X-Git-Url: http://www.privoxy.org/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;ds=sidebyside;f=doc%2Fwebserver%2Ffaq%2Ftrouble.html;h=28949efef448cac068d16c66b84f7157944fdc0d;hb=7d0d8bdd53947864c64d968062ca132b65f2e162;hp=141a835e477880650685d3deed5da3972ecb4aee;hpb=6d810395712f0337682205c4ea304009c86c128f;p=privoxy.git diff --git a/doc/webserver/faq/trouble.html b/doc/webserver/faq/trouble.html index 141a835e..28949efe 100644 --- a/doc/webserver/faq/trouble.html +++ b/doc/webserver/faq/trouble.html @@ -1,166 +1,142 @@ - + + - - - - Troubleshooting - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
- Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions -
- Prev - - - Next -
-
+ + Troubleshooting + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + +
Privoxy Frequently Asked + Questions
PrevNext
+
+
+ +
+

5. + Troubleshooting

+ +
+

5.1. I cannot connect + to any websites. Or, I am getting "connection + refused" message with every web page. Why?

+ +

There are several possibilities:

+ +
    +
  • +

    Privoxy is not running. + Solution: verify that Privoxy is + installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running. Turn + on Privoxy's logging, and look at + the logs to see what they say.

    +
    • + +
  • +

    Or your browser is configured for a different port than what + Privoxy is using. Solution: verify + that Privoxy and your browser are + set to the same port (listen-address).

    +
    • + +
  • +

    Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem + or a problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: + temporarily alter your configuration and take the forwarders out of + the equation.

    +
    • + +
  • +

    Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. + Solution: try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple + test.

    +
    • +
-
-

- 5. Troubleshooting -

-
-

- 5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am - getting "connection refused" message - with every web page. Why? -

-

- There are several possibilities: -

-
    -
  • -

    - Privoxy is not running. - Solution: verify that Privoxy - is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running. - Turn on Privoxy's logging, and - look at the logs to see what they say. -

    -
    • -
  • -

    - Or your browser is configured for a different port than what - Privoxy is using. Solution: - verify that Privoxy and your - browser are set to the same port (listen-address). -

    -
    • -
  • -

    - Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem - or a problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: - temporarily alter your configuration and take the forwarders - out of the equation. -

    -
    • -
  • -

    - Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. - Solution: try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple - test. -

    -
    • -
-
-
-

- 5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error - (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page? -

-

- More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. - ZoneAlarm has been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not - running! The solution is to either fight the ZA configuration, or - uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find something better behaved in its - place. Other personal firewall type products may cause similar type - problems if not configured correctly. -

-
-
-

- 5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad - is still getting through. How? -

-

- If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will - probably be held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will - be displayed without the need for any request to the server, and - Privoxy will not be involved. - Flush the browser's caches, and then try again. -

-

- If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you - applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and see if it - really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking spam: a - lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And - remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may - be entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted - on different servers than the main site itself. If you right-click - on the ad, you should be able to get all the relevant information - you need. Alternately, you can find the correct URL by looking at - Privoxy's logs (you may need to - enable logging in the main config file if its disabled). -

-

- Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates - with one requested URL: www.example.com - (name of site was changed for this example, the number of requests - is real). You can see in this the complexity of what goes into - making up this one "page". There are - eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate - URLs requested in all, making up all manner of images, Shockwave - Flash, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related - content. Some of this content is obviously "good" or "bad", but not - all. Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to - outside domains that seem to be identifying themselves with - suspicious looking names, making our job a little easier. Privoxy has "crunched" (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few - items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well. -

- - -
-
+
+    

+      
5.2. Why am I
+      getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?

+
+      
More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking.
+      ZoneAlarm has been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not
+      running! The solution is to either fight the ZA configuration, or
+      uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find something better behaved in its
+      place. Other personal firewall type products may cause similar type
+      problems if not configured correctly.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.3. I just added a
+      new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through. How?

+
+      
If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will
+      probably be held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be
+      displayed without the need for any request to the server, and
+      Privoxy will not be involved. Flush
+      the browser's caches, and then try again.

+
+      
If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
+      applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and see if it really
+      matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking spam: a lot of
+      tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And remember you need
+      to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be entirely different
+      from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different servers than
+      the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should be able
+      to get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can find
+      the correct URL by looking at Privoxy's logs (you may need to enable logging in
+      the main config file if its disabled).

+
+      
Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates
+      with one requested URL: www.example.com (name
+      of site was changed for this example, the number of requests is real).
+      You can see in this the complexity of what goes into making up this one
+      "page". There are eight different domains
+      involved here, with thirty two separate URLs requested in all, making
+      up all manner of images, Shockwave Flash, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets,
+      scripts, and other related content. Some of this content is obviously
+      "good" or "bad",
+      but not all. Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going
+      to outside domains that seem to be identifying themselves with
+      suspicious looking names, making our job a little easier. Privoxy has "crunched"
+      (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but
+      perhaps missed a few as well.

+
+      
+        
+          
-          
-        

+            
 Request: www.example.com/
 Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
 Request: img.example.com/main.css
@@ -195,636 +171,603 @@ Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
 

-            

-
-        

-          Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and
-          seemed to behave perfectly "normal"
-          (minus some ads, of course).
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with
-          Privoxy. What can I do?
-        

-        

-          First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by toggling off Privoxy through http://config.privoxy.org/toggle (the toggle feature may
-          need to be enabled in the main config),
-          and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the
-          shift key while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your
-          browser's disk and memory caches).
-        

-        

-          If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related
-          problem. Now go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and paste the
-          full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions
-          are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions
-          files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at
-          your logs for this site too, to see what else might be happening
-          (note: logging may need to be enabled in the main config file).
-          Many sites are complex and require a number of related pages to
-          help present their content. Look at what else might be used by the
-          page in question, and what of that might be required. Now, armed with
-          this information, go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-status and select the
-          appropriate actions files for editing.
-        

-        

-          You can now either look for a section which disables the actions
-          that you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your
-          site there, or make up a completely new section for your site. In
-          any case, the recommended way is to disable only the prime suspect,
-          reload the problem page, and only if the problem persists, disable
-          more and more actions until you have identified the culprit. You
-          may or may not want to turn the other actions on again. Remember to
-          flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
-        

-        

-          Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can
-          accomplish the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file.
-          Probably the easiest way to deal with such problems when editing by
-          hand is to add your site to a { fragile }
-          section in user.action, which is an alias
-          that turns off most "dangerous" actions,
-          but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus
-          lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,
-        

-        

-          Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the User
-          Manual appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action.
-          There is also an actions tutorial with general configuration information
-          and examples.
-        

-        

-          As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting
-          that will bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern
-          browsers can do this.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every
-          time I start IE. What gives?
-        

-        

-          This is a quirk that effects the installation of Privoxy, in conjunction with Internet Explorer
-          and Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The
-          symptoms may appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or
-          passwords.
-        

-        

-          When setting up an NT based Windows system with Privoxy you may find that things do not seem
-          to be doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will
-          probably have set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up
-          Networking (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You
-          will probably have made this DUN connection available to other
-          accounts that you may have set-up on your system. E.g. Mum or Dad
-          sets up the system and makes accounts suitably configured for the
-          kids.
-        

-        

-          When setting up Privoxy in this
-          environment you will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet
-          Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you wish to
-          use Privoxy. When you do this the
-          ICS DUN set-up becomes user specific. In this instance you will see
-          no difference if you change the DUN connection under the account
-          used to set-up the connection. However when you do this from
-          another user you will notice that the DUN connection changes to
-          make available to "Me only". You will also find that you have to
-          store the password under each different user!
-        

-        

-          The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user
-          specific. Each set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE
-          store the settings for each user individually. As such this
-          enforces individual configurations rather than common ones. Hence
-          the first time you use a DUN connection after re-booting your
-          system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for the
-          password. Just set and save the password again and all should be
-          OK.
-        

-        

-          [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is
-          blocking me.
-        

-        

-          Privoxy cannot act as a proxy for
-          FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser to use Privoxy as an FTP proxy. The same is true for
-          any protocol other than
-          HTTP or HTTPS (SSL).
-        

-        

-          Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a
-          site, with a URL like ftp://ftp.example.com, your browser is making an FTP
-          connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
-          speak FTP, Privoxy does not, and
-          cannot proxy such traffic.
-        

-        

-          To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic "proxy" setting, which will enable various
-          protocols, including both HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible
-          to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course,
-          if this happens, Privoxy will
-          indeed cause problems since it does not know FTP. Newer version
-          will give a sane error message if a FTP connection is attempted.
-          Just disable the FTP setting and all will be well again.
-        

-        

-          Will Privoxy ever proxy FTP
-          traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason, and the work to
-          make this happen is more than it may seem.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.7. In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft
-          Internet Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.
-        

-        

-          Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects
-          system-wide network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy,
-          open System Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the
-          settings pane that comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the
-          "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox is checked and enter 127.0.0.1 in the entry field. Enter 8118 in the Port field. The next time you start IE,
-          it should reflect these values.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.8. In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy
-          folder to the trash in order to uninstall it. Now the finder tells
-          me I don't have sufficient privileges to empty the trash.
-        

-        

-          Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.
-        

-        

-          Just dragging the Privoxy folder
-          to the trash is not enough to delete it. Privoxy supplies an uninstall.command file that takes care of
-          these details. Open the trash, drag the uninstall.command file out of the trash and
-          double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the
-          administration password.
-        

-        

-          The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the
-          trash from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.9. In Mac OS X Panther (10.3), images
-          often fail to load and/or I experience random delays in page
-          loading. I'm using localhost as my
-          browser's proxy setting.
-        

-        

-          We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but
-          don't fully understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the
-          proxy setting to 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost works around the problem.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.10. I get a completely blank page at one
-          site. "View Source" shows only: <html><body></body></html>.
-          Without Privoxy the page loads fine.
-        

-        

-          Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in PHP, which results in empty pages being
-          sent if the client explicitly requests an uncompressed page, like
-          Privoxy does. This bug has been
-          fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
-        

-        

-          To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try
-          adding the site to a -prevent-compression
-          section in user.action:
-        

-        
-          
-            
-          
-        

-
-   # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
-   #
-   {-prevent-compression}
-    .example.com
-

-            

-        

-          If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
-          site's webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression
-          instead of ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround) or
-          upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.11. My logs show many "Unable to get my own hostname" lines. Why?
-        

-        

-          Privoxy tries to get the hostname
-          of the system its running on from the IP address of the system
-          interface it is bound to (from the config
-          file listen-address setting). If the system cannot
-          supply this information, Privoxy
-          logs this condition.
-        

-        

-          Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration
-          error. It is not a fatal error to Privoxy however, but may result in a much
-          slower response from Privoxy on
-          some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
-        

-        

-          This can be caused by a problem with the local hosts file. If this file has been changed from the
-          original, try reverting it to see if that helps. Make sure whatever
-          name(s) are used for the local system, that they resolve both ways.
-        

-        

-          You should also be able to work around the problem with the hostname
-          option.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error
-          message "port 8118 is already in use"
-          (or similar wording). Why?
-        

-        

-          Port 8118 is Privoxy's default TCP
-          "listening" port. Typically this message
-          would mean that there is already one instance of Privoxy running, and your system is actually
-          trying to start a second Privoxy
-          on the same port, which will not work. (You can have multiple
-          instances but they must be assigned different ports.) How and why
-          this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need to
-          check your installation and start-up procedures.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
-        

-        

-          This is caused by the "demoronizer"
-          filter. You should either upgrade Privoxy, or at least upgrade to the most
-          recent default.action file available from
-          SourceForge. Or you can simply disable the
-          demoronizer filter.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.14. Why are binary files (such as images)
-          corrupted when Privoxy is used?
-        

-        

-          This may also be caused by the "demoronizer" filter, in conjunction with a web
-          server that is misreporting the content type. Binary files are
-          exempted from Privoxy's filtering
-          (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else).
-          Either upgrade Privoxy, or go to
-          the most recent default.action file
-          available from SourceForge.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.15. What is the "demoronizer" and why is it there?
-        

-        

-          The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML
-          pages which were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has
-          used proprietary extensions to standardized font encodings (ISO
-          8859-1), which has caused problems for pages that are viewed with
-          non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a standard set of
-          fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
-          displayed correctly. Privoxy
-          borrowed from this script, introducing a filter based on the
-          original demoronizer, which in turn could correct these errors on
-          the fly.
-        

-        

-          But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious
-          problems in some other situations.
-        

-        

-          If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you
-          need to view pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or
-          Chinese), then it will cause corruption of the fonts, and thus
-          should not be
-          on.
-        

-        

-          On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you
-          occasionally notice weird characters on pages, you might want to
-          try it.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.16. Why do I keep seeing "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" in raw source code?
-        

-        

-          Privoxy is attempting to disable
-          malicious Javascript in this case, with the unsolicited-popups filter. Privoxy cannot tell very well "good" code snippets from "bad" code snippets.
-        

-        

-          If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without
-          problems, then this is good, and likely some pop-up window was
-          disabled. If you see this where it is causing a problem, such as a
-          downloaded program source code file, then you should set an
-          exception for this site or page such that the integrity of the page
-          stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like
-          "404 No Such Domain". Why can't Privoxy
-          do this better?
-        

-        

-          There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS
-          resolution is done by the underlying operating system -- not Privoxy itself. Privoxy merely initiates the process and hands
-          it off, and then later reports whatever the outcome was and tries
-          to give a coherent message if there seems to be a problem. In some
-          cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the browser itself
-          which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g
-          adding "www." to the URL).
-        

-        

-          In other cases, if Privoxy is
-          being chained with another proxy, this could complicate the issue,
-          and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a "socks4a" proxy, the socks server handles all the
-          DNS. Privoxy would just be the
-          "messenger" which is reporting whatever
-          problem occurred downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
-        

-        

-          In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements
-          to help Privoxy better handle
-          these cases.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts
-          taking all CPU. Why is this?
-        

-        

-          This is probably a manifestation of the "100%
-          cpu" problem that occurs on pages containing many (thousands
-          upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are in the raw HTML
-          source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
-          pattern matching in Privoxy's page
-          filtering mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long
-          strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long
-          time to complete.
-        

-        

-          Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these
-          pages, particularly the js-annoyances and
-          unsolicited-popups filters. If you run
-          into this problem with a recent Privoxy version, please send a problem report.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my
-          browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives?
-        

-        

-          This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users
-          world-wide, it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent
-          interaction of software components such as anti-virus software,
-          spyware protectors, personal firewalls or similar components. Try
-          disabling (or uninstalling) these one at a time and see if that
-          helps. Either way, if you are using a recent Privoxy version, please report the problem.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites
-          but not on others?
-        

-        

-          It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web
-          servers to send their content "compressed" in order to speed things up, and then
-          let the browser "uncompress" them. When
-          compiled with zlib support Privoxy
-          can decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to
-          enable prevent-compression.
-        

-        

-          As of Privoxy 3.0.9, zlib support
-          is enabled in the default builds.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.21. On some HTTPS sites my browser warns
-          me about unauthenticated content, the URL bar doesn't get
-          highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be broken. What's going
-          on?
-        

-        

-          Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and Privoxy is blocking the requests.
-          Privoxy's error messages are delivered unencrypted and while it's
-          obvious for the browser that the HTTPS request is already blocked
-          by the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated content anyway.
-        

-        

-          To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an
-          invalid local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects
-          aren't encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply
-          follow the redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error
-          message instead of the ad.
-        

-        

-          To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked
-          by Privoxy and add the hosts (no
-          path patterns) to a section like this:
-        

-        
-          
-            
-          
-        

-
-{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
-.ivwbox.de:443/
-

-            

-
-        

-          Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact "127.0.0.1:0" directly (instead of through
-          Privoxy).
-        

-        

-          To add a proxy exception in Mozilla
-          Firefox open the "Preferences",
-          click the "Settings" button located on
-          the "Network" tab in the "Advanced" section, and add "127.0.0.1:0" in the "No Proxy
-          for:" field.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.22. I get selinux error messages. How can I
-          fix this?
-        

-        

-          Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.
-        

-        

-          The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar
-          with the application they are trying to "secure" and thus create policies that make no
-          sense.
-        

-        

-          In Privoxy's case the problem
-          usually is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for
-          certain destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover
-          the standard ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well.
-          This isn't a security problem and therefore Privoxy's default configuration doesn't block
-          these requests.
-        

-        

-          If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able to load
-          websites that don't use standard ports), you should configure
-          Privoxy to block these ports as well, so it doesn't trigger the
-          selinux warnings.
-        

-      

-      

-        

-          5.23. I compiled Privoxy with Gentoo's portage and it appears
-          to be very slow. Why?
-        

-        

-          Probably you unintentionally compiled Privoxy without threading support in which
-          case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at
-          the same time.
-        

-        

-          Check your "USE" flags and make sure
-          they include "threads". If they don't,
-          add the flag and rebuild Privoxy.
-        

-        

-          If you compiled Privoxy with
-          threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the "Conditional #defines" section on http://config.privoxy.org/show-status will list "FEATURE_PTHREAD" as "enabled".
-        

-      

-    
-    

-      

-      
-        
-          
-          
-          
+      

-            Prev
-          
-            Home
-          
-            Next
           
         

+
+      
Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and
+      seemed to behave perfectly "normal" (minus
+      some ads, of course).

+    

+
+    

+      
5.4. One of my
+      favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?

+
+      
First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by toggling off Privoxy through http://config.privoxy.org/toggle (the toggle feature may
+      need to be enabled in the main config), and
+      then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
+      while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and
+      memory caches).

+
+      
If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related
+      problem. Now go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and paste the
+      full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are
+      being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are
+      responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs for
+      this site too, to see what else might be happening (note: logging may
+      need to be enabled in the main config file). Many sites are complex and
+      require a number of related pages to help present their content. Look
+      at what else might be used by the page in question, and what of that
+      might be required. Now, armed with this information, go to
+      http://config.privoxy.org/show-status and select the
+      appropriate actions files for editing.

+
+      
You can now either look for a section which disables the actions
+      that you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site
+      there, or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case,
+      the recommended way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the
+      problem page, and only if the problem persists, disable more and more
+      actions until you have identified the culprit. You may or may not want
+      to turn the other actions on again. Remember to flush your browser's
+      caches in between any such changes!

+
+      
Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can
+      accomplish the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file.
+      Probably the easiest way to deal with such problems when editing by
+      hand is to add your site to a { fragile }
+      section in user.action, which is an alias
+      that turns off most "dangerous" actions, but
+      is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
+      your privacy and protection more than necessary,

+
+      
Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the User Manual
+      appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action. There is also
+      an actions tutorial with general configuration information and
+      examples.

+
+      
As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting
+      that will bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers
+      can do this.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.5. After installing Privoxy,
+      I have to log in every time I start IE. What gives?

+
+      
This is a quirk that affects the installation of Privoxy, in conjunction with Internet Explorer and
+      Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The
+      symptoms may appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or
+      passwords.

+
+      
When setting up an NT based Windows system with Privoxy you may find that things do not seem to be
+      doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably
+      have set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking
+      (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You will probably
+      have made this DUN connection available to other accounts that you may
+      have set-up on your system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and
+      makes accounts suitably configured for the kids.

+
+      
When setting up Privoxy in this
+      environment you will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet
+      Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you wish to use
+      Privoxy. When you do this the ICS DUN
+      set-up becomes user specific. In this instance you will see no
+      difference if you change the DUN connection under the account used to
+      set-up the connection. However when you do this from another user you
+      will notice that the DUN connection changes to make available to "Me
+      only". You will also find that you have to store the password under
+      each different user!

+
+      
The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user
+      specific. Each set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE
+      store the settings for each user individually. As such this enforces
+      individual configurations rather than common ones. Hence the first time
+      you use a DUN connection after re-booting your system it may not
+      perform as you expect, and prompt you for the password. Just set and
+      save the password again and all should be OK.

+
+      
[Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]

+    

+
+    

+      
5.6. I cannot connect to any
+      FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.

+
+      
Privoxy cannot act as a proxy for
+      FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser to use Privoxy as an FTP proxy. The same is true for
+      any protocol other than HTTP
+      or HTTPS (SSL).

+
+      
Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a
+      site, with a URL like ftp://ftp.example.com,
+      your browser is making an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So
+      while your browser may speak FTP, Privoxy does not, and cannot proxy such
+      traffic.

+
+      
To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic "proxy" setting, which will enable various protocols,
+      including both
+      HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible to accidentally enable FTP
+      proxying in these cases. And of course, if this happens, Privoxy will indeed cause problems since it does
+      not know FTP. Newer version will give a sane error message if a FTP
+      connection is attempted. Just disable the FTP setting and all will be
+      well again.

+
+      
Will Privoxy ever proxy FTP
+      traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason, and the work to make
+      this happen is more than it may seem.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.7. In Mac OS X, I
+      can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP
+      proxy.

+
+      
Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects
+      system-wide network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open
+      System Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane
+      that comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)"
+      checkbox is checked and enter 127.0.0.1 in the
+      entry field. Enter 8118 in the Port field. The
+      next time you start IE, it should reflect these values.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.8.
+      In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
+      uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient
+      privileges to empty the trash.

+
+      
Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.

+
+      
Just dragging the Privoxy folder to
+      the trash is not enough to delete it. Privoxy supplies an uninstall.command file that takes care of these
+      details. Open the trash, drag the uninstall.command file out of the trash and
+      double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the
+      administration password.

+
+      
The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the
+      trash from the desktop should make it appear empty again.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.9. In Mac
+      OS X Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I experience
+      random delays in page loading. I'm using localhost as my browser's proxy setting.

+
+      
We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but don't
+      fully understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting
+      to 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost works around the problem.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.10. I just upgraded to Mac OS X 10.9
+      (Mavericks) and now Privoxy has
+      stopped working.

+
+      
The upgrade process to Mac OS X Mavericks (10.9) from an earlier
+      version of OS X deletes all user accounts that are either not part of
+      OS X itself or are not interactive user accounts (ones you log in
+      with). Since, for the sake of security, Privoxy runs as a non-privileged user that is
+      created by its installer (_privoxy), it can no longer start up once
+      that account gets deleted. The solution is to perform a complete
+      uninstall using the supplied uninstall.command script (either back up your
+      configuration files or select to not have the uninstaller remove them
+      when it prompts you) and then reinstall Privoxy using the installer package and merge in
+      your configuration.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.11. My logs
+      show many "Unable to get my own hostname"
+      lines. Why?

+
+      
Privoxy tries to get the hostname
+      of the system its running on from the IP address of the system
+      interface it is bound to (from the config
+      file listen-address setting). If the system cannot
+      supply this information, Privoxy logs
+      this condition.

+
+      
Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration
+      error. It is not a fatal error to Privoxy however, but may result in a much slower
+      response from Privoxy on some
+      platforms due to DNS timeouts.

+
+      
This can be caused by a problem with the local hosts file. If this file has been changed from the
+      original, try reverting it to see if that helps. Make sure whatever
+      name(s) are used for the local system, that they resolve both ways.

+
+      
You should also be able to work around the problem with the hostname
+      option.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.12. When I try to launch
+      Privoxy, I get an error message "port 8118 is
+      already in use" (or similar wording). Why?

+
+      
Port 8118 is Privoxy's default TCP
+      "listening" port. Typically this message
+      would mean that there is already one instance of Privoxy running, and your system is actually
+      trying to start a second Privoxy on
+      the same port, which will not work. (You can have multiple instances
+      but they must be assigned different ports.) How and why this might
+      happen varies from platform to platform, but you need to check your
+      installation and start-up procedures.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.13. Pages
+      with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.

+
+      
This may be the result of an overly aggressive filter. The filters
+      that are enabled in the default configuration aren't expected to cause
+      problems like this. If you enabled the "demoronizer" filter, please try temporarily disabling
+      it.

+
+      
If that doesn't help, temporarily disable all filters to see if
+      another filter could be the culprit. If the problem disappears, enable
+      the filters one by one, until the problem reappears and the offending
+      filter is found.

+
+      
Once the problem-causing filter is known, it can be fixed or
+      disabled.

+
+      
Upgrading Privoxy, or going to the
+      most recent default.action file available
+      from SourceForge might be worth a try, too.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.14. Why
+      are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy is
+      used?

+
+      
This may also be caused by an (overly aggressive filter in conjunction
+      with a web server that is misreporting the content type. By default
+      binary files are exempted from Privoxy's filtering (unless the web server by
+      mistake says the file is something else).

+    

+
+    

+      
5.15. What
+      is the "demoronizer" and why is it
+      there?

+
+      
The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML
+      pages which were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used
+      proprietary extensions to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1),
+      which has caused problems for pages that are viewed with non-Microsoft
+      products (and are expecting to see a standard set of fonts). The
+      demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages displayed correctly.
+      Privoxy borrowed from this script,
+      introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn
+      could correct these errors on the fly.

+
+      
But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious
+      problems in some other situations.

+
+      
If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need
+      to view pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then
+      it will cause corruption of the fonts, and thus should not be on.

+
+      
On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you
+      occasionally notice weird characters on pages, you might want to try
+      it.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.16. Why do I
+      keep seeing "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" in raw
+      source code?

+
+      
Privoxy is attempting to disable
+      malicious Javascript in this case, with the unsolicited-popups filter. Privoxy cannot tell very well "good" code snippets from "bad" code snippets.

+
+      
If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without
+      problems, then this is good, and likely some pop-up window was
+      disabled. If you see this where it is causing a problem, such as a
+      downloaded program source code file, then you should set an exception
+      for this site or page such that the integrity of the page stays in tact
+      by disabling all filtering.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.17. I am getting
+      too many DNS errors like "404 No Such
+      Domain". Why can't Privoxy do this better?

+
+      
There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS
+      resolution is done by the underlying operating system -- not
+      Privoxy itself. Privoxy merely initiates the process and hands it
+      off, and then later reports whatever the outcome was and tries to give
+      a coherent message if there seems to be a problem. In some cases, this
+      might otherwise be mitigated by the browser itself which might try some
+      work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g adding "www." to the URL).

+
+      
In other cases, if Privoxy is being
+      chained with another proxy, this could complicate the issue, and cause
+      undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a "socks4a" proxy, the socks server handles all the DNS.
+      Privoxy would just be the "messenger" which is reporting whatever problem occurred
+      downstream, and not the root cause of the error.

+
+      
In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements
+      to help Privoxy better handle these
+      cases.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.18. At one site
+      Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU. Why is this?

+
+      
This is probably a manifestation of the "100%
+      cpu" problem that occurs on pages containing many (thousands
+      upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are in the raw HTML
+      source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the pattern
+      matching in Privoxy's page filtering
+      mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this
+      becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long time to complete.

+
+      
Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these
+      pages, particularly the js-annoyances and
+      unsolicited-popups filters. If you run into
+      this problem with a recent Privoxy
+      version, please send a problem report.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.19. I just
+      installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has slowed to a crawl. What
+      gives?

+
+      
This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users
+      world-wide, it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent
+      interaction of software components such as anti-virus software, spyware
+      protectors, personal firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or
+      uninstalling) these one at a time and see if that helps. Either way, if
+      you are using a recent Privoxy
+      version, please report the problem.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.20. Why do
+      my filters work on some sites but not on others?

+
+      
It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web
+      servers to send their content "compressed"
+      in order to speed things up, and then let the browser "uncompress" them. When compiled with zlib support
+      Privoxy can decompress content before
+      filtering, otherwise you may want to enable prevent-compression.

+
+      
As of Privoxy 3.0.9, zlib support
+      is enabled in the default builds.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.21. On
+      some HTTPS sites my browser warns me about unauthenticated content, the
+      URL bar doesn't get highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be
+      broken. What's going on?

+
+      
Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and
+      Privoxy is blocking the requests.
+      Privoxy's error messages are delivered unencrypted and while it's
+      obvious for the browser that the HTTPS request is already blocked by
+      the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated content anyway.

+
+      
To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an
+      invalid local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects
+      aren't encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply follow
+      the redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error message
+      instead of the ad.

+
+      
To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked
+      by Privoxy and add the hosts (no path
+      patterns) to a section like this:

+
+      
-          
-          
-          

         

-            Miscellaneous
-          
-             
-          
-            Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+          
+            
+{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
+.ivwbox.de:443/
+

           		
         

       

+
+      
Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact
+      "127.0.0.1:0" directly (instead of through
+      Privoxy).

+
+      
To add a proxy exception in Mozilla
+      Firefox open the "Preferences", click
+      the "Settings" button located on the
+      "Network" tab in the "Advanced" section, and add "127.0.0.1:0" in the "No Proxy
+      for:" field.

     

-  
-
 
+    

+      
5.22. I get selinux
+      error messages. How can I fix this?

+
+      
Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux
+      policies.

+
+      
The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar with
+      the application they are trying to "secure"
+      and thus create policies that make no sense.

+
+      
In Privoxy's case the problem
+      usually is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for certain
+      destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover the standard
+      ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well. This isn't a
+      security problem and therefore Privoxy's default configuration doesn't block
+      these requests.

+
+      
If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able to load
+      websites that don't use standard ports), you should configure Privoxy
+      to block these ports as well, so it doesn't trigger the selinux
+      warnings.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.23. I
+      compiled Privoxy with Gentoo's portage
+      and it appears to be very slow. Why?

+
+      
Probably you unintentionally compiled Privoxy without threading support in which case
+      requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at the same
+      time.

+
+      
Check your "USE" flags and make sure they
+      include "threads". If they don't, add the
+      flag and rebuild Privoxy.

+
+      
If you compiled Privoxy with
+      threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the "Conditional #defines" section on http://config.privoxy.org/show-status will list "FEATURE_PTHREAD" as "enabled".

+    

+
+    

+      
5.24.
+      What are tainted sockets and how do I prevent them?

+
+      
Privoxy marks sockets as tainted
+      when it can't use them to serve additional requests. This does not
+      necessarily mean that something went wrong and information about
+      tainted sockets is only logged if connection debugging is enabled
+      (debug 2).

+
+      
For example server sockets that were used for CONNECT requests
+      (which are used to tunnel https:// requests) are considered tainted
+      once the client closed its connection to Privoxy. Technically Privoxy could keep the connection to the server
+      open, but the server would not accept requests that do not belong to
+      the previous TLS/SSL session (and the client may even have terminated
+      the session).

+
+      
Server sockets are also marked tainted when a client requests a
+      resource, but closes the connection before Privoxy has completely received (and forwarded)
+      the resource to the client. In this case the server would (probably)
+      accept additional requests, but Privoxy could not get the response without
+      completely reading the leftovers from the previous response.

+
+      
These are just two examples, there are currently a bit more than 25
+      scenarios in which a socket is considered tainted.

+
+      
While sockets can also be marked tainted as a result of a technical
+      problem that may be worth fixing, the problem will be explicitly logged
+      as error.

+    

+
+    

+      
5.25. After adding my custom filters, Privoxy crashes when visitting certain
+      websites

+
+      
This can happen if your custom filters require more memory than
+      Privoxy is allowed to use. Usually the
+      problem is that the operating system enforces a stack size limit that
+      isn't sufficient.

+
+      
Unless the problem occurs with the filters available in the default
+      configuration, this is not considered a Privoxy bug.

+
+      
To prevent the crashes you can rewrite your filter to use less
+      ressources, increase the relevant memory limit or recompile pcre to use
+      less stack space. For details please see the pcrestack man page and the documentation of your operating
+      system.

+    

+  
+
+  

+    

+
+    
+      
+        
+
+        
+
+        
+      
+
+      
+        
+
+        
+
+        
+      
+    
PrevHomeNext
Miscellaneous Contacting the developers,
+        Bug Reporting and Feature Requests

+  

+
+