if anyone happens to know what's going on, or if you know of any solutions or fixes, feel free to let me know! And if I ended up forgetting something or if you need more details, be sure to ask & I'll fill you in!

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help with this bizarre issue!

[Pathduck]

@jennings92 Hi - I think a screen recording or at least some screenshots would help explain the issue, as I've not seen such a behaviour.

There is no settings reset but you are encouraged to always test issues in a clean profile to exclude any changed settings/extensions etc interfering.
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-issues/
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/user-profiles/

[Dancer18]

@jennings92 This happens to me - in Germany - for example with pages that were banned for political reasons.

If you can sometimes access the pages again, there may be temporary maintenance phases.
Have you been able to open the pages in other browsers? In that case you can enter the address here and check.

[Jennings92]

Well, I tried to upload the video that I did, but it was a little too big & I couldn't figure out how to compress it without losing some audio at the beginning. So I had to upload it to Google Drive & then create a link. Anyway, I used OBS to tell/show you guys what I have observed so far & what I've tried in terms of troubleshooting/fixing it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/13tSa40maGTr3FJyEM4W896B22JZWPl7T/view?usp=sharing

[Sorry about the delayed reply, btw.]

[Jennings92]

@dancer18 I've been able to open quite literally ANYTHING in any of my browsers just fine tbh; but I haven't figured out why Vivaldi is giving me the "This site can't be reached message" before I try to do a search or just ckick on any of the tiles on the Start Page. It's just super weird behavior IMO. Also, I'm in the USA & not Germany or wherever else. [Sorry about the delayed reply, btw.] Don't forget to check the other comment up above which contains a video I did with OBS explaining some things. Anyway, hoping someone here can help me out with this.

[Pathduck]

@jennings92 Yes, it's this issue with "ERR_INVALID_URL":

It's a known bug, and happens when
Startup with = Homepage
Homepage = Start Page

The first outgoing request will flash this error message. There's several topics about it on the forum:
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/72955/this-site-can-t-be-reached-message
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/65283/can-t-connect-to-this-site-error
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/64328/vivaldi-first-website-visited-after-startup-says-could-not-be-reached-for-a-split-second-then-loads
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/37370/bug-flash-of-err_invalid_url-chrome-startpage

I have reported it twice:
VB-79409 (May 2021)
VB-71014 (Aug 2020)
Seem a tricky bug to fix or low priority I guess

There is also a recent similar bug if a URL is opened from a settings page (ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND), reported as VB-87399.

In the video you talk about troubleshooting - the general advice is to first test in a completely clean profile. If you had done that, you would've noticed it does not happen by default, and then you could've tried to recreate the settings in your other profile until you found the cause. There's no point in wasting time with randomly trying stuff like sfc -scannow when you follow the troubleshooting steps
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-issues/

Another tip: Instead of using the forum search, which is pretty bad (IMO), use a search engine (Google, DDG) with the site option:
"err_invalid_url" site:vivaldi.net

Last tip: When trying to screenshot stuff that happens too fast to capture, do a video (like you've done), and screenshot the video instead

[Jennings92]

@pathduck Well, I'm pretty darn sure in my video I mentioned --Unless I forgot-- that I don't really use like more than 1 profile or what have you, because who really does that? O.o

BTW, you mentioned it's a known bug & happens when Startup with = Homepage & Homepage = Start Page. For the time being however, is there anything I can do to fix the issue or keep this weird issue from popping up? [I did a little bit of "tweaking" in my settings & here's what I changed: Startup With is set to Start Page & Homepage is set to Specific Page which is the https://vivaldi.com & I believe it's the default. Anyway, I tested it out, & at least it's not acting weird anymore! :D]

But yeah, really hoping Vivaldi will get around to patching this weird bug soon...

[Pathduck]

@jennings92 said in "This Site Can't Be Reached" Before Doing A Search. What's Up With That??:

Well, I'm pretty darn sure in my video I mentioned --Unless I forgot-- that I don't really use like more than 1 profile or what have you, because who really does that? O.o

Creating a new profile is just for temporary testing, and takes very little time to do.
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/user-profiles/

Also I tend to skip ahead a lot in videos

And like you found out, workaround is to set Startup with = Start Page