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Firefox Ver. 34.0.5 fails to render Youtube website. CSS not working. Ideas?

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  • Last reply by gemesys

gemesys
gemesys
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Youtube.com website not rendering (CSS requests are not working), and videos not accessable. This is not related to any plugin issues, such as Flash, etc. The youtube.com main page renders like an experimental HTML document, with no style-sheet info. I've attached screen images to show what it looks like.

I found one other similiar situation, in Arch-Linux, where the problem turned out to be a DNS configuration issue. I have tried many DNS configurations, and confirm I can get to every other website, and they seem to render ok. I can even watch videos on other websites, if I enable the Flash plugin. I have removed and re-installed Firefox at least three times, as I have it working correctly on several other machines (LInux and Windows ). The problem machine runs Windows XP, SP3, and is an older HP box. Note that all other websites seem to render correctly, and videos are watchable. It appears to be related to i.ytimg.com CSS (cascading style sheet) access just not working, but only for Youtube. Any ideas? Three detailed screen captures are provided below. I tried removing the firewall restrictions, made no difference. I also did a detailed scan for virus issues and malware, but no evidence of any found. I'm stymied. Any suggestions appreciated. One issue might be the recent TOR browser bundle, which I have installed on the machine. It works fine, and renders Youtube.com, but videos are slow. TOR documentation and technical reports assert that TOR-browser does not interact with existing browsers (it is Firefox 31.xx, I think.) TOR does establish proxy settings, and I have confirmed the Ver. 34 non-TOR Firefox is configured to not use any proxy setting. I am running out of ideas here. This behaviour is strange. Any suggestions how I can detail debug Firefox in operation as it does this broken rendering? The error even affects earlier versions of Firefox.

Youtube.com website not rendering (CSS requests are not working), and videos not accessable. This is not related to any plugin issues, such as Flash, etc. The youtube.com main page renders like an experimental HTML document, with no style-sheet info. I've attached screen images to show what it looks like. I found one other similiar situation, in Arch-Linux, where the problem turned out to be a DNS configuration issue. I have tried many DNS configurations, and confirm I can get to every other website, and they seem to render ok. I can even watch videos on other websites, if I enable the Flash plugin. I have removed and re-installed Firefox at least three times, as I have it working correctly on several other machines (LInux and Windows ). The problem machine runs Windows XP, SP3, and is an older HP box. Note that all other websites seem to render correctly, and videos are watchable. It appears to be related to i.ytimg.com CSS (cascading style sheet) access just not working, but only for Youtube. Any ideas? Three detailed screen captures are provided below. I tried removing the firewall restrictions, made no difference. I also did a detailed scan for virus issues and malware, but no evidence of any found. I'm stymied. Any suggestions appreciated. One issue might be the recent TOR browser bundle, which I have installed on the machine. It works fine, and renders Youtube.com, but videos are slow. TOR documentation and technical reports assert that TOR-browser does not interact with existing browsers (it is Firefox 31.xx, I think.) TOR does establish proxy settings, and I have confirmed the Ver. 34 non-TOR Firefox is configured to not use any proxy setting. I am running out of ideas here. This behaviour is strange. Any suggestions how I can detail debug Firefox in operation as it does this broken rendering? The error even affects earlier versions of Firefox.
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

      • SOLVED ***  !!!

Got it! I have spent *days* on this, because it just bugged me so much!

FOund it by searching and reading all the Mozilla FIrefox support forums.

Problem was an old hard-coded fix that I put into my HOSTS file, on my Windows XP, SP3 machine. Specifically, I had experienced hang issues with a site called "i.ytimg.com", which I believe is the static cache for Google/Youtube stuff. I tracked this error down to failures of security certificates, but confirmed my security cert store was isometric between my machine cluster (they were all the damn same!) So, I had put two lines in the HOSTS file, to hard-code an IP address so that Google-youtube pages would not hang up waiting for "i.ytimg.com" Well, of course, Google/Youtube is now using different locations, or akami servers or some damn thing...

The fix just involved removing these two hard-coded lines from my HOSTS file. I just commented the old fix out, and now everything works. 

# --- two lines added to fix i.ytimg.com hang problem
# 74.125.162.39        static.cache.l.google.com   s.ytimg.com
# 74.125.162.39        static.cache.l.google.com   i.ytimg.com

(The # symbol is used to make a comment in hosts file... )

On Windows XP, XP3, the "hosts" file is typically located in: 

     C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If you are having goofy problems with some youtube/google webpages not rendering, or generating SSL (bad_certificate) errors, check your "hosts" file, and ensure no ip redirection has been slotted in there from a while back.

Hope this helps others... - Mark Langdon, GEMESYS Ltd.

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gemesys
gemesys Question owner
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Chosen Solution

      • SOLVED ***  !!!

Got it! I have spent *days* on this, because it just bugged me so much!

FOund it by searching and reading all the Mozilla FIrefox support forums.

Problem was an old hard-coded fix that I put into my HOSTS file, on my Windows XP, SP3 machine. Specifically, I had experienced hang issues with a site called "i.ytimg.com", which I believe is the static cache for Google/Youtube stuff. I tracked this error down to failures of security certificates, but confirmed my security cert store was isometric between my machine cluster (they were all the damn same!) So, I had put two lines in the HOSTS file, to hard-code an IP address so that Google-youtube pages would not hang up waiting for "i.ytimg.com" Well, of course, Google/Youtube is now using different locations, or akami servers or some damn thing...

The fix just involved removing these two hard-coded lines from my HOSTS file. I just commented the old fix out, and now everything works. 

# --- two lines added to fix i.ytimg.com hang problem
# 74.125.162.39        static.cache.l.google.com   s.ytimg.com
# 74.125.162.39        static.cache.l.google.com   i.ytimg.com

(The # symbol is used to make a comment in hosts file... )

On Windows XP, XP3, the "hosts" file is typically located in: 

     C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If you are having goofy problems with some youtube/google webpages not rendering, or generating SSL (bad_certificate) errors, check your "hosts" file, and ensure no ip redirection has been slotted in there from a while back.

Hope this helps others... - Mark Langdon, GEMESYS Ltd.