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Cannot access National Lottery Web Site but other Browsers work

  • 53 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by Alan M

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I am asking this as a last attempt before giving uo on Firefox completely.

I cannot access the "Player" Page of the UK National Lottery Web Site if using Firefox. This is the page : https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/p/home.ftl

I get this error message : "SECURE CONNECTION FAILED. An error occurred during a connection to www.national-lottery.co.uk. PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR"

Windows 8.1, running Firefox 75.0, with Avast 20.2.2041 Anti Virus.

This used to work fine, the was saved as a Bookmark. I can open the Web Page fromthe same computer if I use google Chrome Browser, without any other intervention.

After extensively researching various Help Topics on Firefox here's what I've tried :

Turning OFF Avast Anti-Virus protection - makes no differece. Clearing Firefox History, Cache, and Cookies - makes no difference. Refreshing Firefox - makes no difference.

The other thing I have noticed is that the Home Page of the National Lottery Web Site - https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ WILL load, but only as a page Text with lots of Links.

Any ideas ?

I am asking this as a last attempt before giving uo on Firefox completely. I cannot access the "Player" Page of the UK National Lottery Web Site if using Firefox. This is the page : https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/p/home.ftl I get this error message : "SECURE CONNECTION FAILED. An error occurred during a connection to www.national-lottery.co.uk. PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR" Windows 8.1, running Firefox 75.0, with Avast 20.2.2041 Anti Virus. This used to work fine, the was saved as a Bookmark. I can open the Web Page fromthe same computer if I use google Chrome Browser, without any other intervention. After extensively researching various Help Topics on Firefox here's what I've tried : Turning OFF Avast Anti-Virus protection - makes no differece. Clearing Firefox History, Cache, and Cookies - makes no difference. Refreshing Firefox - makes no difference. The other thing I have noticed is that the Home Page of the National Lottery Web Site - https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ WILL load, but only as a page Text with lots of Links. Any ideas ?

All Replies (20)

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It's got to be something relatively simple, like a Setting, or a file that needs changing, I'd have thought.

I just don't need all the hassle right now though ! I'll still get notifications of any new messages / replies to this Topic if anyone does come up with any more ideas.

Thanks again for trying :-)

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Alan M said

The other thing I have noticed is that the Home Page of the National Lottery Web Site - https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ WILL load, but only as a page Text with lots of Links.

Would it be possible for you to provide a screenshot of that   "Text with lots of Links"  ?

If you need help to create a screenshot, please see:

How do I create a screenshot of my problem?

Once you've done this, attach the saved screenshot file to your forum post by clicking the  Browse...   button below the   Post your reply   box.


("Text with lots of Links"   paints a picture (for me) of blue text on the left side of the page)

Modified by McCoy

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Sorry fo rthe delay replying - I got side tracked ....

I have attached two Screenshots, both of the National Lottery Home Page.

One image is the Page as displayed in my Firefox Browswer, and the other taken moments later on the same computer was using Chrome browser.

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Ahh. That means the page script did not load properly.

Load the web page. Then, to reload the page bypassing the cache and force a fresh retrieval;
Ctrl+Shift+R (Mac=Command+Shift+R)

Try this several times.

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Can you define "several" ?

Is 15 times enough ? - which I just tried and which has made no difference ?

Thanks.

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I'm glad that the picture your words painted for me was right .....

Would you please take a look at this thread :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1230768

(Safe Mode won't make a difference for you, I'm afraid, as you've already tried that .....)

Also see :

https://www.digitbin.com/fix-page-not-loading-text/

Modified by McCoy

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This is all getting just a bit too complicated for someone that is not a Computer engineer !

After more researching the Topics in those suggested Links :

In my "hosts" file their are no entried pertaining to the National Lottery Web page, just some text explaining that it is an example "hosts" file", with every line preceeded by a "*", which I am unable to delete and save as a completelty blank document as suggested without logging back on as Administrator.

I don't seem to have any "Extensions" at all, just a list of several "Recommended" extensions, so I can't try disabling any of those, as I don't have any.

In the "Add Ons Manager " section, against "Plug Ins" I do have an entry for Shockwave Flash 32.0 r0 - which is Disabled.

The only other entries are for "Widevine Content Decryption Moduke provided by Google inc", and Open H264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems, Inc. which are both active.

I have tried disabling both of them but this makes no difference.

In Windows list of Programs and Features I have : Adobe Shockwave Flash Player 12.3 installed on 19/10/2018, and Adobe Flash Player 32 NPAPI installed on 16/03/2020, ( Is this the onethat is Disabled in my list of Plug Ins ? )

In view of the Flash Player 32 being installed recently, and possibly around the time that these problems started, I wonder if it might be the cause, but before uninstalling that program I need to know if this will have any effect on Windows Explorer ( 11 ) that I use exclusively for viewing Live CCTV Images, as I cannot risk that failing ?

Thanks.

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Please, don't remove any plugins .....

You say that one of them (Shockwave Flash, which is the same as Adobe Flash) is disabled; could you change it to "Ask to Activate" ? (click on the three dots)

I don't know if that will make a difference, but it's worth a try.

You must be getting pretty frustrated and fed up with all of this (so sorry ..... )

But hats off to you for not giving up !

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Just tried that - makes no difference whatsoever to either the National Lottery Home Page ( the one with just Text ), or to the "Players" Page which returns the "PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR" message.

"pretty frustrated" is an understatement !

Thanks.

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Alan M said

"pretty frustrated" is an understatement !

I hope you believe me when I say "That makes two of us .... "

So I did some more searching and I found this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJFx4xBBxDQ

Any good ?

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As per my comments two replies back ( 3:00AM ) :

"In my "hosts" file their are no entries pertaining to the National Lottery Web page, just some text explaining that it is an example "hosts" file", with every line preceeded by a "*", which I am unable to delete and save as a completelty blank document as suggested without logging back on as Administrator. "

Thanks.

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Alan M said

As per my comments two replies back ( 3:00AM ) : "In my "hosts" file their are no entries pertaining to the National Lottery Web page, just some text explaining that it is an example "hosts" file", with every line preceeded by a "*", which I am unable to delete and save as a completelty blank document as suggested without logging back on as Administrator. "

I am hoping that FredMcD (or someone else) can give you advice,   cause I am drawing a blank here (so sorry .... )

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Would you please take a look at this thread and try the first part of
jscher2000's first post :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1285414

Does that work  ?

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I've tried that now - Makes no difference.

I clicked on the Link for the Style sheets server page, and this opened up a page full of the expected text starting, "html{font-family:sans-serif;..........." etc.

I tried the National Lottery Home Page again - still the same, I tried the National Lottery "Player" page again - still the same.

For both pages I tried bypassing the Cache ( again ) with Ctrl / Shift / R - made no difference.

Thanks.

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I sent a PM   (= Private Message)   to a fellow contributor,   saying they
are needed here ......

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Hi, is this the only site with this problem?

Make sure that your PCs time and date are correct.

If you don't use the main menu bar, press Alt to bring it up temporarily, then go to View > Page Style, and make sure it is set to Basic Page Style.

Try deleting ALL references to The National Lottery. To do that, open the 3-bar menu > Library > History, then click the Show All History link at the bottom of the list to open the History-library window. Search for National Lottery by typing it into the Search History field in the top-right corner. Now in the search results, right-click on it, and select Forget About This Site. (Browsing and download history, cookies, cache, active logins, passwords, saved form data, exceptions for cookies, images and pop-ups for that site will be removed). Give it a minute to complete the deletion, then try the site (not from an old bookmark) again. More - Delete browsing, search and download history on Firefox.

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As previously explained this is the only site I am having this problem with.

The Computer Clock - Date and Time are both correct.

From the Main Menu Bar - View / Page Style is already to set to Basic Page Style.

I had already previously tried deleting ALL Cookies, ALL History and a Refreshh of Firefox, none of which has made any diffference.

I just followed your suggestion to open the 3 Bar Menu / Library / History / search for National Lottery, Right Click the result and then "Forget about this site". After allowing a coupel fo minutes I tried opening the National Lottery Home Page, "https://www.national-lottery.co.uk" ( not via a Bookmark ) and this has made no difference - the page still opens as a page of text with Links.

Thanks.

Modified by Alan M

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I'm late to this dance but here goes: When I go to player/p/home.ftl I am redirected back to the home page. No explanation, no errors. Their sitemap shows no destinations with the URI "player". All browsers behave the same. (I'm in the US so maybe I can't see everything.)

Anyway, that error indicates that FF couldn't or wouldn't setup an SSL connection. So, I suspect that the problem is somewhere in the verification chain of the certs they offer. (I'm not a pro in FF internals so maybe somebody else can say how it looks-up these things.)

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Alan M said

"In my "hosts" file their are no entries pertaining to the National Lottery Web page, just some text explaining that it is an example "hosts" file", with every line preceeded by a "*", which I am unable to delete and save as a completelty blank document as suggested without logging back on as Administrator. "

I'm still hoping that someone will be able to shed some light on this   (the video I linked to apparantly didn't ... )

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You must have other issues with Firefox if you're ready to switch over one website...

Home Page

Let's start with the home page, which I can access without an account. Two main servers are used:

If you try that example style sheet link on the second server, does it open correctly? The expected result is a wall of text starting with:

body, div, dl, dt, dd, ul, ol, li, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6,

If that gives you an error message, let's pause and analyze the source of that problem.

But there is something else unusual here: the style sheets are loaded using a 307 redirect from the main server to the identical file name on the CDN server. Can you think of any add-ons running in your Firefox that could block Firefox from following redirects?

Player Page

I can't access this page without an account, I don't think, so let me provide a general comment.

PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR indicates the server or an upstream devices is sending a RST to terminate Firefox's attempt to connect.

A common reason for this is when the server does not support any of the encryption ciphers Firefox proposes for the connection. The server says g'bye!

The server or a web application firewall might also terminate the connection if the connection parameters appear to be suspicious or the IP address is on a blacklist.

It would be very strange for such issues to affect only one page on a server when other pages on the same server work correctly. Anyway, without an account, I can't investigate that further. (And I doubt a Californian can open an account.)

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