Very recently, I have found that Firefox 3.6.10 won’t load the JSTOR website if accessed through a Google Scholar link. My university has access to JSTOR, so from Google Scholar I usually just log in with my name and password and am directed to the JSTOR article. Now, whenever I try get to a JSTOR article, I get the usual login screen, but Firefox loads a blank page. No error message, just a blank page with “Done” at the bottom left corner.
This is the only website that causes me problems, and it just started. I can access other articles through Google Scholar just fine. I’m using the following plugins, all of which predate the problem:
I tried clearing out the cookies and nothing worked. But I haven’t tried clearing out all caches. I will try this as soon as I get home. The problem is on my home computer, but in my office I also run Firefox and have never had this problem.
I have that happen sometimes as well. I hit the F6 reload key and the page comes into view. This has always worked for me so far so I have not looked beyond for solutions.
I’m not sure whether your version will be the same as mine. I am using the nightly developer version of Firefox 4.0 pre-release beta 7. But on mine just clicking: TOOLS -> Clear Recent History ; Time range to clear=Everything ; Browsing history, cookies, and cache CHECKED (leave everything else unchecked unless you know better) ; should be sufficient. This will also clear all cookies. Then restart.
If that doesn’t fix it you might next want to disable all extensions and restart firefox (or run firefox in Safe mode and test).
Next, make sure you have an up to date anti-malware utility or two and run a full scan in safe mode if on windows. We should check for such things because they can cause wierd stuff like this.
However the most logical thing at this point to do is see if the same thing happens with another browser on the same computer. Does chrome or IE work on that site on the same computer?
Another possible option might be to delete your firefox profile and start anew. But we should avoid that if at all possible since you will lose things like bookmarks unless you back them up.
There are many possible causes for this including bugs…
Following up on Duckster’s suggestion, I checked and the one at the office is Firefox 3.5.13. I could’ve sworn that the office one was updated to 3.6.0. So maybe that’s the reason. But I don’t know why a newer version of Firefox would work less well.
I checked recently for malware using Malwarebytes. I could do it again.
Just now, I checked to see if I could access the links with IE on the home computer, and although I don’t get a blank page, I’m also not given the login screen that I usually see. I’m just taken to the page that says I must be a subscriber to access the content. So maybe JSTOR has changed something.
IE also works at the office, but since the office uses the university’s internet connection, there’s usually no login screen for the office machine.
My thoughts are now that it must be the JSTOR site, but that still doesn’t explain why Firefox just displays a blank page.
Sorry for the double post, but I just cleared out all the cache, and now I can access the JSTOR site. But now I cannot log in like I usually do. Anyone know anything about SFX? That’s the site that I usually get redirected to when I click on a Google Scholar link. I’m taking to the SFX page where I select “Go” to view the article.
It’s F5, and it usually works for me. Is the link direct to the PDF of the article? I get that sometimes at journal sites like JSTOR, I think it’s Adobe’s fault in my case but I don’t know about yours.
And to clear the entire cache for the page, including javascripts, images, and plugins, you use Ctrl-F5. Also F6 takes you to your address bar. It’s a standard shortcut used to switch between two different “panels” of input information.
Just wanted to bring some closure to this thread. The problem has mysteriously vanished. I suspect it had something to do with my university’s link to SFX.