windows 8 - Visiting sites previously never visited results in page not found or junk CSS

08
2014-07

CodeWarrior

I have recently inherited a workstation which I installed a brand new SSD in and then installed Windows 8 (I previously have not bothered with it). Bypassing Internet Explorer, I immediately installed Chrome and retrieved all of my settings and extensions and what-not.

When visiting a site which I have not yet visited on this computer, I am first met with "Oops! Google Chrome could not find www.tomshardware.com". After a refresh I get the page I am trying to load, but it has no CSS applied, and so the page is nigh on un-usable. A further refresh yields the page properly formatted. What gives? Anyone else encountered this behavior?

I have reset the profile in Chrome and cleared caches and remove/created firewall rules, and so far nothing has fixed the problem.

Answers

CodeWarrior

This was due to a hacked router. Party unknown used an exploit where they could request a password change on my router without authenticating themselves. Then they changed the DNS server values on the router. This interrupted most of my browsing traffic and eventually started directing me to nefarious Windows Update and Shockwave Update pages urging me to update those softwares.

Caution

Anyone seeing the above symptoms, try logging into your router. If you cannot and you absolutely know that your password is correct, you have been DNS-jacked. You will need to perform a factory reset on the router, and I would urge you to update the firmware ASAP. In my case the exploit was identifed several versions back, but looking through the changelog I did not see where NetGear had fixed it. So, NetGear firmware out, DD-WRT in. I can be reasonably assured that the people writing that firmware will fix dangerous bugs like the one above.

Related Answers

Reece

Double check that you do not have "No Style" checked under Page Style

View > Page Style > Basic Page Style is what you want.

I would just like to add that all the styling is working for me on the site you pointed to in FF 3.5. I even checked the css links.

tnorthcutt

Have you tried deleting any cookies from that site and clearing your cache? It might also be helpful to specify exactly which version you're using (i.e. 3.5.1, 3.5.2, etc.) and what OS you're using.

benc

(Said it a bunch of times elsewhere... but it's a new site right? :))

So, anytime you have a browser loading-specific problem, in Mozilla/Gecko-based browsers, the first thing you want to do is do a profile-isolation. The main reason? It is fast.

Create a new profile, try the site. If it works, then you know your profile had a problem.

(If you are not familiar with Profiles in Firefox see: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles#Starting%5Fthe%5FProfile%5FManager)

In this particular case, if I had to guess the specific cause, I would say that your cache has messed up the file. You could try clearing the cache (from the preferences UI). If that fails, then quit, rename the cache directory in your profile, and try again.

Peter Mortensen

I had similar problem. Firefox 3.5.6 and FireBug 1.4.5 suddenly stopped displaying default.css on some pages (not all, only some pages). The solution was simple. I completely cleared the cache (history of browsing, files, etc.) I restarted Firefox and all was working correctly. I hope that helps someone :)

Peter Mortensen

Using Firefox 3.5.2 for Mac OS X, I can view your site's stylesheet file, and see the styled result.

As a test, try moving the CSS file so it's on the same level as your index - so it would be reading as http://www.makeuseof/styleblog.css.

And shouldn't this be on Stack Overflow?

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windows 8 - Visiting sites previously never visited results in page not found or junk CSS

Caution