Pages fail to load on some networks
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I work one day a week at a school where Vivaldi has constant problems loading pages. Pages either load slowly, incompletely, or fail outright with a timeout or DNS probe error message. I only have the problem at this location so I put it down to poor Wi-Fi. However, I recently tried Safari and it works fine. I noticed recently one comment on Reddit describing the same issue happening on version 5.4 only but it's been happening to me since February 2022. Separate network tests (ping, mtr) are actually fine.
I'm guessing this is a very uncommon problem. I suspect it's related to some rules or content filtering on the central router. I had a quick look in the list of internal pages to see if there is some kind of network activity diagnostic but nothing jumps out at me. It seems the "live" activity must now be saved as a dump. Does anyone have any recommendations on debugging this? I think we're way beyond the utility of the devtools panel here AFAIK!
Running Vivaldi 5.4.2753.47 (Stable channel) (arm64) on MacBook Pro 2021 M1 with MacOS 12.5.1.
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While you are at school are you using Secure DNS in Vivaldi?
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@Chas4 I'm just using what they provide via DHCP. I'll look into it, thanks. I suspect it's a normal local DNS server.
I can confirm that they are indeed blocking port 80 connections! I tested with telnet.
I guess I will have to examine Vivaldi's traffic to see why this blocking causes HTTPS request to fail too.
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@Odaeus I am talking about this one in chrome://settings/security, I have noticed sometimes it might cause issues on some networks.
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@Odaeus If they're blocking 80 they're probably also blocking 443 (HTTPS). And Safari has been set to use a proxy, Vivaldi has not. You'll need to figure out what proxy is being used on your network, probably by looking into Safari or your OS settings.
I don't know how this is done on MacOS. In Windows you have a button to open your system's proxy settings in Vivaldi under Settings > Network. The browser should by default detect and use the system proxy settings. But stuff gets complicated with proxies.
Does it work in other browsers? Specifically check with Chromium-based ones, but also Firefox.
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@Chas4 oh I see! I've now disabled that and will see if it makes a difference. Unfortunately I'm not on site again for 2 weeks!
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@Pathduck it's true I didn't check the HTTPS port. On Mac OS, proxy settings are centralised. There's no ability in Vivaldi to set it independently, the relevant area in settings opens the system network config panel.
I'll see next time if any proxy settings have been inherited from the network. Firefox and Safari work fine. I haven't tried Chrome as I was pretty happy that I haven't needed to install it with Vivaldi being (mostly) so reliable!
Thanks for the ideas!
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I've had a chance to run the network inspector and collect a log for viewing in the NetLog Viewer.
However, there's no useful info I can discern from it! An example request to HTTP fails as already known with
net_error = -102 (ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED)
.The same "job" (and many others) tries to connect to an IPv6 address for DNS resolution:
SOCKET_ALIVE [dt=0] --> source_dependency = 96139 (TRANSPORT_CONNECT_JOB) t=45107 [st=0] +UDP_CONNECT [dt=0] --> address = "[2001:4860:4860::8888]:53" t=45107 [st=0] -UDP_CONNECT --> net_error = -109 (ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE)
But I have IPv6 disabled in MacOS network options.
When I immediately try to access the same site but adding "s" to "http" in the URL bar it mostly fails and reverts back to "http". Not sure if that's a visual bug or not. However, I can see an
SSL_CONNECT_JOB
starting but it fails withnet_error = -7 (ERR_TIMED_OUT)
. Many similar SSL requests fail in the same way, others get established.I'd say this network is configured strangely. However, Safari and Firefox are able to work with it reliably. The rest of the network only has Windows devices attached and they work normally.
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@Odaeus That IPv6 address is Google's DNS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Public_DNS
But I see those too (and failing) in my events log, so maybe not related.
I have no idea why the browser would try to connect to Google DNS over IPv6 even when I don't even have it configured locally. If I was more paranoid I'd say it was part of their tracking users, but I'm more pragmatic and thinking it's probably some technical reason for it.It might help if you could share the log somewhere. If you strip personal info it will remove most, apart from local IPs and stuff like that which (IMO) is not sensitive data anyway.
And when capturing the log, make sure you close all other tabs and only run the capture long enough to capture the error. This to avoid extra noise.
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@Pathduck From what I know most OS will prefer IPv6 over IPv4 for many things (macOS has since around 2015). The School might be using Google's DNS servers for DHCP settings which would set the DNS settings used unless they have a custom DNS setting in Network preference pane.
I have noticed that Chromium Secure DNS is kinda broken and that resolving names sometimes does not work for many sites, seen that in both stable and snapshot Vivaldi, and in Opera's versions, and have seen it happen in Chrome also (both on desktop and mobile).
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@Chas4 Good point, might be set by DHCP. What's the equivalent of
ipconfig /all
on Mac?Still think a netlog capture would clear things up, it would show what DNS is in use as well as any proxy setting.
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I'm going tomorrow so I'll check the DNS settings! On Mac general network interface info is with
ifconfig
while currently set DNS resolvers isscutil --dns
. However, I suspect the failing IPv6 DNS resolution is not related given I see DNS mostly working and it timing out on SSL establishment.Here's the details from the DNS tab of the Netlog viewer:
nameservers "10.226.165.37:53" allow_dns_over_https_upgrade true append_to_multi_label_name true attempts 2 dns_over_tls_active false dns_over_tls_hostname doh_attempts 1 doh_config [object Object] ndots 1 num_hosts 3 rotate false search "ewhg.local" secure_dns_mode 0 timeout 1 unhandled_options false use_local_ipv6 false
I'll also try to close all tabs and generate a completely plain netlog capture.
I suspect I'll eventually need to do a packet capture instead to compare the same request between Vivaldi and Safari. Not sure when I'll have time for that.
Thank you both for the advice!
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I found the cause! Prompted by mention of Google DNS requests, I thought about the Google services that Vivaldi uses. Turning off the phishing and DNS navigation helpers under the Privacy options stops the issue from happening. I guess one or both of these services are either blocked by the network I'm using or interact in a strange way with it.
So happy I can use Vivaldi again for teaching purposes!
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Turns out this was only a partial cause, I still regularly have problems loading pages with Vivaldi on this school network that simply don't occur in Safari or Chrome. It's such a shame. I wish I knew what Vivaldi was doing differently!
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Vivaldi phishing protection is the Google Safe browsing data which is the same one Chrome and Safari use, best left on. It would not block a site from loading unless it was in the database list and you would see the Chromium page for Google Safe Browsing blocked page.
In the address bar vivaldi://settings/security what is the secure DNS set to (might be a conflict with a proxy or filter software/hardware they have)
The IPv6 could be the DNS Google resolver in Chromium to try to resolve pages for the DNS navigation.
What Vivaldi version are you on now? (there was an update for version 5.7 today https://vivaldi.com/blog/desktop/minor-update-5-7/ )
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@Chas4 is Vivaldi is trying to do its own lookups with custom DNS servers? For sure, they will always fail on this network.
I am under the impression that Phishing Protection makes the problem worse because it's an additional lookup with the possibility to fail, however I have not been able to properly test that.
I tried going to the page you suggested but it doesn't exist, it just shows the general settings page. I also searched for "DNS" but I don't see any "secure DNS" options.
I'm pretty up-to-date (5.7.2921.53 (Stable channel) (arm64)) but if this were a Chromium problem (what the latest update changes) I would expect the Chrome browser to have this issue.
Thanks for your suggestions!
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@Odaeus Go to the URL:
chrome://settings/security
(People need to remember Vivaldi rewrites Chrome URLs, this will NOT work with avivaldi://
URL)Then make sure "Use Secure DNS" is Disabled.
This disables DNS-Over-HTTPS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPSMost likely your system has policies set for DNS resolution already for Chrome/Safari but not for Vivaldi.
DoH is prone to failure on enterprise networks with specific policies in place. Disabling DoH makes Vivaldi use your local system DNS settings.
I doubt the Google services mentioned above are causing this.
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@Pathduck ah, I see! Everything is already off under the internal Chrome security settings dialog.
Isn't it off by default anyway?
I see that if I turn it on there is the option to use public secure DNS providers. I will try that next time I'm at the school. AFAIK the only way to block secure DNS is to block the specific IP addresses and it's unlikely the school network have done that. They seem to have blocked everything except HTTPS.
Most likely your system has policies set for DNS resolution already for Chrome/Safari but not for Vivaldi.
I'm on MacOS so DNS settings are not on a per-application basis. I thought so for Windows too, but I digress.
I'm still stuck imagining what Vivaldi could be doing differently to any other browser!
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@Odaeus said in Pages fail to load on some networks:
ah, I see! Everything is already off under the internal Chrome security settings dialog.
Isn't it off by default anyway?No, DoH is enabled by default. How it works is it will try to guess your "preferred provider" from the ones listed, from your OS settings or whatever's set from DHCP. Since I use CloudFlare on my OS settings, it will use that (but I keep DoH off anyway).
AFAIK the only way to block secure DNS is to block the specific IP addresses and it's unlikely the school network have done that.
I agree, it would be strange if DoH provider IPs were blocked, but you never know...
In your earlier network log there were failed connects to Google's DNS servers on port 53 but I think we can assume those are "expected".
You never shared a Netlog capture and didn't really specify exactly what the error messages were, except the vague "fail outright with a timeout or DNS probe error message." So not much to work on here.
Have you tried to ask the school network admins what the issue might be?
There's no reason why Vivaldi should act any differently unless there are some specific rules in place for other browsers, like proxy settings etc.
Vivaldi is a Chromium browser, so maybe test with another Chromium browser? You can get portable installs for most of them - try Opera or Brave. My guess is if they have "rules" they will have ones in place for Chrome for instance.
You'll have to dig into this and maybe compare netlog traces from Chrome and Vivaldi, specifically Proxy/DNS settings.
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@Pathduck said in Pages fail to load on some networks:
In your earlier network log there were failed connects to Google's DNS servers on port 53 but I think we can assume those are "expected".
The failure is expected but I'm not sure I worked out why it's trying to query Google's DNS, I assumed for phishing protection.
@Pathduck said in Pages fail to load on some networks:
You never shared a Netlog capture and didn't really specify exactly what the error messages were, except the vague "fail outright with a timeout or DNS probe error message." So not much to work on here.
I'll try and get one without private info. The tool isn't very easy to use!
@Pathduck said in Pages fail to load on some networks:
Have you tried to ask the school network admins what the issue might be?
Sigh, I wish! They are holed up in some remote administrative bunker in the central education authority. IT provision here is severely lacking and they wouldn't assist me as it's not their computer.
@Pathduck said in Pages fail to load on some networks:
specific rules in place for other browsers, like proxy settings etc.
Ah the machine I'm using is mine, so that's not possible.
@Pathduck said in Pages fail to load on some networks:
You'll have to dig into this and maybe compare netlog traces from Chrome and Vivaldi, specifically Proxy/DNS settings.
I'll try to do this, thank you!