[tor-talk] Troubleshooting failed Startpage connection [Was: still unable to reach StartPage or Ixquick]

[Joe Btfsplk]

On 10/9/2013 10:59 PM, Joe Btfsplk wrote:
> On 10/9/2013 8:00 PM, krishna e bera wrote:
>> On 13-10-09 07:14 PM, Joe Btfsplk wrote:
>>> ... in 3.0a4, ... there's no change in being unable to
>>> connect to Startpage, Ixquick, DDG; often even Wikipedia -SSL & Google.
>>>
>>>  in regular Fx, can connect to all of them instantly.
>>
>> When you reinstalled or upgraded your TBB, did you remove the directory
>> first?  Sometimes a clean install gets rid of strange glitches leftover
>> from in place upgrades.
>>
> I never install TBB over the top of old versions or use an old profile.
>
> Since it's done the same thing (starting > a wk ago in 2.3.25-12), now 
> same exact thing in 2.3.25-13 & 3.0a4.
> I can connect to Bing & Yahoo - in any TBB version I'm now trying.
>
> I even have tabs open w/ the URLs already entered for Startpage, 
> Ixquick, Google & say Bing, Yahoo AND any usual site. Google doesn't 
> fail as much, but never had a problem w/ any of them before.
> So when Startpage, et al. fail, I instantly load another site 
> (Mozilla.org, etc.) - which succeeds - using the same relay circuit.  
> I checked w/ the network map open to make sure circuits weren't 
> changing between the failures & successes.
>
> One or 2x wouldn't mean anything, but I've repeated it dozens of times 
> over many days w/ very consistent results.
> I also have Firefox open w/ the same site as TBB - say Startpage. When 
> they fail in TBB, I instantly load it in regular Fx & loads every 
> time.  So the search sites' servers aren't overloaded - at least for 
> normal internet traffic.
>
> For a bit, I wondered if my ISP was slowing connections to Tor relays, 
> but I don't  have the TBB connection problem w/ most other sites, so 
> that can't be it.  I'm just brain storming.
> Thinking outside the box - what if I look at the problem from opposite 
> direction.  Instead of thinking as a problem of "Startpage, et al. not 
> accepting Tor / TBB," look at it from a "Tor / TBB having problems 
> with these sites" stance (Startpage, et al.).
>
> There's obviously SOME reason, but not typical - given all the methods 
> & versions I've used to rule out possibilities. Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, 
> Ebay searches - together w/ the nsa, *must* be blocking me from other 
> searches engines, forcing me to use them. Yeah, that must be it.

I assume? most users of WINDOWS TBB 2.3.25-12/13 that have read of my 
problem, have recently tried Startpage, Ixquick, DDG - & not really 
having any issues?

Would Tor message log posted here have anything useful that more 
experienced users may spot a problem?
I looked at logs (w/ Debug, error, warning, notice turned on) for FAILED 
connection to Startpage /  Ixquick & Check.torproject VS. good 
connection to other sites.  Nothing obvious -  others may see something.