# Why does my browser have a hard time "looking up" web pages?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-browser-have-a-hard-time-looking-up-web-pages/292225>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 28, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-browser-have-a-hard-time-looking-up-web-pages/292225 "2005-02-28T01:30:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-browser-have-a-hard-time-looking-up-web-pages/292225/1 "2005-02-28T01:30:20Z")

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Lately, or at least in the six months or so that I’ve been using Firefox, it seems like I click on web sites all the time and get, say, “Looking up [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com)…” in the Status window, followed by a dialogue box saying “[boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com) could not be found. Please check the name and try again.” I can retry 3 or 4 times and get the same message, and then eventually it will go through.

These are sites that I know for a fact are up, and it’s a broad range of sites. I know this can happen when a lot of people are trying to access a site at once, but lately it seems like it happens at least half the time I try to access a web page. Am I doing something wrong?

I’m on a cable modem (RoadRunner), by the way.

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**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-browser-have-a-hard-time-looking-up-web-pages/292225/2 "2005-02-28T02:48:28Z")

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I know exactly what you’re talking about, but it is intermittent for me. This can be for any website. It’ll hang in Firefox, but if I open up an IE session, it works right away. 😕

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**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-browser-have-a-hard-time-looking-up-web-pages/292225/3 "2005-02-28T03:35:56Z")

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A few quick questions:

1. Have you updated to the latest version of Firefox?

2. Are you using any “blocking” extensions that might be misreading packets as evil and kicking them out?

3. Are you sure that all of your Domain Name Server (DNS) entries point to valid places?

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**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-browser-have-a-hard-time-looking-up-web-pages/292225/4 "2005-02-28T11:49:42Z")

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I’ve seen problems like this before, but no definitive answers. ☹

General advice seems to be either;

- increase the time out period that Firefox uses by typing; about :config (silly bulletin board insists I put a space in the middle of the previous string, there should be no space between the “about” and the “:” ) in the address bar and double click on network.http.connect.timeout

- try creating a new profile for yourself in the Profile Manager and see if that fixes it.