The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded
seems like maybe firefox mishandles untrusted certificates?
It gives error: Alert The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded.
example: https://notes.corp.cat.com/
other browsers can load this URL just fine. When I visit it in Firefox, I get the error in a simple little message box with a yellow triangle exclamation point, titled "Alert".
ALSO.... when I click the "Home" button in firefox, I get the error, and the home page does not load. Currently the home page is set to "Mozilla Firefox Start Page."
changing the home page to: http://www.google.com/ allows the home page button to work normally.
restoring the home page to default brings the error behavior back when clicking the home button.
changing the home page to: https://notes.corp.cat.com/ produces the same error, just like when I manually type in an https URL with a funky security certificate.
This problem only seems to happen on secure URLs with untrusted certificates, i.e. sites that are too cheap to pay to have their certificate registered with one of the certificate vendors or however the hell that works, so as a result every time you visit their web site, your browser starts to whine that it might be a forgery or whatever.
It used to be in Firefox that I could load these pages and just specify that I want to trust the site anyway. Now firefox gives this error that doesn't allow the user to know what is really going on or what the reason for the error is. It is as if the developers decided that users are too stupid to decide if they really want to visit the site or not, so as a result Firefox is just refusing to visit any web sites where the authenticity of the certificate can't be verified? Hey, it's not a bad idea, to be honest. :-) But it's kind of annoying, because here I am, sort of smart enough to know what I'm doing, but I don't have the choice in the matter...
I restarted with all add-ons disabled and that didn't help. I don't have much installled in the way of add-ons anyway. All I have is JAVA quick starter 1.0, and Adobe Acrobat, Java development toolkit, Java platform SE, Microsoft DRM, and Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library. Not even Flash. All the above is disabled now that I rebooted with add-ons disabled, and I still have the issue.
thanks for any help you can provide.
Modified by meowfirefox
All Replies (10)
I should add that this is a fresh install of XP Pro, with all the Microsoft updates installed. I then installed Firefox. I then downloaded and installed Adobe reader, and by accident I forgot to uncheck: Yes, install McAfee Security Scan Plus - optional (0.98 MB) so that s*** installed, and I immediately uninstalled it via the add/remove programs control panel. I have a hunch that the McAfee messed up my firefox install or something.
I also have Comodo firewall installed. I disabled Comodo firewall by exiting the Comodo appplication, but this did not help the problem any.
Modified by meowfirefox
for god sakes slammish. Don't post a URL to several screenfulls of text without summarizing what we are supposed to be looking for in all that mess, why you think it's useful.
In other news, the issue suddenly disappeared for me. As far as I can tell, firefox hasn't updated it's self, so I dunno what the hell is up. Now, when I visit a secure page with an untrusted certificate, I get the below message, which is what I am SUPPOSED to get.
This Connection is Untrusted
You have asked Firefox to connect
securely to EXAMPLE.COM, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure.
Normally, when you try to connect securely,
sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are going to the right place. However, this site's identity can't be verified.
What Should I Do?
If you usually connect to
this site without problems, this error could mean that someone is trying to impersonate the site, and you shouldn't continue.
Technical Details
I Understand the Risks
So there you go. it's working now. Although I'm sure someone will now misunderstand what I'm communicating and think that I'm complaining about the above message as being the issue. No. It was the COMPLETE LACK of the above message that was the issue. It was the COMPLETE REFUSAL of firefox to allow me to load any web page with an untrusted certificate that was the issue.
But there you go. You have a development team that is completely detached from the reality of what their crappy product is doing... So you get garbage like this. Any feedback from the developers yet? Nope. In conclusion, F--- firefox.
and it broke again
Secure Connection Failed
webmail.XXXXXXXXXXX.com uses an invalid security certificate.
The certificate does not come from a trusted source. The certificate is only valid for the following names:
webmail.dreamhost.com , www.webmail.dreamhost.com
The certificate will not be valid until 11/8/2011 6:00 PM. The current time is 1/7/2012 6:02 PM.
The page you are trying to view can not be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem. Alternatively, use the command found in the help menu to report this broken site.
F--K Firefox.
I'd say - it's one thing that certain external websites might produce this problem - but it happens with the default Firefox homepage (as the original poster said). i.e. home page set to (greyed out) "Mozilla Firefox Start Page, i.e. what you get after hitting "Reset to default". Pressing the "Home" button produces the "The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded" dialog.
This started happening for me early in January 2012 - just after several updates - Firefox updated to 9.0.1, and there were several Microsoft updates to my Windows XP Professional SP3. I'm not sure whether the underlying URL for the default homepage is "about:home", as this is hidden, but attempting to go to about:home explicitly produces the same failure dialog.
I've uninstalled and re-installed Firefox (so now have no extensions). It still happens, and also happens if Firefox started in safe mode.
I used to often use the "Reload my windows and tabs from last time" feature which appears on the default Firefox homepage - since I now can't get the homepage, I can't use the feature.
Really annoying, and I see "36 new people this week" have the problem...
Modified by ccbrunt
Please see this. Installing Visual C++ 2005 SP1 or the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 may help mitigate the issue.
Also had exact same issue on Fresh install of XP SP3 with all updates installed. IE8 worked fine. I installed the new beta version of Firefox 10 and that seems to have sorted it. The specific site I needed to access seems to have been untrusted or without a valid certificate but I didn't even get the option to add an exception and visit it anyway. With the new beta version I was offered the chance to do this and now can revisit the site without a problem.
Looks like Vivek.Wilfred's reply above is it (at least for default homepage not working) - thanks. Now I've been pointed in the right direction, I've looked in Event Viewer, and see lots of the "SideBySide" errors, with text "Generate Activation Context failed for C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\browsercomps.dll.".
Now I know what's (probably) causing it, I think I'll wait to see when normal Firefox update fixes this, rather than installing other stuff to mitigate it.
I had same problem my spec are: windows XP pro 2003 SP3
Solution: I removed acrobat reader version 10.X & installed older version 7.X Also i installed flash player older version. Now everything is ok.
The problem has gone away with Firefox version 10.0.1. As I said above, since I'd read what was causing it, and didn't want to mess about installing other things to fix it (e.g. .NET framework, or versions of Microsoft C run time library), I just waited until there was an official fix in Firefox.
The bugfix is here .