Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Is FF stripping the referrer header?

more options

A site I use processes funds using Stripe. Yesterday when trying to add funds to my account I got the following message: "You passed an empty string for 'referrer'. We assume empty values are an attempt to unset a parameter; however 'referrer' cannot be unset. You should remove 'referrer' from your request or supply a non-empty value."

A site I use processes funds using Stripe. Yesterday when trying to add funds to my account I got the following message: "You passed an empty string for 'referrer'. We assume empty values are an attempt to unset a parameter; however 'referrer' cannot be unset. You should remove 'referrer' from your request or supply a non-empty value."

Chosen solution

Thanks cor-el! One of my extensions is Privacy Badger. Turning it off while on the misbehaving page had no effect but turning it off one page prior solved my problem. Apparently the Stripe implementation looks for the referrer header and if Privacy Badger is running when you arrive on that page there is no referrer header. Turning off Privacy Badger before going to the page to add funds solved my problem.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (6)

more options

FF Quantum 60.0.1

more options

Did you contact the site support on the problem? What financial system are we talking about here?

more options

WestEnd said

Did you contact the site support on the problem?

Yes. The website in question does not know why the error is happening.

WestEnd said
What financial system are we talking about here?

US dollars

more options

Hi, no info was sent along with your question as possibly turned off so have no idea of Extensions, video Card Drivers and possible corruption nor anything. Nothing supplied other than the issue.

There is security software like Avast, Kaspersky, BitDefender and ESET that intercept secure connections and send their own certificate. This could cause a issue with what you are speaking of.

Do you know the sites that had the missing information so can test against it ? ?

If so please try this on while looking at the sites/ or what ever you were trying to do : SAFE MODE

In Firefox Safe mode these changes are effective:

  • all extensions are disabled (about:addons)
  • default theme is used (no persona)
  • userChrome.css and userContent.css are ignored (chrome folder)
  • default toolbar layout is used (file: localstore-safe.rdf)
  • Javascript JIT compilers are disabled (prefs: javascript.options.*jit)
  • hardware acceleration is disabled (Options > Advanced > General)
  • plugins are not affected
  • preferences are not affected

TEST''''is issue still there ?

more options

This can happen if "Resist Fingerprinting" is enabled.

more options

Chosen Solution

Thanks cor-el! One of my extensions is Privacy Badger. Turning it off while on the misbehaving page had no effect but turning it off one page prior solved my problem. Apparently the Stripe implementation looks for the referrer header and if Privacy Badger is running when you arrive on that page there is no referrer header. Turning off Privacy Badger before going to the page to add funds solved my problem.