Ubuntu Woes

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I have been a firm advocate of Ubuntu for the last year of so, I've been using it in preference to Vista on my little sony VGN-TX5MN laptop. Although the lappy came with Vista loaded, it's always been painfully slow both to boot and to do stuff, whereas Ubuntu has been fast an reliable. It was dead easy to set up a dual boot and install Ubuntu.

Anyway, just recently I've been plagued by a really annoying intermittent problem in Ubuntu and I'm being forced to use Vista as I don't have the tech background to figure out the problem - also posting in the Ubuntu forums has so far been fruitless, although I can see others are having similar issues.

Anyway- the problem -

On an apparently random basis, using either Firefox 3 or Opera, Gmail just won't load. I have cleared cache, cookies and all private data over and over - sometimes this helps, sometimes it doesn't.

I did download epiphany - it works ok about 95% of the time, but I'm having trouble getting it to connect to gmail all the time.

Occasionally on an equally random basis I have a problem posting on forums using Firefox (and this morning Epiphany)- instead of posting my reply it offers me a php file to download.

I have been running Ubuntu without a problem for nearly a year with no problems.

My net connection method is a bit unusual in that I use my Nokia N73 via bluetooth as a modem, but it's worked fine up to now, and it still does if I boot into Vista.

[lilelvis2000]

Someone on ubuntuforums.org should be able to help as well.

I assume you are using networkmanager?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Someone on ubuntuforums.org should be able to help as well.

Tried that - no good so far.

I assume you are using networkmanager?

Cough, er I dunno - I am not an expert (although I do remember some commnd line stuff from my Xenix days) - I will go and look it up.

One problem is that I'm having to use Vista most of the time so I can't just go away and try stuff - I have to reboot into unbuntu, try it and then reboot back to vista so I can post stuff in forums

[scooterscot]

I have been a firm advocate of Ubuntu for the last year of so, I've been using it in preference to Vista on my little sony VGN-TX5MN laptop. Although the lappy came with Vista loaded, it's always been painfully slow both to boot and to do stuff, whereas Ubuntu has been fast an reliable. It was dead easy to set up a dual boot and install Ubuntu.

Anyway, just recently I've been plagued by a really annoying intermittent problem in Ubuntu and I'm being forced to use Vista as I don't have the tech background to figure out the problem - also posting in the Ubuntu forums has so far been fruitless, although I can see others are having similar issues.

Anyway- the problem -

On an apparently random basis, using either Firefox 3 or Opera, Gmail just won't load. I have cleared cache, cookies and all private data over and over - sometimes this helps, sometimes it doesn't.

I did download epiphany - it works ok about 95% of the time, but I'm having trouble getting it to connect to gmail all the time.

Occasionally on an equally random basis I have a problem posting on forums using Firefox (and this morning Epiphany)- instead of posting my reply it offers me a php file to download.

I have been running Ubuntu without a problem for nearly a year with no problems.

My net connection method is a bit unusual in that I use my Nokia N73 via bluetooth as a modem, but it's worked fine up to now, and it still does if I boot into Vista.

What happens when you connect using a means other than your nokia?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

What happens when you connect using a means other than your nokia?

Good point - I don't do it very often but on the twice I have since the problem started, I've had no problems connecting to Gmail. I can't regard that as totally conclusive since the problem has been intermittent, but it does point to the nokia method as a possible source - however that connection works fine using vista which is odd.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Just booted back into Ubuntu to have a look for this netwrok manager jobby and all seems to work again - very odd. It wouldn't play at all at 9am

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Someone on ubuntuforums.org should be able to help as well.

I assume you are using networkmanager?

Right I have checked this. It appears that Network Manager doesn't recognise connections made via an external modem - so it doesn't know I'm online (even though I am). This is why firefox always thinks it's offline at first and I have to change it so that firefox is set to online - at which point it works (if it's going to). That's a side issue though, I think. So to answer, no, I'm not using network manager. To initiate the connection I use pppd from the command line using a provider file I created using instructions I found on some geezers blog ages ago.

[NickFitz]

On Vista, do you use Internet Explorer? If so, have you tried using either Firefox or Opera on there, while using the Nokia connection, and seeing if you encounter the same intermittent issues? I'm suspecting this could be a Nokia network issue.

My reasoning is as follows:

GEEKERY ALERT

When a file is served over the web, it should have a header which specifies what kind of file it is (HTML, JavaScript, XML, whatever), e.g.

Content-Type: image/gif

The standard specifies that

"If and only if the media type is not given by a Content-Type field, the recipient MAY attempt to guess the media type via inspection of its content and/or the name extension(s) of the URI used to identify the resource." - RFC 2616 section 7.2.1

Firefox, Opera and IIRC Safari respect this portion of the standard. However Microsoft, back in the Nineties, either decided it knew better, or simply didn't read the standard properly, and always attempts to deduce the media type by examining the content. This is a Bad Thing as it allows misconfigured servers and/or proxies to serve content with the wrong, or no, Content-Type header - but only to Internet Explorer. Browsers that follow the spec will then encounter precisely the kind of problems you describe.

I believe the issue is that one or more (but not all) of the proxy servers (or possibly routers) that Nokia channels your connection through is removing or mangling the Content-Type headers.

When you establish a connection via Nokia, one of the links in your connection to the web server to which your browser is making requests will be through one of Nokia's proxies. If that proxy is, for example, returning to you an XML file with a Content-Type header changed from "text/xml" to "text/plain", or if that file is returned with the Content-Type header removed altogether and its URL doesn't include the ".xml" extension, then Firefox (and I think Opera) will not recognise it as XML. I believe that GMail uses XML in Ajax calls behind the scenes to make things work, so this would cause it to fail.

Furthermore, JavaScript files served without a ".js" extension and so forth would not be interpreted as scripts.

My reasoning is based on the fact that you were offered the opportunity to save a response to a file of type ".php", rather than the content of the response being displayed. The steps would be as follows:

1. Your browser sends a request for "http://www.example.com/example.php";
2. The web server at "http://www.example.com/" executes the file "example.php" and sends the generated response with Content-Type "text/html";
3. Nokia's network strips out the Content-Type header, meaning that there is no metadata describing the contents of the file as being HTML;
4. Firefox, having no information as to what kind of content it has, looks at the name to see if it can guess from that;
5. Seeing the name has the extension ".php" it checks the list of file types it knows how to display, but ".php" isn't on the list;
6. It therefore concludes that this file is intended for another application, and offers to save it so you can then use it with that application.

This also explains why the problem is intermittent: you will be connecting to a different machine on Nokia's network each time you dial in, and if only some are misconfigured, it's the luck of the draw if you get one of them, or one that is operating correctly.

So I would suggest Nokia as being the root of the problem, not Ubuntu.

There are reasonably straightforward ways of debugging this problem in depth, at both the HTTP and TCP/IP level, such that you would be able to confirm my hypothesis and, if it is confirmed, assemble a partial list of IP addresses of misconfigured and properly configured Nokia proxies. However, you may well have better things to do with your time and prefer to take this to Nokia customer support instead.

I assume that Nokia have customer forums, so it might be worth checking them out for possibly related tales of woe, to bolster your case that their network is breaking the web and needs to be fixed.

HTH

[Peoplesoft bloke]

On Vista, do you use Internet Explorer? If so, have you tried using either Firefox or Opera on there, while using the Nokia connection, and seeing if you encounter the same intermittent issues? I'm suspecting this could be a Nokia network issue.
....... <snip>

So I would suggest Nokia as being the root of the problem, not Ubuntu.

There are reasonably straightforward ways of debugging this problem in depth, at both the HTTP and TCP/IP level, such that you would be able to confirm my hypothesis and, if it is confirmed, assemble a partial list of IP addresses of misconfigured and properly configured Nokia proxies. However, you may well have better things to do with your time and prefer to take this to Nokia customer support instead.

I assume that Nokia have customer forums, so it might be worth checking them out for possibly related tales of woe, to bolster your case that their network is breaking the web and needs to be fixed.

HTH

No I am using Firefox when in Vista and it works a treat - although it is Firefox 2 as opposed to 3 in Ubuntu. The reason I think it's a Ubuntu problem is that it's only been happening since I did the latest upgrade although it didn't happen straight away.

I didn't know that Nokia ran all the proxies - I assumed that was down to the 3g provider - 3 in my case.

I guess trying to debug this when it's happening could be worthwhile - your explanation sounds credible - if I can execute a few things from the command line to try and chase this down, I'd be happy to give it a go.

[NickFitz]

No I am using Firefox when in Vista and it works a treat - although it is Firefox 2 as opposed to 3 in Ubuntu. The reason I think it's a Ubuntu problem is that it's only been happening since I did the latest upgrade although it didn't happen straight away.

I didn't know that Nokia ran all the proxies - I assumed that was down to the 3g provider - 3 in my case.

I guess trying to debug this when it's happening could be worthwhile - your explanation sounds credible.

Sorry, I was thinking of Nokia because the name was in the post, but of course they don't run the network - for Nokia read 3 throughout