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+ <div class="SECT1">
+ <h1 class="SECT1"><a name="TROUBLE" id="TROUBLE">5. Troubleshooting</a></h1>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="REFUSED" id="REFUSED">5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting
+ <span class="QUOTE">"connection refused"</span> message with every web page. Why?</a></h3>
+ <p>There are several possibilities:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not running. Solution: verify that <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running. Turn on
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logging, and look at the logs to see what they say.</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
+ using. Solution: verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and your browser are set to the same
+ port (<tt class="LITERAL">listen-address</tt>).</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution: try disabling or removing the
+ firewall as a simple test.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="ERROR503" id="ERROR503">5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every
+ page?</a></h3>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FLUSHIT" id="FLUSHIT">5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still
+ getting through. How?</a></h3>
+ <p>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 <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will not be involved. Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.</p>
+ <p>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 <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
+ "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> 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 <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logs (you may need to enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).</p>
+ <p>Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one requested URL: <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">www.example.com</tt> (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 <span class="QUOTE">"page"</span>. 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 <span class="QUOTE">"good"</span> or <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span>, 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. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has
+ <span class="QUOTE">"crunched"</span> (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps
+ missed a few as well.</p>
+ <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr>
- <th colspan="3" align="center">
- Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions
- </th>
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN"> Request: www.example.com/
+ Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
+ Request: img.example.com/main.css
+ Request: img.example.com/sr.js
+ Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
+ Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
+ Request: img.example.com/pb.png
+ Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: img.example.com/p.gif
+ Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
+ Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
+ Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
+ Request: img.example.com/mt.png
+ Request: img.example.com/mm.png
+ Request: img.example.com/mb.png
+ Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
+ Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
+ Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
+ Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
+ Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
+ Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
+ 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</pre>
+ </td>
</tr>
+ </table>
+ <p>Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to behave perfectly <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"normal"</span> (minus some ads, of course).</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="BADSITE" id="BADSITE">5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What
+ can I do?</a></h3>
+ <p>First verify that it is indeed a <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> problem, by toggling off
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> through <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target=
+ "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</a> (the toggle feature may need to be enabled in the main <tt class=
+ "FILENAME">config</tt>), 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).</p>
+ <p>If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem. Now go to <a href=
+ "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> 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 <span class="emphasis"><i class=
+ "EMPHASIS">required</i></span>. Now, armed with this information, go to <a href=
+ "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> and select the
+ appropriate actions files for editing.</p>
+ <p>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!</p>
+ <p>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 <tt class="LITERAL">{ fragile }</tt> section in <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, which is an
+ alias that turns off most <span class="QUOTE">"dangerous"</span> actions, but is also likely to turn off more
+ actions then needed, and thus lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,</p>
+ <p>Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <a href="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT"
+ target="_top">User Manual appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</a>. There is also an <a href=
+ "../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES" target="_top">actions tutorial</a> with general configuration
+ information and examples.</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DUN" id="DUN">5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE.
+ What gives?</a></h3>
+ <p>This is a quirk that affects the installation of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, 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.</p>
+ <p>When setting up an NT based Windows system with <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.</p>
+ <p>When setting up <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. 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!</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ <p>[Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FTP" id="FTP">5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.</a></h3>
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic, so do not configure your
+ browser to use <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <span class=
+ "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">any protocol other than HTTP or HTTPS (SSL)</i></span>.</p>
+ <p>Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with a URL like <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">ftp://ftp.example.com</tt>, your browser is making an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So
+ while your browser may speak FTP, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does not, and cannot proxy such
+ traffic.</p>
+ <p>To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <span class="QUOTE">"proxy"</span> setting, which will
+ enable various protocols, including <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">both</i></span> HTTP and FTP
+ proxying! So it is possible to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this happens,
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.</p>
+ <p>Will <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason,
+ and the work to make this happen is more than it may seem.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXIE" id="MACOSXIE">5.7. In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft Internet
+ Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</a></h3>
+ <p>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 <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> in the entry field. Enter <tt class="LITERAL">8118</tt> in the Port field. The next time
+ you start IE, it should reflect these values.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXUNINSTALL" id="MACOSXUNINSTALL">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.</a></h3>
+ <p>Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.</p>
+ <p>Just dragging the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> folder to the trash is not enough to delete it.
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supplies an <span class="APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file that
+ takes care of these details. Open the trash, drag the <span class="APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file out
+ of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the administration password.</p>
+ <p>The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash from the desktop should make it appear
+ empty again.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXIMAGES" id="MACOSXIMAGES">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 <tt class="LITERAL">localhost</tt> as my
+ browser's proxy setting.</a></h3>
+ <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
+ case, changing the proxy setting to <tt class="LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> instead of <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">localhost</tt> works around the problem.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXACCOUNTDELETION" id="MACOSXACCOUNTDELETION">5.10. I just upgraded to Mac OS X
+ 10.9 (Mavericks) and now <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has stopped working.</a></h3>
+ <p>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, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <span class="APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> script (either back up
+ your configuration files or select to not have the uninstaller remove them when it prompts you) and then
+ reinstall <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> using the installer package and merge in your
+ configuration.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="NOHOSTNAME" id="NOHOSTNAME">5.11. My logs show many <span class="QUOTE">"Unable to get
+ my own hostname"</span> lines. Why?</a></h3>
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt> file <span class=
+ "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">listen-address</i></span> setting). If the system cannot supply this information,
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> logs this condition.</p>
+ <p>Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is not a fatal error to
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> however, but may result in a much slower response from <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on some platforms due to DNS timeouts.</p>
+ <p>This can be caused by a problem with the local <tt class="FILENAME">hosts</tt> 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.</p>
+ <p>You should also be able to work around the problem with the <a href="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME"
+ target="_top">hostname option</a>.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="INUSE" id="INUSE">5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error message
+ <span class="QUOTE">"port 8118 is already in use"</span> (or similar wording). Why?</a></h3>
+ <p>Port 8118 is <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default TCP <span class="QUOTE">"listening"</span>
+ port. Typically this message would mean that there is already one instance of <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> running, and your system is actually trying to start a second <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER" id="DEMORONIZER">5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.</a></h3>
+ <p>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 <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> filter, please try temporarily disabling it.</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ <p>Once the problem-causing filter is known, it can be fixed or disabled.</p>
+ <p>Upgrading <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or going to the most recent <tt class=
+ "FILENAME">default.action</tt> file available from <a href=
+ "https://www.privoxy.org/gitweb/?p=privoxy.git;a=blob_plain;f=default.action.master;hb=HEAD" target=
+ "_top">git</a> might be worth a try, too.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER2" id="DEMORONIZER2">5.14. Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted
+ when Privoxy is used?</a></h3>
+ <p>This may also be caused by an (<a href="trouble.html#DEMORONIZER">overly aggressive filter</a> in conjunction
+ with a web server that is misreporting the content type. By default binary files are exempted from <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> filtering (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else).</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER3" id="DEMORONIZER3">5.15. What is the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> and why is it there?</a></h3>
+ <p>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. <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> borrowed from this script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer,
+ which in turn could correct these errors on the fly.</p>
+ <p>But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some other situations.</p>
+ <p>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 <span class="emphasis"><i class=
+ "EMPHASIS">should not be on</i></span>.</p>
+ <p>On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally notice weird characters on pages,
+ you might want to try it.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="WINDOWOPEN" id="WINDOWOPEN">5.16. Why do I keep seeing <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"PrivoxyWindowOpen()"</span> in raw source code?</a></h3>
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is attempting to disable malicious <a href=
+ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" target="_top">Javascript</a> in this case, with the <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filter. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot tell very well
+ <span class="QUOTE">"good"</span> code snippets from <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span> code snippets.</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DNSERRORS" id="DNSERRORS">5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"404 No Such Domain"</span>. Why can't Privoxy do this better?</a></h3>
+ <p>There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution is done by the underlying
+ operating system -- not <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> itself. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
+ 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 <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"www."</span> to the URL).</p>
+ <p>In other cases, if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is being chained with another proxy, this could
+ complicate the issue, and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a <span class="QUOTE">"socks4a"</span>
+ proxy, the socks server handles all the DNS. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> would just be the
+ <span class="QUOTE">"messenger"</span> which is reporting whatever problem occurred downstream, and not the root
+ cause of the error.</p>
+ <p>In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements to help <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> better handle these cases.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="ALLCPU" id="ALLCPU">5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU.
+ Why is this?</a></h3>
+ <p>This is probably a manifestation of the <span class="QUOTE">"100% cpu"</span> 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 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span>
+ page filtering mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive,
+ taking a long, long time to complete.</p>
+ <p>Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these pages, particularly the <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">js-annoyances</tt> and <tt class="LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filters. If you run into this
+ problem with a recent <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please send a problem report.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SLOWCRAWL" id="SLOWCRAWL">5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has
+ slowed to a crawl. What gives?</a></h3>
+ <p>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 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please report the
+ problem.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="PREVENTCOMP" id="PREVENTCOMP">5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites but not on
+ others?</a></h3>
+ <p>It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to send their content <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"compressed"</span> in order to speed things up, and then let the browser <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"uncompress"</span> them. When compiled with zlib support <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can
+ decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to enable <a href=
+ "../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION" target="_top">prevent-compression</a>.</p>
+ <p>As of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.9, zlib support is enabled in the default builds.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SSL-WARNINGS" id="SSL-WARNINGS">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?</a></h3>
+ <p>Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ <p>To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked by <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and add the hosts (no path patterns) to a section like this:</p>
+ <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr>
- <td width="10%" align="left" valign="bottom">
- <a href="misc.html" accesskey="P">Prev</a>
- </td>
- <td width="80%" align="center" valign="bottom">
- </td>
- <td width="10%" align="right" valign="bottom">
- <a href="contact.html" accesskey="N">Next</a>
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN"> {+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
+ .ivwbox.de:443/</pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
- <hr align="LEFT" width="100%">
+ <p>Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact <span class="QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> directly
+ (instead of through <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>).</p>
+ <p>To add a proxy exception in <span class="APPLICATION">Mozilla Firefox</span> open the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"Preferences"</span>, click the <span class="QUOTE">"Settings"</span> button located on the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"Network"</span> tab in the <span class="QUOTE">"Advanced"</span> section, and add <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> in the <span class="QUOTE">"No Proxy for:"</span> field.</p>
+ <p>You can also prevent the problem by enabling <a href="../user-manual/actions-file.html#HTTPS-INSPECTION"
+ target="_top">https-inspection</a> in which case Privoxy's error messages are delivered encrypted.</p>
</div>
- <div class="SECT1">
- <h1 class="SECT1">
- <a name="TROUBLE">5. Troubleshooting</a>
- </h1>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="REFUSED">5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am
- getting <span class="QUOTE">"connection refused"</span> message
- with every web page. Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- There are several possibilities:
- </p>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not running.
- Solution: verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running.
- Turn on <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logging, and
- look at the logs to see what they say.
- </p>
- </li>
- <li>
- <p>
- Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is using. Solution:
- verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and your
- browser are set to the same port (<tt class=
- "LITERAL">listen-address</tt>).
- </p>
- </li>
- <li>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- </li>
- <li>
- <p>
- Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you.
- Solution: try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple
- test.
- </p>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="ERROR503">5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error
- (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="FLUSHIT">5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad
- is still getting through. How?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will not be involved.
- Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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 <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> 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
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logs (you may need to
- enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).
- </p>
- <p>
- Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates
- with one requested URL: <tt class="LITERAL">www.example.com</tt>
- (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 <span class="QUOTE">"page"</span>. 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 <span class=
- "QUOTE">"good"</span> or <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span>, 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. <span
- class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has <span class=
- "QUOTE">"crunched"</span> (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few
- items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
- </p>
- <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
- <tr>
- <td>
-<pre class="SCREEN">
-Request: www.example.com/
-Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
-Request: img.example.com/main.css
-Request: img.example.com/sr.js
-Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
-Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
-Request: img.example.com/pb.png
-Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: img.example.com/p.gif
-Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
-Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
-Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
-Request: img.example.com/mt.png
-Request: img.example.com/mm.png
-Request: img.example.com/mb.png
-Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
-Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
-Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
-Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
-Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
-Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
-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
-</pre>
- </td>
- </tr>
- </table>
-
- <p>
- Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and
- seemed to behave perfectly <span class="QUOTE">"normal"</span>
- (minus some ads, of course).
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="BADSITE">5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with
- Privoxy. What can I do?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- First verify that it is indeed a <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> problem, by toggling off <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> through <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</a> (the toggle feature may
- need to be enabled in the main <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt>),
- 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).
- </p>
- <p>
- If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related
- problem. Now go to <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> 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 <span class=
- "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">required</i></span>. Now, armed with
- this information, go to <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> and select the
- appropriate actions files for editing.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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 <tt class="LITERAL">{ fragile }</tt>
- section in <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, which is an alias
- that turns off most <span class="QUOTE">"dangerous"</span> actions,
- but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus
- lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,
- </p>
- <p>
- Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <a href=
- "../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT" target="_top">User
- Manual appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</a>.
- There is also an <a href=
- "../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES" target=
- "_top">actions tutorial</a> with general configuration information
- and examples.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DUN">5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every
- time I start IE. What gives?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This is a quirk that affects the installation of <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- When setting up an NT based Windows system with <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- When setting up <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. 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!
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="FTP">5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is
- blocking me.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot act as a proxy for
- FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser to use <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> as an FTP proxy. The same is true for
- <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">any protocol other than
- HTTP or HTTPS (SSL)</i></span>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a
- site, with a URL like <tt class=
- "LITERAL">ftp://ftp.example.com</tt>, your browser is making an FTP
- connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
- speak FTP, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does not, and
- cannot proxy such traffic.
- </p>
- <p>
- To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <span class=
- "QUOTE">"proxy"</span> setting, which will enable various
- protocols, including <span class="emphasis"><i class=
- "EMPHASIS">both</i></span> HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible
- to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course,
- if this happens, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Will <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ever proxy FTP
- traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason, and the work to
- make this happen is more than it may seem.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXIE">5.7. In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft
- Internet Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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 <tt class=
- "LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> in the entry field. Enter <tt class=
- "LITERAL">8118</tt> in the Port field. The next time you start IE,
- it should reflect these values.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXUNINSTALL">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.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.
- </p>
- <p>
- Just dragging the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> folder
- to the trash is not enough to delete it. <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supplies an <span class=
- "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file that takes care of
- these details. Open the trash, drag the <span class=
- "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file out of the trash and
- double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the
- administration password.
- </p>
- <p>
- The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the
- trash from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXIMAGES">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 <tt class="LITERAL">localhost</tt> as my
- browser's proxy setting.</a>
- </h3>
- <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 case, changing the
- proxy setting to <tt class="LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> instead of <tt
- class="LITERAL">localhost</tt> works around the problem.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXACCOUNTDELETION">5.10. I just upgraded to Mac OS X
- 10.9 (Mavericks) and now <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- has stopped working.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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, <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <span class=
- "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> script (either back up your
- configuration files or select to not have the uninstaller remove
- them when it prompts you) and then reinstall <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> using the installer package and merge
- in your configuration.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="NOHOSTNAME">5.11. My logs show many <span class=
- "QUOTE">"Unable to get my own hostname"</span> lines. Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt>
- file <span class="emphasis"><i class=
- "EMPHASIS">listen-address</i></span> setting). If the system cannot
- supply this information, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- logs this condition.
- </p>
- <p>
- Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration
- error. It is not a fatal error to <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> however, but may result in a much
- slower response from <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on
- some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
- </p>
- <p>
- This can be caused by a problem with the local <tt class=
- "FILENAME">hosts</tt> 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- You should also be able to work around the problem with the <a
- href="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME" target="_top">hostname
- option</a>.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="INUSE">5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error
- message <span class="QUOTE">"port 8118 is already in use"</span>
- (or similar wording). Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Port 8118 is <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default TCP
- <span class="QUOTE">"listening"</span> port. Typically this message
- would mean that there is already one instance of <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> running, and your system is actually
- trying to start a second <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- 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.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DEMORONIZER">5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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 <span class=
- "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> filter, please try temporarily
- disabling it.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- Once the problem-causing filter is known, it can be fixed or
- disabled.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upgrading <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or going to the
- most recent <tt class="FILENAME">default.action</tt> file available
- from <a href=
- "https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118"
- target="_top">SourceForge</a> might be worth a try, too.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DEMORONIZER2">5.14. Why are binary files (such as images)
- corrupted when Privoxy is used?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This may also be caused by an (<a href=
- "trouble.html#DEMORONIZER">overly aggressive filter</a> in
- conjunction with a web server that is misreporting the content
- type. By default binary files are exempted from <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> filtering (unless the web server by
- mistake says the file is something else).
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DEMORONIZER3">5.15. What is the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> and why is it there?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- borrowed from this script, introducing a filter based on the
- original demoronizer, which in turn could correct these errors on
- the fly.
- </p>
- <p>
- But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious
- problems in some other situations.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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
- <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">should not be
- on</i></span>.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you
- occasionally notice weird characters on pages, you might want to
- try it.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="WINDOWOPEN">5.16. Why do I keep seeing <span class=
- "QUOTE">"PrivoxyWindowOpen()"</span> in raw source code?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is attempting to disable
- malicious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" target=
- "_top">Javascript</a> in this case, with the <tt class=
- "LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filter. <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot tell very well <span class=
- "QUOTE">"good"</span> code snippets from <span class=
- "QUOTE">"bad"</span> code snippets.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DNSERRORS">5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like
- <span class="QUOTE">"404 No Such Domain"</span>. Why can't Privoxy
- do this better?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS
- resolution is done by the underlying operating system -- not <span
- class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> itself. <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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 <span class="QUOTE">"www."</span> to the URL).
- </p>
- <p>
- In other cases, if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
- being chained with another proxy, this could complicate the issue,
- and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a <span class=
- "QUOTE">"socks4a"</span> proxy, the socks server handles all the
- DNS. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> would just be the
- <span class="QUOTE">"messenger"</span> which is reporting whatever
- problem occurred downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
- </p>
- <p>
- In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements
- to help <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> better handle
- these cases.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="ALLCPU">5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts
- taking all CPU. Why is this?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This is probably a manifestation of the <span class="QUOTE">"100%
- cpu"</span> 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 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> page
- filtering mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long
- strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long
- time to complete.
- </p>
- <p>
- Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these
- pages, particularly the <tt class="LITERAL">js-annoyances</tt> and
- <tt class="LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filters. If you run
- into this problem with a recent <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please send a problem report.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="SLOWCRAWL">5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my
- browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- 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 <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please report the problem.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="PREVENTCOMP">5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites
- but not on others?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web
- servers to send their content <span class=
- "QUOTE">"compressed"</span> in order to speed things up, and then
- let the browser <span class="QUOTE">"uncompress"</span> them. When
- compiled with zlib support <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- can decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to
- enable <a href=
- "../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION" target=
- "_top">prevent-compression</a>.
- </p>
- <p>
- As of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.9, zlib support
- is enabled in the default builds.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="SSL-WARNINGS">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?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and <span
- class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- <p>
- To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked
- by <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and add the hosts (no
- path patterns) to a section like this:
- </p>
- <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
- <tr>
- <td>
-<pre class="SCREEN">
-{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
-.ivwbox.de:443/
-</pre>
- </td>
- </tr>
- </table>
-
- <p>
- Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact <span
- class="QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> directly (instead of through
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>).
- </p>
- <p>
- To add a proxy exception in <span class="APPLICATION">Mozilla
- Firefox</span> open the <span class="QUOTE">"Preferences"</span>,
- click the <span class="QUOTE">"Settings"</span> button located on
- the <span class="QUOTE">"Network"</span> tab in the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"Advanced"</span> section, and add <span class=
- "QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> in the <span class="QUOTE">"No Proxy
- for:"</span> field.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="SE-LINUX">5.22. I get selinux error messages. How can I
- fix this?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.
- </p>
- <p>
- The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar
- with the application they are trying to <span class=
- "QUOTE">"secure"</span> and thus create policies that make no
- sense.
- </p>
- <p>
- In <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> 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 <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default configuration doesn't block
- these requests.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="GENTOO-RICERS">5.23. I compiled <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with Gentoo's portage and it appears
- to be very slow. Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Probably you unintentionally compiled <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without threading support in which
- case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at
- the same time.
- </p>
- <p>
- Check your <span class="QUOTE">"USE"</span> flags and make sure
- they include <span class="QUOTE">"threads"</span>. If they don't,
- add the flag and rebuild <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with
- threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"Conditional #defines"</span> section on <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> will list <span
- class="QUOTE">"FEATURE_PTHREAD"</span> as <span class=
- "QUOTE">"enabled"</span>.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="TAINTED-SOCKETS">5.24. What are tainted sockets and how do
- I prevent them?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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).
- </p>
- <p>
- 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 <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. Technically <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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).
- </p>
- <p>
- Server sockets are also marked tainted when a client requests a
- resource, but closes the connection before <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has completely received (and
- forwarded) the resource to the client. In this case the server
- would (probably) accept additional requests, but <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> could not get the response without
- completely reading the leftovers from the previous response.
- </p>
- <p>
- These are just two examples, there are currently a bit more than 25
- scenarios in which a socket is considered tainted.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="PCRE-STACK-LIMIT">5.25. After adding my custom filters,
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> crashes when visitting
- certain websites</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This can happen if your custom filters require more memory than
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is allowed to use. Usually
- the problem is that the operating system enforces a stack size
- limit that isn't sufficient.
- </p>
- <p>
- Unless the problem occurs with the filters available in the default
- configuration, this is not considered a Privoxy bug.
- </p>
- <p>
- 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 <a href=
- "http://pcre.org/original/doc/html/pcrestack.html" target=
- "_top">pcrestack man page</a> and the documentation of your
- operating system.
- </p>
- </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SE-LINUX" id="SE-LINUX">5.22. I get selinux error messages. How can I fix
+ this?</a></h3>
+ <p>Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.</p>
+ <p>The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar with the application they are trying to
+ <span class="QUOTE">"secure"</span> and thus create policies that make no sense.</p>
+ <p>In <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> 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 <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default configuration doesn't block these requests.</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="GENTOO-RICERS" id="GENTOO-RICERS">5.23. I compiled <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with Gentoo's portage and it appears to be very slow. Why?</a></h3>
+ <p>Probably you unintentionally compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without threading support in
+ which case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at the same time.</p>
+ <p>Check your <span class="QUOTE">"USE"</span> flags and make sure they include <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"threads"</span>. If they don't, add the flag and rebuild <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.</p>
+ <p>If you compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the
+ <span class="QUOTE">"Conditional #defines"</span> section on <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status"
+ target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> will list <span class="QUOTE">"FEATURE_PTHREAD"</span> as
+ <span class="QUOTE">"enabled"</span>.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="TAINTED-SOCKETS" id="TAINTED-SOCKETS">5.24. What are tainted sockets and how do I
+ prevent them?</a></h3>
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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).</p>
+ <p>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 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.
+ Technically <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 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).</p>
+ <p>Server sockets are also marked tainted when a client requests a resource, but closes the connection before
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has completely received (and forwarded) the resource to the client. In
+ this case the server would (probably) accept additional requests, but <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
+ could not get the response without completely reading the leftovers from the previous response.</p>
+ <p>These are just two examples, there are currently a bit more than 25 scenarios in which a socket is considered
+ tainted.</p>
+ <p>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.</p>
</div>
- <div class="NAVFOOTER">
- <hr align="LEFT" width="100%">
- <table summary="Footer navigation table" width="100%" border="0"
- cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="PCRE-STACK-LIMIT" id="PCRE-STACK-LIMIT">5.25. After adding my custom filters,
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> crashes when visitting certain websites</a></h3>
+ <p>This can happen if your custom filters require more memory than <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
+ allowed to use. Usually the problem is that the operating system enforces a stack size limit that isn't
+ sufficient.</p>
+ <p>Unless the problem occurs with the filters available in the default configuration, this is not considered a
+ Privoxy bug.</p>
+ <p>To prevent the crashes you can rewrite your filter to use less resources, increase the relevant memory limit
+ or recompile pcre to use less stack space. For details please see the <a href=
+ "https://pcre.org/original/doc/html/pcrestack.html" target="_top">pcrestack man page</a> and the documentation of
+ your operating system.</p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FILE-PERMISSIONS" id="FILE-PERMISSIONS">5.26. What to do if editing the config file of
+ privoxy is access denied?</a></h3>
+ <p>Your userid probably isn't allowed to edit the file. On Windows you can use the windows equivalent of
+ sudo:</p>
+ <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr>
- <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">
- <a href="misc.html" accesskey="P">Prev</a>
- </td>
- <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top">
- <a href="index.html" accesskey="H">Home</a>
- </td>
- <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">
- <a href="contact.html" accesskey="N">Next</a>
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN"> runas /user:administrator "notepad \privoxy\config.txt"</pre>
</td>
</tr>
+ </table>
+ <p>or fix the file permissions:</p>
+ <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr>
- <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">
- Miscellaneous
- </td>
- <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top">
-
- </td>
- <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">
- Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN"> C:\Privoxy>icacls config.txt
+ config.txt BUILTIN\Administrators:(I)(F)
+ NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(I)(F)
+ BUILTIN\Users:(I)(RX)
+ NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users:(I)(M)
+
+ Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files
+
+ C:\Privoxy>icacls config.txt /grant Lee:F
+ processed file: config.txt
+ Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files
+
+ C:\Privoxy>icacls config.txt
+ config.txt I3668\Lee:(F)
+ BUILTIN\Administrators:(I)(F)
+ NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(I)(F)
+ BUILTIN\Users:(I)(RX)
+ NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users:(I)(M)
+
+ Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files
+
+ C:\Privoxy></pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
+ <p>or try to point-n-click your way through adjusting the file permissions in windows explorer.</p>
</div>
- </body>
+ </div>
+ <div class="NAVFOOTER">
+ <hr align="left" width="100%">
+ <table summary="Footer navigation table" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
+ <tr>
+ <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top"><a href="misc.html" accesskey="P">Prev</a></td>
+ <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top"><a href="index.html" accesskey="H">Home</a></td>
+ <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top"><a href="contact.html" accesskey="N">Next</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">Miscellaneous</td>
+ <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top"> </td>
+ <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</td>
+ </tr>
+ </table>
+ </div>
+</body>
</html>
-
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff