[RESOLVED] NoScript breaks Google

boa13 · Post by **boa13** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:56 am

When I perform a Google search, clicking on the Next link at the bottom of the results page, or one of the numbered "o" in Goooooogle also at the bottom, or typing a new text and clicking the Search button, nothing happens. Auto-completion works, searching from the Google home page works. The NoScript icon is white on Google search results, all scripts were authorized to run. By the way, all my other regular web sites work.

When I authorize JavaScript globally in NoScript, Google is still broken. When I disable NoScript from the add-ons list, Google works again. When I re-enable the NoScript add-on, Google is broken again.

My configuration:

- French language (in Firefox, in NoScript, in Google)
- Firefox 3.5.11 (not 3.6, I know I should upgrade some day)
- NoScript 2.0.2.5 (upgraded this morning, Google was already broken the day before that)

I was away for the week-end. I'm pretty sure Google was working on Friday evening, and not working on Sunday evening, with no add-on upgrade in-between.

I can share my NoScript configuration if you want (I don't know how, though). Notably, I authorize second-level domains by default.

Post by **Giorgio Maone** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 9:14 am

boa13 wrote:I can share my NoScript configuration if you want (I don't know how, though).

NoScript Options|Export. My email address is shown here.

boa13 · Post by **boa13** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 9:42 am

I have sent you my settings by private email.

Also, a colleague of mine has noticed that Google has begun rolling out a new search result functionnality, which might explain the breakage. Now, when he alters his search query in the results page, not only does he get auto-completion, but also the search results are updated as he types!

(If I recall correctly, this feature was announced by Google a couple of weeks ago.)

Post by **Giorgio Maone** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 10:02 am

I imported your settings and Google is still working fine for me.
Could you try deleting all your cookies (or at least the Google-related ones), your cache and retry?

Should that not help, maybe it's an extensions conflict and you may want to try Standard Diagnostic while keeping NoScript enabled.

Good luck and let me know.

boa13 · Post by **boa13** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:32 pm

I cleaned my cookies (kept some, but deleted the vast majority, including all Google cookies and ad-related and web-tracking cookies such as the ubiquituous __utma and __utmz). Everything works fine again.

Thanks for helping.

boa13 · Post by **boa13** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:39 pm

The cookie (and the problem) is back.

I've been able to track it down, it's the SID cookie that is set when authenticating to Google (among others). More specifically, when I go to http://www.google.fr/reader/ and authenticate myself there (I don't use other Google services in French, so I don't know if they also create an SID cookie).

When the cookie is deleted (or when NoScript is deactivated) the search results page works fine. When the cookie is there and NoScript is activated, the search results page is broken. I'm a daily user of both Google Search and Google Reader, so I'm pretty sure it broke during the past week-end.

I tried doing other tests, but got lost quite a bit in all the interactions between the google.com and google.fr cookies, so the simplest way I've found to get the problem is:

- Delete all google.com and google.fr cookies
- Go to the Mozilla Google Search page (my home page actually): http://www.google.fr/firefox?client=fir ... r:official
- Search for "test" (or any other words)
- Search results page works fine (click on Next or the page numbers at the bottom of the page, or perform a new search)

- Go to the Google Reader page: http://www.google.fr/reader/view/
- Authenticate yourself
- Go to the Mozilla Google Search page (my home page actually): http://www.google.fr/firefox?client=fir ... r:official
- Search for "test" (or any other words)
- Search results page is broken (clicking Next or the page numbers at the bottom of the page, or clicking the Search button)

- Delete the google.fr SID cookie (or disable NoScript)
- Go to the Mozilla Google Search page (my home page actually): http://www.google.fr/firefox?client=fir ... r:official
- Search for "test" (or any other words)
- Search results page works fine (click on Next or the page numbers at the bottom of the page, or perform a new search)

That said, I've found a similar breakage during my tests, maybe simpler to debug:

- Delete all google.com and google.fr (and google.it?) cookies
- Go to http://www.google.fr/ (maybe using a French IP address too, I don't know how much Google geolocalizes)
- Click the "Google.com in English" link at the bottom of the page
- Search for "test" (or any other words)
- The Search button doesn't work!
- Disable NoScript
- Redo the same actions
- The Search button works

Post by **Giorgio Maone** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 3:07 pm

I followed your instructions but I still couldn't reproduce.
The fact that the SID cookie makes a difference, though, makes me suspect that it's something specific to your Google account settings.

Could you try the following?

Install latest development build, restart your browser and check whether the problem persists
If the problem persists, create a new Google account, clear your Google cookies and check whether the problem persists after logging in with the new account
If the problem persist, create a fresh profile, install latest development build there and check whether the problem persists

Good luck and let me know.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:01 pm

For me, the problem is with noscript itself. If I disable noscript, then Google search works. If I enable noscript, then Google search will not work.

To figure out that the problem was noscript, I:

uninstalled FF 3.6.8
deleted all of the extensions in my profile
Re-installed FF 3.6.8
Verified that no extensions and no themes existed in FF
Verified that Google search worked.
Installed noscript 2.0.2.5
Verified that Google search did not work
Enable/Disabled noscript 2.0.2.5 multiple times

Every time that I enable noscript, Google search immediately stops working.
Every time that I disable noscript, Google search immediately starts working.

I can clear my cache and delete all cookies to no avail.

-eo

Post by **Giorgio Maone** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:13 pm

Guest wrote:For me, the problem is with noscript itself. If I disable noscript, then Google search works. If I enable noscript, then Google search will not work.

To figure out that the problem was noscript, I:

uninstalled FF 3.6.8
deleted all of the extensions in my profile
Re-installed FF 3.6.8
Verified that no extensions and no themes existed in FF
Verified that Google search worked.
Installed noscript 2.0.2.5
Verified that Google search did not work
Enable/Disabled noscript 2.0.2.5 multiple times

Every time that I enable noscript, Google search immediately stops working.
Every time that I disable noscript, Google search immediately starts working.

I can clear my cache and delete all cookies to no avail.

-eo

As I said it's working just fine on a clean profile (and on all other test profiles of mine as well).
Did you try NoScript Options|Reset and clearing your cookies?
Are you logged in any Google service when this happens?
Can you see any error (red) message in Tools|Error Console when this happens?

Notice also that many Google engineers (esp. in the security dept.) are NoScript users, so if this was a widespread issue with NoScript surely to blame I would have been notified by Google itself (and would have received much more reports, since virtually everyone uses Google).

boa13 · Post by **boa13** » Fri Sep 10, 2010 12:35 pm

I haven't had time to investigate this problem further, but an interesting development occured: now that Google Instant has been made public, and is available on my account, the following happens:

- Search works fine (again) when Instant is turned off;
- Instant is broken (displays a whited-out page and stops there).

I honestly don't know if I'll spend the time tracking this down, considering regular Search is what matters to me, and I don't have much free time currently. If this keeps occuring with newer Firefox and NoScript releases, I'll probably try to investigate.

Post by **GµårÐïåñ** » Sun Sep 12, 2010 6:52 am

1. Is there any new or added rule code under either system or user section of ABE?
2. Also, do you have RequestPolicy installed?
3. Also check to see if you have Rapport installed.

bjorn · Post by **bjorn** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:45 am

This happens to me as well. I'm in Norway, but only use google.com (not google.no) and US settings for everything else. Sounds like it doesn't happen for USians only...

Bjorn

Post by **Giorgio Maone** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:16 am

bjorn wrote:This happens to me as well.

What, exactly? Could you list your symptoms analytically?

bjorn wrote:I'm in Norway, but only use google.com (not google.no) and US settings for everything else. Sounds like it doesn't happen for USians only...

I'm exactly under your same conditions (I'm in Italy, but I only use google.com and US settings), and everything works fine.
Could you try using NoScript Options|Reset, then allowing google.no (even though you don't use it)?

Bjorn · Post by **Bjorn** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 4:47 pm

Hitting reset, plus a couple of cycles of disable/enable, got everything working again. Thanks!

fex · Post by **fex** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:03 am

Hallo!

Just to share my experience:
I had the same problem with Firefox 10.0.2 and NoScript 2.3.2 (both are the latest versions at the moment).
Neither google instant search nor the google search button worked (on google.de; I did not try any other google TLD). The symptoms were exaclty like the ones described in the previous posts.

So what I did was:
- Export the broken configuration
- Reset the NoScript settings (this helped immediately)
- Export the fresh settings
- kompare-d both config files

What I found out:
- The broken config contained the line: [begin]"untrusted":"about:blank",[end]
- I found no setting in the GUI that corresponds to this line
- Entering this line into the fresh settings and importing them breaks google again! (after Firefox restart)
- Removing this line from the settings helps *sometimes* (after Firefox restart); Sometimes I needed to push the "Reset" button. (I am not sure about the English name of the button, in German it is "Zurücksetzen"). Pushing this button ultimately helps (without Firefox restart).

Ciao
fex

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