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28 <h1 class="SECT1"><a name="TROUBLE" id="TROUBLE">5. Troubleshooting</a></h1>
30 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="REFUSED" id="REFUSED">5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting
31 <span class="QUOTE">"connection refused"</span> message with every web page. Why?</a></h3>
32 <p>There are several possibilities:</p>
35 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not running. Solution: verify that <span class=
36 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running. Turn on
37 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logging, and look at the logs to see what they say.</p>
40 <p>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
41 using. Solution: verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and your browser are set to the same
42 port (<tt class="LITERAL">listen-address</tt>).</p>
45 <p>Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem or a problem with a host in the forwarding
46 chain. Solution: temporarily alter your configuration and take the forwarders out of the equation.</p>
49 <p>Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution: try disabling or removing the
50 firewall as a simple test.</p>
55 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="ERROR503" id="ERROR503">5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every
57 <p>More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has been reported to cause this
58 symptom -- even if not running! The solution is to either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and
59 then find something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products may cause similar type
60 problems if not configured correctly.</p>
63 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FLUSHIT" id="FLUSHIT">5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still
64 getting through. How?</a></h3>
65 <p>If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be held in the browser's cache for
66 some time, so it will be displayed without the need for any request to the server, and <span class=
67 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will not be involved. Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.</p>
68 <p>If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you applied. Try pasting the full URL of the
69 offending ad into <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
70 "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is
71 like blocking spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And remember you need to block the
72 URL of the ad in question, which may be entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on
73 different servers than the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should be able to get all the
74 relevant information you need. Alternately, you can find the correct URL by looking at <span class=
75 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logs (you may need to enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).</p>
76 <p>Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one requested URL: <tt class=
77 "LITERAL">www.example.com</tt> (name of site was changed for this example, the number of requests is real). You
78 can see in this the complexity of what goes into making up this one <span class="QUOTE">"page"</span>. There are
79 eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate URLs requested in all, making up all manner of
80 images, Shockwave Flash, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related content. Some of this content is
81 obviously <span class="QUOTE">"good"</span> or <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span>, but not all. Many of the more
82 questionable looking requests, are going to outside domains that seem to be identifying themselves with
83 suspicious looking names, making our job a little easier. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has
84 <span class="QUOTE">"crunched"</span> (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps
85 missed a few as well.</p>
86 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
89 <pre class="SCREEN">Request: www.example.com/
90 Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
91 Request: img.example.com/main.css
92 Request: img.example.com/sr.js
93 Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
94 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
95 Request: img.example.com/pb.png
96 Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
97 Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
98 Request: img.example.com/p.gif
99 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
100 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
101 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
102 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
103 Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
104 Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
105 Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
106 Request: img.example.com/mt.png
107 Request: img.example.com/mm.png
108 Request: img.example.com/mb.png
109 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
110 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
111 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
112 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
113 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
114 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
115 Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
116 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
117 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
118 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
119 Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
120 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
121 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua</pre>
125 <p>Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to behave perfectly <span class=
126 "QUOTE">"normal"</span> (minus some ads, of course).</p>
129 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="BADSITE" id="BADSITE">5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What
131 <p>First verify that it is indeed a <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> problem, by toggling off
132 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> through <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target=
133 "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</a> (the toggle feature may need to be enabled in the main <tt class=
134 "FILENAME">config</tt>), and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key while
135 clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and memory caches).</p>
136 <p>If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem. Now go to <a href=
137 "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> and paste the
138 full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are being applied to the URL, and which
139 matches in which actions files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs for this
140 site too, to see what else might be happening (note: logging may need to be enabled in the main config file).
141 Many sites are complex and require a number of related pages to help present their content. Look at what else
142 might be used by the page in question, and what of that might be <span class="emphasis"><i class=
143 "EMPHASIS">required</i></span>. Now, armed with this information, go to <a href=
144 "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> and select the
145 appropriate actions files for editing.</p>
146 <p>You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that you suspect to cause the problem and add
147 a pattern for your site there, or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended
148 way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only if the problem persists, disable more
149 and more actions until you have identified the culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions on
150 again. Remember to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!</p>
151 <p>Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish the same thing by editing the
152 appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest way to deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your
153 site to a <tt class="LITERAL">{ fragile }</tt> section in <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, which is an
154 alias that turns off most <span class="QUOTE">"dangerous"</span> actions, but is also likely to turn off more
155 actions then needed, and thus lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,</p>
156 <p>Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <a href="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT"
157 target="_top">User Manual appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</a>. There is also an <a href=
158 "../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES" target="_top">actions tutorial</a> with general configuration
159 information and examples.</p>
160 <p>As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting that will bypass the proxy setting for
161 selective sites. Modern browsers can do this.</p>
164 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DUN" id="DUN">5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE.
166 <p>This is a quirk that affects the installation of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, in conjunction with
167 Internet Explorer and Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The symptoms may appear to be
168 corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or passwords.</p>
169 <p>When setting up an NT based Windows system with <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> you may find that
170 things do not seem to be doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably have set up
171 Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You
172 will probably have made this DUN connection available to other accounts that you may have set-up on your system.
173 E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes accounts suitably configured for the kids.</p>
174 <p>When setting up <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> in this environment you will have to alter the proxy
175 set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you wish to use <span class=
176 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up becomes user specific. In this instance you
177 will see no difference if you change the DUN connection under the account used to set-up the connection. However
178 when you do this from another user you will notice that the DUN connection changes to make available to "Me
179 only". You will also find that you have to store the password under each different user!</p>
180 <p>The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each set-up DUN connection and each
181 LAN connection in IE store the settings for each user individually. As such this enforces individual
182 configurations rather than common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after re-booting your
183 system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for the password. Just set and save the password again
184 and all should be OK.</p>
185 <p>[Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]</p>
188 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FTP" id="FTP">5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.</a></h3>
189 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic, so do not configure your
190 browser to use <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <span class=
191 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">any protocol other than HTTP or HTTPS (SSL)</i></span>.</p>
192 <p>Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with a URL like <tt class=
193 "LITERAL">ftp://ftp.example.com</tt>, your browser is making an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So
194 while your browser may speak FTP, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does not, and cannot proxy such
196 <p>To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <span class="QUOTE">"proxy"</span> setting, which will
197 enable various protocols, including <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">both</i></span> HTTP and FTP
198 proxying! So it is possible to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this happens,
199 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will indeed cause problems since it does not know FTP. Newer version
200 will give a sane error message if a FTP connection is attempted. Just disable the FTP setting and all will be
202 <p>Will <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason,
203 and the work to make this happen is more than it may seem.</p>
206 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXIE" id="MACOSXIE">5.7. In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft Internet
207 Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</a></h3>
208 <p>Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide network settings. In order to change
209 the HTTP proxy, open System Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane that comes up, click
210 on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox is checked and enter <tt class=
211 "LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> in the entry field. Enter <tt class="LITERAL">8118</tt> in the Port field. The next time
212 you start IE, it should reflect these values.</p>
215 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXUNINSTALL" id="MACOSXUNINSTALL">5.8. In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy folder
216 to the trash in order to uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to empty the
218 <p>Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.</p>
219 <p>Just dragging the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> folder to the trash is not enough to delete it.
220 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supplies an <span class="APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file that
221 takes care of these details. Open the trash, drag the <span class="APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file out
222 of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the administration password.</p>
223 <p>The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash from the desktop should make it appear
227 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXIMAGES" id="MACOSXIMAGES">5.9. In Mac OS X Panther (10.3), images often fail to
228 load and/or I experience random delays in page loading. I'm using <tt class="LITERAL">localhost</tt> as my
229 browser's proxy setting.</a></h3>
230 <p>We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but don't fully understand the issue yet. In any
231 case, changing the proxy setting to <tt class="LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> instead of <tt class=
232 "LITERAL">localhost</tt> works around the problem.</p>
235 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXACCOUNTDELETION" id="MACOSXACCOUNTDELETION">5.10. I just upgraded to Mac OS X
236 10.9 (Mavericks) and now <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has stopped working.</a></h3>
237 <p>The upgrade process to Mac OS X Mavericks (10.9) from an earlier version of OS X deletes all user accounts
238 that are either not part of OS X itself or are not interactive user accounts (ones you log in with). Since, for
239 the sake of security, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> runs as a non-privileged user that is created by
240 its installer (_privoxy), it can no longer start up once that account gets deleted. The solution is to perform a
241 complete uninstall using the supplied <span class="APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> script (either back up
242 your configuration files or select to not have the uninstaller remove them when it prompts you) and then
243 reinstall <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> using the installer package and merge in your
247 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="NOHOSTNAME" id="NOHOSTNAME">5.11. My logs show many <span class="QUOTE">"Unable to get
248 my own hostname"</span> lines. Why?</a></h3>
249 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> tries to get the hostname of the system its running on from the IP
250 address of the system interface it is bound to (from the <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt> file <span class=
251 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">listen-address</i></span> setting). If the system cannot supply this information,
252 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> logs this condition.</p>
253 <p>Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is not a fatal error to
254 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> however, but may result in a much slower response from <span class=
255 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on some platforms due to DNS timeouts.</p>
256 <p>This can be caused by a problem with the local <tt class="FILENAME">hosts</tt> file. If this file has been
257 changed from the original, try reverting it to see if that helps. Make sure whatever name(s) are used for the
258 local system, that they resolve both ways.</p>
259 <p>You should also be able to work around the problem with the <a href="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME"
260 target="_top">hostname option</a>.</p>
263 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="INUSE" id="INUSE">5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error message
264 <span class="QUOTE">"port 8118 is already in use"</span> (or similar wording). Why?</a></h3>
265 <p>Port 8118 is <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default TCP <span class="QUOTE">"listening"</span>
266 port. Typically this message would mean that there is already one instance of <span class=
267 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> running, and your system is actually trying to start a second <span class=
268 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on the same port, which will not work. (You can have multiple instances but they
269 must be assigned different ports.) How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need
270 to check your installation and start-up procedures.</p>
273 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER" id="DEMORONIZER">5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.</a></h3>
274 <p>This may be the result of an overly aggressive filter. The filters that are enabled in the default
275 configuration aren't expected to cause problems like this. If you enabled the <span class=
276 "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> filter, please try temporarily disabling it.</p>
277 <p>If that doesn't help, temporarily disable all filters to see if another filter could be the culprit. If the
278 problem disappears, enable the filters one by one, until the problem reappears and the offending filter is
280 <p>Once the problem-causing filter is known, it can be fixed or disabled.</p>
281 <p>Upgrading <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or going to the most recent <tt class=
282 "FILENAME">default.action</tt> file available from <a href=
283 "https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118" target="_top">SourceForge</a> might be worth a
287 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER2" id="DEMORONIZER2">5.14. Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted
288 when Privoxy is used?</a></h3>
289 <p>This may also be caused by an (<a href="trouble.html#DEMORONIZER">overly aggressive filter</a> in conjunction
290 with a web server that is misreporting the content type. By default binary files are exempted from <span class=
291 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> filtering (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else).</p>
294 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER3" id="DEMORONIZER3">5.15. What is the <span class=
295 "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> and why is it there?</a></h3>
296 <p>The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which were created with certain
297 Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary extensions to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has
298 caused problems for pages that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a standard set of
299 fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages displayed correctly. <span class=
300 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> borrowed from this script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer,
301 which in turn could correct these errors on the fly.</p>
302 <p>But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some other situations.</p>
303 <p>If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view pages with UTF-8 characters (such
304 as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <span class="emphasis"><i class=
305 "EMPHASIS">should not be on</i></span>.</p>
306 <p>On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally notice weird characters on pages,
307 you might want to try it.</p>
310 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="WINDOWOPEN" id="WINDOWOPEN">5.16. Why do I keep seeing <span class=
311 "QUOTE">"PrivoxyWindowOpen()"</span> in raw source code?</a></h3>
312 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is attempting to disable malicious <a href=
313 "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" target="_top">Javascript</a> in this case, with the <tt class=
314 "LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filter. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot tell very well
315 <span class="QUOTE">"good"</span> code snippets from <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span> code snippets.</p>
316 <p>If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then this is good, and likely some
317 pop-up window was disabled. If you see this where it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source
318 code file, then you should set an exception for this site or page such that the integrity of the page stays in
319 tact by disabling all filtering.</p>
322 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DNSERRORS" id="DNSERRORS">5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like <span class=
323 "QUOTE">"404 No Such Domain"</span>. Why can't Privoxy do this better?</a></h3>
324 <p>There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution is done by the underlying
325 operating system -- not <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> itself. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
326 merely initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports whatever the outcome was and tries to give
327 a coherent message if there seems to be a problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the
328 browser itself which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g adding <span class=
329 "QUOTE">"www."</span> to the URL).</p>
330 <p>In other cases, if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is being chained with another proxy, this could
331 complicate the issue, and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a <span class="QUOTE">"socks4a"</span>
332 proxy, the socks server handles all the DNS. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> would just be the
333 <span class="QUOTE">"messenger"</span> which is reporting whatever problem occurred downstream, and not the root
334 cause of the error.</p>
335 <p>In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements to help <span class=
336 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> better handle these cases.</p>
339 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="ALLCPU" id="ALLCPU">5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU.
340 Why is this?</a></h3>
341 <p>This is probably a manifestation of the <span class="QUOTE">"100% cpu"</span> problem that occurs on pages
342 containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are in the raw HTML source of the
343 page, and the browser just ignores them. But the pattern matching in <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span>
344 page filtering mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive,
345 taking a long, long time to complete.</p>
346 <p>Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these pages, particularly the <tt class=
347 "LITERAL">js-annoyances</tt> and <tt class="LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filters. If you run into this
348 problem with a recent <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please send a problem report.</p>
351 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SLOWCRAWL" id="SLOWCRAWL">5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has
352 slowed to a crawl. What gives?</a></h3>
353 <p>This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide, it does not happen. I would
354 suspect some inadvertent interaction of software components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors,
355 personal firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one at a time and see if that
356 helps. Either way, if you are using a recent <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please report the
360 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="PREVENTCOMP" id="PREVENTCOMP">5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites but not on
362 <p>It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to send their content <span class=
363 "QUOTE">"compressed"</span> in order to speed things up, and then let the browser <span class=
364 "QUOTE">"uncompress"</span> them. When compiled with zlib support <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can
365 decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to enable <a href=
366 "../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION" target="_top">prevent-compression</a>.</p>
367 <p>As of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.9, zlib support is enabled in the default builds.</p>
370 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SSL-WARNINGS" id="SSL-WARNINGS">5.21. On some HTTPS sites my browser warns me about
371 unauthenticated content, the URL bar doesn't get highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be broken. What's
373 <p>Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is blocking
374 the requests. Privoxy's error messages are delivered unencrypted and while it's obvious for the browser that the
375 HTTPS request is already blocked by the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated content anyway.</p>
376 <p>To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an invalid local address instead of blocking
377 them. While the redirects aren't encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply follow the redirect,
378 fail to reach a server and display an error message instead of the ad.</p>
379 <p>To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked by <span class=
380 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and add the hosts (no path patterns) to a section like this:</p>
381 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
384 <pre class="SCREEN">{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
385 .ivwbox.de:443/</pre>
389 <p>Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact <span class="QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> directly
390 (instead of through <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>).</p>
391 <p>To add a proxy exception in <span class="APPLICATION">Mozilla Firefox</span> open the <span class=
392 "QUOTE">"Preferences"</span>, click the <span class="QUOTE">"Settings"</span> button located on the <span class=
393 "QUOTE">"Network"</span> tab in the <span class="QUOTE">"Advanced"</span> section, and add <span class=
394 "QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> in the <span class="QUOTE">"No Proxy for:"</span> field.</p>
397 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SE-LINUX" id="SE-LINUX">5.22. I get selinux error messages. How can I fix
399 <p>Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.</p>
400 <p>The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar with the application they are trying to
401 <span class="QUOTE">"secure"</span> and thus create policies that make no sense.</p>
402 <p>In <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> case the problem usually is that the policy only allows outgoing
403 connections for certain destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover the standard ports, websites
404 occasionally use other ports as well. This isn't a security problem and therefore <span class=
405 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default configuration doesn't block these requests.</p>
406 <p>If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able to load websites that don't use standard ports),
407 you should configure Privoxy to block these ports as well, so it doesn't trigger the selinux warnings.</p>
410 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="GENTOO-RICERS" id="GENTOO-RICERS">5.23. I compiled <span class=
411 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with Gentoo's portage and it appears to be very slow. Why?</a></h3>
412 <p>Probably you unintentionally compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without threading support in
413 which case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at the same time.</p>
414 <p>Check your <span class="QUOTE">"USE"</span> flags and make sure they include <span class=
415 "QUOTE">"threads"</span>. If they don't, add the flag and rebuild <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.</p>
416 <p>If you compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the
417 <span class="QUOTE">"Conditional #defines"</span> section on <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status"
418 target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> will list <span class="QUOTE">"FEATURE_PTHREAD"</span> as
419 <span class="QUOTE">"enabled"</span>.</p>
422 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="TAINTED-SOCKETS" id="TAINTED-SOCKETS">5.24. What are tainted sockets and how do I
423 prevent them?</a></h3>
424 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> marks sockets as tainted when it can't use them to serve additional
425 requests. This does not necessarily mean that something went wrong and information about tainted sockets is only
426 logged if connection debugging is enabled (debug 2).</p>
427 <p>For example server sockets that were used for CONNECT requests (which are used to tunnel https:// requests)
428 are considered tainted once the client closed its connection to <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.
429 Technically <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> could keep the connection to the server open, but the server
430 would not accept requests that do not belong to the previous TLS/SSL session (and the client may even have
431 terminated the session).</p>
432 <p>Server sockets are also marked tainted when a client requests a resource, but closes the connection before
433 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has completely received (and forwarded) the resource to the client. In
434 this case the server would (probably) accept additional requests, but <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
435 could not get the response without completely reading the leftovers from the previous response.</p>
436 <p>These are just two examples, there are currently a bit more than 25 scenarios in which a socket is considered
438 <p>While sockets can also be marked tainted as a result of a technical problem that may be worth fixing, the
439 problem will be explicitly logged as error.</p>
442 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="PCRE-STACK-LIMIT" id="PCRE-STACK-LIMIT">5.25. After adding my custom filters,
443 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> crashes when visitting certain websites</a></h3>
444 <p>This can happen if your custom filters require more memory than <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
445 allowed to use. Usually the problem is that the operating system enforces a stack size limit that isn't
447 <p>Unless the problem occurs with the filters available in the default configuration, this is not considered a
449 <p>To prevent the crashes you can rewrite your filter to use less ressources, increase the relevant memory limit
450 or recompile pcre to use less stack space. For details please see the <a href=
451 "http://pcre.org/original/doc/html/pcrestack.html" target="_top">pcrestack man page</a> and the documentation of
452 your operating system.</p>
455 <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FILE-PERMISSIONS" id="FILE-PERMISSIONS">5.26. What to do if editing the config file of
456 privoxy is access denied?</a></h3>
457 <p>Your userid probably isn't allowed to edit the file. On Windows you can use the windows equivalent of
459 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
462 <pre class="SCREEN">runas /user:administrator "notepad \privoxy\config.txt"</pre>
466 <p>or fix the file permissions:</p>
467 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
470 <pre class="SCREEN">C:\Privoxy>icacls config.txt
471 config.txt BUILTIN\Administrators:(I)(F)
472 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(I)(F)
473 BUILTIN\Users:(I)(RX)
474 NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users:(I)(M)
476 Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files
478 C:\Privoxy>icacls config.txt /grant Lee:F
479 processed file: config.txt
480 Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files
482 C:\Privoxy>icacls config.txt
483 config.txt I3668\Lee:(F)
484 BUILTIN\Administrators:(I)(F)
485 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(I)(F)
486 BUILTIN\Users:(I)(RX)
487 NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users:(I)(M)
489 Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files
491 C:\Privoxy></pre>
495 <p>or try to point-n-click your way through adjusting the file permissions in windows explorer.</p>
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