FF keeps giving me the same e-mailer timeout message

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Today, while I was accessing my e-mail on FF, a timeout message from the e-mail provider appeared. I have never seen such a message before. When I try to sign in again, I keep getting this same timeout message. It has a button to click on, which takes me to the signin page, but when I try to sign in, I get the timeout message again. So, I am caught in a loop.

However, if I go to FF on my other laptop, my e-mail is working perfectly. If I signin with Edge, my e-mail is working perfectly.

In FF, I have cleared removed any URL belonging to the e-mail provider (Browser Privacy > Cookies and Site Data > Manage Data). I have closed out FF and started up again. I have restarted the laptop. But to no avail.

How do I get FF on this laptop to stop giving me the e-mail provider’s timeout message? Something in the provider’s sign-in is triggering this timeout message. I am not getting it on FF on my other laptop, so it’s specific to FF on this laptop (and not to any other browser nor to any other device).

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@WCHS –

Very carefully inspect your cookie settings on the affected laptop”s FF installation. I’ve had timeouts occur in the past due to disallowed cookies.

TThere are other things that cause the timeouts, but start with the cookie check first.

R/

Bob99

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WCHS wrote:

In FF, I have cleared removed any URL belonging to the e-mail provider (Browser Privacy > Cookies and Site Data > Manage Data).

anonymous wrote:

Very carefully inspect your cookie settings on the affected laptop”s FF installation. I’ve had timeouts occur in the past due to disallowed cookies.

What more could do to carefully inspect cookie settings?

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Under Browser Privacy > Enhanced Tracking Protection, ‘Strict’ had been set. I changed it to ‘Standard’ and that didn’t do any good. I still get the timeout message that comes from the e-mail URL.

In the timeout display, there’s a button to click, but that takes me to a sign-in page and when I try to sign in, I get the timeout message again. So, I am caught in a loop.

I’ve called my provider (AT&T), but the advice I get is to stop using FF and use Edge instead. Well, Edge works OK, but I want to use FF.

There’s something somewhere in FF that keeps making this time-out message pop up.
Is is due to a cookie? Is it due to Tracker Protection? I’ve been using FF for years and my e-mailer (which I’ve used for years, too) has never run into this problem before. Something today caused the timeout message to pop up (actually I was using the e-mailer at the time, so I wasn’t inactive, although the time-out display says I had been inactive for quite a while).

I’m thinking that I could RESET or RESTART. What is the difference between RESET and RESTART? I’d like to keep as many settings as I can but at the same time clear out whatever is causing this problem.

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Have you tried running FF without the extensions/add-ons? If it works that way, add back one by one to see which one is causing the problem.

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WCHS

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Reset changes all the settings back to their default values.

Restart shuts FF down and then restarts it.

The different between restart and simply closing FF and then reopening it is restart “remembers” where you were and will attempt to reopen whatever you had open when it restarts FF.

As for your timeout problem…

That’s normally triggered by an “expired” login cookie and logging back in again should reset the cookie.

Obviously that’s not working but only on that particular PC.

I’d suggest checking cookie preferences for the AT&T login site on that PC vs what they are on the PC’s that work to ensure they’re set the same.

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WCHS

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PKCano wrote:

without the extensions/add-ons?

Do you mean disabling/enabling them? Or removing/re-installing them?

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Disable all extensions, re-enable one at a time.
I think it may be called “FF Safe Mode,” but I have never had to use it.

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WCHS

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Thanks for this lead. I tried SAFE MODE first.
FF Safe Mode (Help > TroubleShoot Mode) allows a RESTART whereby all extensions, themes, and custom settings are disabled.)
1. I tried that and my email URL started working OK.
2. Then, I went to Tools > Add-ons and themes and found out that I could not enable any of the extensions because I was in SAFE MODE.
3. So, then I went to Help and there was a choice to Exit Troubleshoot Mode. So, now all of my extensions were enabled again. But, as a consequence, the email stopped working. So, that told me that one or more of the extensions was causing the problem.

I took a guess and chose one extension that I suspected to be the culprit.
4. In Tools > Add-ons and themes, I disabled uBlock Origins. My email URL started working again. So apparently, my e-mail URL is now balking when it has to deal with UBlock Origins. I say “now” because I hadn’t had this problem before, even though uBlock Origins was installed and enabled. Of course, that was one of the reasons I was using that extension – to block the ads that appeared in my email!!
5. I’ve re-enabled uBlock Origins. We’ll see if the email URL objects again.

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It’s easy to add a Trusted site in uBlock Origins’ settings, so that blocking is disabled on its pages.

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WCHS

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b wrote:

…so that blocking is disabled on its pages.

If I add it to Trusted Sites, that means the ads are going to appear, right? Or does it mean that the site won’t be blocked AND it will be cleaned of ads?

So far, after a) using SAFE MODE to disable all of my FF extensions, b) exiting SAFE MODE, c) disabling uBlock Origins, and d) then re-enabling it, things are back to normal.

If the problem re-surfaces, I’ll use the Trusted Sites strategy. I’d like to know what to expect, though, thus my question above. I don’t really want the ads that my ISP e-mailer produces [but I’m tied to this ISP e-mailer because over the years, I have saved lots and lots of critical information — it’s my memory bank!!]. I know now that it was a mistake to use an ISP provider, but there were very few choices back then — no web-based browsers in the 80s.

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[Bob99]

@WCHS –

If you do go down the path of adding it to your uBlock’s list of trusted sites, please go back into FF”s settings and go down to the privacy area and change the tracking protection back to “Strict”. That is, if you haven’t already done so.

That way you get the full level of protection on all other sites you’ve been afforded before making the changes you described above in post number 2436008. I don’t believe this will in any way affect your having placed the email portal’s log-in page on uBlock’s white list.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Bob99.

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Does the timeout message ‘somewhat resemble’ this?

Are you using a Bookmark to access the site?
1. Try directly keying in the site address to the address bar.
2. Please copy directly from the error page the site address, and post it here.

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PaulK wrote:

Does the timeout message ‘somewhat resemble’ this?

I would get this sign-in screen (there’s actually more to it with tabs for News, Finance, Sports, Entertainment, Games, my account, News snippets (with links), weather info, sports scores, horoscope, etc):

And when I clicked on the Sign-in button, then I would get the login page asking for User ID and Password, but afterward that (after logging in), I would get this timeout message. Mind you, I had not been inactive, but it says I was. When I clicked on the ‘OK, got it” button, I would be back to the sign-in screen.

Post edit: Let me start over. This loop would begin when I was actually using the emailer and the timeout message would suddenly appear. So, then it would take me to the Sign-in screen, the Sign-in screen, after signing in, it would take to the timeout message, which would take me to the Sign-in screen, which after signing in, would take me to the timeout message, ad infinitum.

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b wrote:

It’s easy to add a Trusted site in uBlock Origins’ settings, so that blocking is disabled on its pages.

I just looked under the uBlock Origins Trusted sites tab, and this is what I see:

“Schemes” are listed there (not URLs), so I am not sure how to add an emailer’s URL. Also, I see “moz-extension-scheme” listed and I’m not sure what that means.

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You add URLs..

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Type the URL domain (e.g. att.com) on the first blank line (e.g. 9) and press Enter.

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WCHS

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b wrote:

It’s easy to add a Trusted site in uBlock Origins’ settings,

Yikes, that IS easy!!

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With NoScript you have a list of blocks you can make on a site. For example: allow att.net, att.com, yahoo.com but block: advertising.com, demdex.com, js7k.com
That way, you get the site but not the ads.

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WCHS

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PKCano wrote:

With NoScript you have a list of blocks you can make on a site.

How does NoScript prepare the list, i.e., how does it know what sites to list?

Do I understand that one uses NoScript OR uBlock Origins, i.e., one or the other, but not both?

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NoScript sees what scripts the sites are trying to run on your computer and lists them.

Here’s the one for my ATT.net email. As you can see, I have blocked ad pushing sites, and allowed the critical ones to run the email. I don’t get ads on the right side of the email window. There is also option for a temporary allow that goes away when the browser is closed or you click the “clock” on the far right.

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WCHS

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PKCano wrote:

NoScript sees what scripts the sites are trying to run on your computer and lists them.

This is very, very helpful.

So, what about the 2nd question. Do I understand that one runs only ONE blocking extension, because otherwise, they would interfere with one another?

Or I would enable uBlock origins and put the att.net (and maybe att.com) on the Trusted Sites list and at the same time enable NoScript and block the ads on att.net (and att.com) that uBlock Origin’s Trusted Site inclusion would otherwise permit?

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I use NoScript, AdBloc Plus and Disconnect in FF. That’s all. I have very few ads.
I don’t know if you can run uBlock Origin and NoScript at the same time.
If you load your browser up with too many extensions, the effect may not be good.

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PKCano wrote:

I don’t get ads on the right side of the email window.

Do you also not get ads in the inbox itself with NoScript? See the example below — where they show up in Edge. I’d like to keep those out also.

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I don’t get ads at all ! not in a browser, not in applications… 0 ads.

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Alex5723 wrote:

I don’t get ads at all

Do you have AT&T Yahoo Mail per the screenshot from WCHS? If not we can’t use you as an example.

cheers, Paul

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There is a one line Ad at the top of the inbox.
I don’t believe you can block that b/c I think it’s is coming from ATT or Yahoo, which you can’t block.

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PKCano wrote:

There is a one line Ad at the top of the inbox.
I don’t believe you can block that b/c I think it’s is coming from ATT or Yahoo, which you can’t block.

In Firefox with uBlock Origins, you can block those one-line ads at the top of the Inbox. [You can also block them on the right side of the email Window.]

In Edge, those one-line ads at the top of the Inbox show up and they also show up on the right side of the e-mail Window. [Is there a uBlock Origins extension that works in Edge??]

I’m not sure if Firebox NoScript does the same as Firefox uBlock Origins, so that’s why I’m asking since you use NoScript instead of uBlock Origins.

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WCHS wrote:

[Is there a uBlock Origins extension that works in Edge??]

Of course. After all Edge is Chrome.

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WCHS wrote:

5. I’ve re-enabled uBlock Origins. We’ll see if the email URL objects again.

So far, disabling uBlock Origins and then re-enabling it, has fixed the problem – my provider’s email URL no longer objects. I don’t know if this problem was a FF problem or a uBlock Orgins problem. I also don’t know if my provider had changed its protocol for access (including logging in). But, as I say, so far, the disable/re-enable strategy has kept the problem from re-occurring.

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