Firefox connection problem

[Brakes on]

Since about 7 hours ago, whenever I try to use Firefox (3.5.7) nothing happens. 2 hours before that it worked fine. I can access the internet through IE and directly from other applications (Google Earth etc). I've run malware remover, virus scan, registry scan etc. etc., have restored to a point two days earlier and have re-installed Firefox, all to no avail.
Any ideas greatly appreciated.

[FullOppositeRudder]

I'm sure you've thought of this and I apologise for raising it, but have you checked the File menu dropdown to see that the "Work Offline" item hasn't been ticked by mistake?

Regards,
FOR

[Brakes on]

FOR,

Thanks for your input and yes, I had thought of that. Now, after some sleep and some more checks and things, I have started Firefox in safe mode and hesitantly set everything to 'default'. Bingo! It's working now again, but I'm still puzzled, because I hadn't touched anything.
Thanks again,

Brakes

[rans6andrew]

this problem seems to occur with versions from about 3.5 onwards. In my experience, it is only a problem with Vista and you need to reboot the machine to get a new connection. Re-starting the browser doesn't do it. I also find that if I launch Firefox and IE at the same time BOTH browsers loose the connection to the internet. Thunderbird mail tool still fetches mail so the internet is still alive, just the browsers fail to connect to it.

Rans6Andrew

[Brakes on]

Rans6andrew,

I'm on XP home and rebooting didn't do anything, so whatever it was (is?) probably behaves differently with XP and Vista. And it was definitely a Firefox problem, because I could connect to the internet, but not through Firefox.

Brakes

[Tarq57]

What AV do you use, what AV was installed before that, and what firewall?

[call100]

A lot of these individual problems are usually down to a mixture of things on the offending machines. Hence the fact that a lot of people don't experience them, which makes them harder to track down.....Hopefully you have cured it. You may never know the reason for or how you did it......

[txdmy1]

firewall??

wifey had similar, I finally traced it to her firewall settings (comodo), firefox had been blocked. She said she hadn't touched them ! All works fine since I reset them.

[Brakes on]

Tarq57 andtxdmy1,

AV and firewall are both McAfee, in use since long before I switched to Firefox.

Call100,

Starting Firefox in safe mode and setting everything to default values cured the problem. I am 100% positive I didn't touch any settings in Firefox, the AV and the firewall, but have had other incidents, where a setting in other programs mysteriously changed. Maybe I need to clean out some stuff.

Thanks for your ideas,

brakes