After a recent update, my internet browsers have starter opening slower and I can;t upload/download anything. Anyone know what's wrong?

no

what's ur system? debian? mint? arch?

Is it a permissions issue?

wolfmanfur said:
no

what's ur system? debian? mint? arch?

Crap, I forgot to say which: I'm running Ubuntu.

peacethroughpower said:
Is it a permissions issue?

I don't think so, no. Edit: I'm on the Admin account, if that's what you're asking.

After a recent update

This should be your first hint. Did anything happen during the update? What kind of update, browser or OS? What do the patch notes say? Do they mention anything related to networking? By slower you mean all sites or just a handful? Have you tried checking your network settings/restoring them to default. Have you tried rolling back the update (if possible). What about clearing the browser chache and/or cookies. Does this only happens with browsers? Are you able to replicate this in another device (if you can)? What does the network activity tell you in your task manager (or ubuntu equivalent).

With so few details, it's hard to try and pinpoint the problem.

azero said:
This should be your first hint. Did anything happen during the update? What kind of update, browser or OS? What do the patch notes say? Do they mention anything related to networking? By slower you mean all sites or just a handful?

They said "my internet browsers", so I presume OS? There are dozens of packages under Linux, including system packages and security packages, and any of them can start problems on any other part of the kernel, don't expect them to find the right patch notes.

aunty_cougar said:
Crap, I forgot to say which: I'm running Ubuntu.

I don't think so, no. Edit: I'm on the Admin account, if that's what you're asking.

Visit Ubuntu's repo on Github and file an issue if you can. If not, you can see if someone else has the same problem. I'm hoping that helps.

kora_viridian said:
Try rebooting. Seriously. Broadly speaking, lots of Linux updates don't need a reboot to become effective, but some of them do. Also, rebooting is unlikely to make anything worse.

If it's still screwing up after a reboot:

Will your browsers (which ones?) do anything at all? Like, are you posting to e621 with one of the affected browsers? Or, if you type https://google.com/ in the address bar and hit Enter, do you get Google's front page, or a blank white screen, or...?

Does any other network-related thing on your machine still work? If you have email set up in a local client like Thunderbird, does your email still work? (Try sending a short test email to yourself.) Or, if you go into Ubuntu's updates thingy, and ask it to check for updates right now, does it complain about not finding a server? If you have Steam installed, start Steam - does it complain about not finding a server?

If you don't have anything else to test with, open a terminal window, type

ping google.com

and hit Enter. You should see something like this:

PING google.com (142.250.190.143) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from ord69s42-in-f14.1e100.net (142.250.190.143): icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=18.8 ms 64 bytes from ord69s42-in-f14.1e100.net (142.250.190.143): icmp_seq=2 ttl=55 time=18.7 ms 64 bytes from ord69s42-in-f14.1e100.net (142.250.190.143): icmp_seq=3 ttl=55 time=18.1 ms

The lines that start with "64 bytes from..." should show up about once a second. The other numbers don't matter so much - you probably won't get exactly the same host name or IP address as this example. The main thing is that it prints a new line once a second. Hit Control-C to stop the ping program.

If instead you get something like

PING google.com (142.250.190.143) 56(84) bytes of data.

and then it just sits there, not printing anything else, for several seconds, hit Control-C. You'll get a brief report that looks like this

--- google.com ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 5126ms

which means that you've somehow lost all networking on your PC.

There are some other possibilities, but the above two are probably the most common.

If all networking is broken, see if one of the recent updates included a program called NetworkManager. If it did, try to find out what the update changed. You may need to change the NetworkManager configuration to get online again. Also look for any other network-related programs, especially firewalls, that may have been updated, and read any change notes for them.

Also, if all networking is broken, you might check the stuff besides your PC. If you use wired Ethernet, is the cable plugged in at both ends? Did you roll over the cable with your chair? Did the cat/dog/bird/lizard chew on the cable? :D If you use WiFi, are the PC and the WiFi base station still in about the same places in the house? Nobody put a metal box over the WiFi base station? With either wired Ethernet or WiFi, try power-cycling all the stuff between you and the Internet. If there's more than one box, start by power-cycling the cable modem, DSL modem, or fiber terminal. Then, power-cycle any and all routers and hubs that are plugged into that.

If other kinds of networking work, but your browsers are still screwing up, you might investigate each browser. If one of the browsers is Firefox, open a terminal window and say

firefox -P

to open Firefox's "Profile Manager". Create a new profile and name it anything you want - Firefox will start with that new, "clean" profile. (Like, your bookmarks won't be there, any plugins/addons you have won't be there, etc. Don't freak out - they're still installed on your PC.) In the new, clean profile, try going to Web sites, and uploading and downloading things. If that works OK, then something got screwed up in your original Firefox profile. Close Firefox, start it again with firefox -P, pick your original profile, and troubleshoot further from there.

I don't use Chrome, but the Internets tell me that after you open Chrome normally, it should have a "Profile" button at the upper right, that you can use to create a new profile. If you do that, and the new profile works properly, then switch back to your old profile and troubleshoot further from there.

(I'm not sure how likely it is that an OS-level update would screw up your user profile in multiple browsers, but it's something relatively easy to check.)

If the new profiles screw up in the same way the existing profiles screwed up, then it's most likely not any of your browsers. This would point at something common like NetworkManager, any firewall you have installed, any kind of Web proxy you have installed, or any VPN you have installed.

Well... That's a lot to get through. I appreciate you responding. :)

wolfmanfur said:
Visit Ubuntu's repo on Github and file an issue if you can. If not, you can see if someone else has the same problem. I'm hoping that helps.

That's an idea, thanks. :)

"Linux updates without rebooting" -> Apparently, Ubuntu is Windows levels of bad? :P

I'd almost expect drivers, though. It's not really fair for me to ask any random user to know how to restart the networking stuff without a reboot, or to diagnose some binary blob issues on the Wifi card, etc. There was a hilarious bug in some that if you disable Wifi on Windows, reboot to Linux, you can not re-enable the card without going back into Windows. The card is effectively bricked. I believe a power cycle or moving to a different laptop fixes it? I don't remember if the 'disabled' flag is stored in laptop motherboard or the card, itself.

alphamule said:
"Linux updates without rebooting" -> Apparently, Ubuntu is Windows levels of bad? :P

I mean, the entire reason Mint exists is to un-Canonical Ubuntu.

kora_viridian said:
If you un-Canonical Ubuntu hard enough, don't you just end up back at Debian? :D

Well, maybe 6? :P
Seriously though, by 8, it's full-blown.