Google Weirdness?

[Q.E.D]

Just a few minutes ago, I went to do some searching for some information pertaining to a GQ thread. My search parameter was: “nuclear powered satellite”, sans quotes. What came back was not the expected search results page, but this odd message:

**We're sorry...**

... but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.

We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google. 

Da hell? Variations on that search parameter bring up a normal search results page. What little information I could find on there suggests that Google is blocking requests that are being used by some kind of worm, but I could not verify this through Google itself. What’s going on here?

[Shagnasty]

I don’t know. Your search worked for me.

[What_Exit]

You might be infected with a virus that hi-jacks Google searches.

[Q.E.D]

Well, that’s even weirder, then. It’s still not working for me.

[Q.E.D]

@jrfranchi

You might be infected with a virus that hi-jacks Google searches.

Maybe, but why only that one? Every other search runs just fine.

[Amp]

Search works for me also.

[What_Exit]

@Q.E.D.

Maybe, but why only that one? Every other search runs just fine.

A virus geek with a subtle sense of humor and mostly worried about a small trojan or backdoor to your PC? I don’t know, just a possibility.

Jim

[mhendo]

I’ve had that message from Google once before.

Scans with various anti-malware programs, and an investigation of my HijackThis log showed nothing amiss with my system. After a few hours the problem went away and Google started working for me again.

I’ve no idea what the solution might be.

[Nanoda]

Well if Google the error message (duh ;)), then you get pages like this.

Apparently a virus infecting web servers is on the loose that uses Google to find more vulnerable web servers. It’s apparently called Santy worm, and spreads through a service in phpBB.

I don’t know how Google would tell who is infected, so I don’t know why you’d get that error, other than perhaps Google is throttling queries by IP to slow the spread. Are you NATted, perhaps?

[TellMeI_mNotCrazy]

I had the same problem a couple of months ago. I ran a spyware scan, removed a few things, and tried again, and it worked fine.

[aldiboronti]

This message crops up on Google from time to time, often when their servers are overloaded. It has nothing at all to do with anything on your computer. Sure, you can scan for spyware, but you’ll find that even if you take no action Google will get back to normal.

[SpectBrain]

it may be that that particular request and answer are cached on your computer. Try doing a reload with that query and see what happens.

[Q.E.D]

Hmm. Still won’t work. It’s definitely nothing on my end. I’m not going to worry about it, since it’s only that one particular search that it barfs on.

[Manduck]

It’s my fault.

I bought Google stock this morning, so naturally there is a thread about Google weirdness on the SDMB. It just had to happen.

[Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party]

Yeah, I’ve had this before. Trying again in a few minutes normally sorts it out.

[alterego]

@Q.E.D.

My search parameter was: “nuclear powered satellite”, sans quotes.

Run your query through here and see what the results are. Could be a single datacenter. I get that message quite often, but usually only when i’m using Google Calculator quite a bit in succession.

[Mr.Blue_Sky]

I had a similar thing happen on the Allmusic.com site, but it went away after a few hours.

[Q.E.D]

@alterego

Run your query through here and see what the results are. Could be a single datacenter.

Interesting. Seems to work on all of those. I also discovered that if I open a new window, load Google and run the search it works just fine. But it still will not run on the original instance of Firefox, which leads me to believe it’s a caching issue. Anyway, I’m good. Thanks for the info, folks.

[ftg]

“… it appears that your computer or network has been infected.”

I got the same message for the first time today. Haven’t loaded any software lately nor run the usual holey MS software.

Methinks the key is the “network” part. Probably someone in the same IP block is infected and hitting Google a ton, so that Google server is blocking that range. But since different servers might be blocking different ranges, it can appear erratic.

Note that generally your browser doesn’t like to do DNS host to IP lookup very often. Closing the browser and starting it again can sometimes do it (depending on other network apps and such).

Do some pings, get some IP addresses for Google servers. Try using the IP address instead of the name. When you get one that works, bookmark it.

(Waiting for Google to fix things can be tedious.)

[Elendil_s_Heir]

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday for the first time. But the Google no-go page referred to by the OP provided a link to another page, which asked me to type in a warped-looking nonsense word in a box. I was then automatically put through to the Google main page, and it worked fine after that.

Guess somebody’s trying to seriously mess with Google. Bizarre.