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Firefox not honoring proxy settings

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I just installed Fedora 16 on an x86_64 system and downloaded the most recent updates for it.

Unfortunately, I can't convince Firefox, the default browser for the system (and my personal favorite) to honor the proxy settings I need to access the internet.

I did the usual drill I do when installing a new system; I set up the http and https proxies in the Gnome GUI as I usually do, and set up my /etc/profile.d/proxy.sh script to export HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, and https_proxy.

The package updater had no trouble reaching the internet to install packages once i had done this, but Firefox would not - repeatedly saying 'Unable to find the proxy server

Firefox is configured to use a proxy server that can't be found.' 

Setting up the proxies manually in Firefox is similarly unfruitful, giving the message 'Server not found Firefox can't find the server at start.fedoraproject.org.'

The problem is localized for Firefox, because I've installed both konqueror and Chrome and they have no trouble reaching the web - I'm using Chrome right now for this post.

I've tried deleting an re-creating my profile, but I'm at the same place.

Any ideas?

I just installed Fedora 16 on an x86_64 system and downloaded the most recent updates for it. Unfortunately, I can't convince Firefox, the default browser for the system (and my personal favorite) to honor the proxy settings I need to access the internet. I did the usual drill I do when installing a new system; I set up the http and https proxies in the Gnome GUI as I usually do, and set up my /etc/profile.d/proxy.sh script to export HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, and https_proxy. The package updater had no trouble reaching the internet to install packages once i had done this, but Firefox would not - repeatedly saying 'Unable to find the proxy server Firefox is configured to use a proxy server that can't be found.' Setting up the proxies manually in Firefox is similarly unfruitful, giving the message 'Server not found Firefox can't find the server at start.fedoraproject.org.' The problem is localized for Firefox, because I've installed both konqueror and Chrome and they have no trouble reaching the web - I'm using Chrome right now for this post. I've tried deleting an re-creating my profile, but I'm at the same place. Any ideas?

All Replies (5)

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What are the connection settings?

Did you try the default "Use the system proxy settings" ?

  • Edit > Preferences > Advanced : Network : Connection > Settings
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Cor-el,

The first error mage I listed up there if the one I get when I use system proxy settings - in that case, it's almost as if Firefox is getting malformed proxy info from the system, but that doesn't explain why manual settings doesn't work (and as I indicted above, gives a different error message...

Modified by jasonsewall

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Can I get a bump here? I have the same problem and I'm sick of using stupid Chrome!

Fedora has diligently pushed out Firefox 12, and it still doesn't work. The kernel has advanced to 3.3.1-5.fc16.x86_64 as well. Trying all of the aforementioned combinations of proxy settings still results in the unhelpful behaviors discussed above....

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Did you try other connection settings like auto-detect or set the proxy parameters manually?

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I have tried the following:

  • Auto-detect, which idles while I get the message 'Connecting to <server name>...' in the status bar, and eventually fails with an 'Unable to connect' error page
  • Use system proxy settings (which work for Chrome, wget, and other programs I have on this machine). In Firefox, I get an error page that says "Unable to find the proxy server; Firefox is configured to use a proxy server that can't be found."
  • Manually specify proxy settings, in which I basically manually enter the values of the environment variables I previously set up and have places in a global profile.sh script. This results a 3rd error page: Server not found.

I don't know if there is an automatic proxy configuration URL here, but I don't think so. At any rate, I would expect one of these three options to work...