Safari/Chrome Unable to Open Website - Firefox does

[runninwideopen]

Hello,

I have a problem that's been getting progressively worst. Safari and Chrome will not open websites anymore. Firefox does, although slowly. Other internet services work fine (email, FTP). I can trace route websites. It does not appear to be website specific - NO sites will open in Safari/Chrome. And Safari and Chrome both often freeze and require Force Quit. There is no error. The loading just hangs indefinitely. At first it was just Safari, and I could use Chrome. Now I can't use Chrome either. Wondering if Firefox is going to stop working next.

Occurs regardless of my location or what internet service I'm connected to.

My other devices work fine, except sometimes my phone won't connect to anything and I have to reboot it. Not sure if this could be related. My iphone 6s is getting old and beatup.

Restarting the computer used to help. Does not anymore.

Avast has found no viruses.

Proxy settings are blank.

Firefox is also set to system proxies - has same settings as Safari/Chrome.

There are no extensions installed on any of the browsers.

Have cleared website data multiple times. Now, when attempting to do this in Chrome, Chrome will not even open chrome://settings/ClearBrowserData in order to do so.

Safari and Chrome will not even open local files on my hard drive.

Disk Utility shows no errors.

2015 MBP 2.5Ghz. OSx 10.15.2. Shows no updates available, all apps up to date.
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Computer is overall sluggish, other apps are starting to hang, and it won't restart. I have to do a hard reboot.

 

[bogdanw]

2015 MBP 2.5Ghz. OSx 10.15.2.

Consider going back to Mojave.

 

[Floored]

Just a thought but have you tried turning java off in safari's developer menu and visiting a simple innocuous site?

 

[runninwideopen]

Consider going back to Mojave.

I see that people are disenchanted with Catalina. You think this is just a Catalina issue? Have other people reported similar behavior?
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Just a thought but have you tried turning java off in safari's developer menu and visiting a simple innocuous site?

Not yet but I'll try that next. I got it working for now by doing a PRAM reset. Problem will probably come back later today or tomorrow.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

.

 

[juan985_Spain]

I had to go back to Mojave because of that, among other stuff.

 

[IowaLynn]

Avast has had to be updated and may still be an issue. Also some routers though it sounds like this is isolated.

Safe mode? Run Malwarebytes? Extensions? Move your browser's profile and cache outside and create fresh user profile.

Have you been updating over old OS and not done a clean setup? Some remnants can still be present in the system. Overdue.

 

[runninwideopen]

Avast has had to be updated and may still be an issue. Also some routers though it sounds like this is isolated.

Safe mode? Run Malwarebytes? Extensions? Move your browser's profile and cache outside and create fresh user profile.

Have you been updating over old OS and not done a clean setup? Some remnants can still be present in the system. Overdue.

I will look into Avast further. It is up to date.

I feel I’ve ruled network problems out because when the problem occurs, Safari/Chrome won’t even open local files.

i have not run malwarebytes, but I will.

I did an upgrade from Mojave to Catalina. Mojave was a clean install. This was months ago though. Problems started maybe 1 month ago.

 

[runninwideopen]

so far the problem hasn't reoccurred since resetting PRAM. I will follow up if it comes back. Thanks for the help everyone.