Cannot browse websites because "The proxy server is refusing connections

[jonalbert]

Recently I keep getting the error "The proxy server is refusing connections" while trying to use Firefox. I encountered similar errors on Chrome and IE. The problem seems to go go away on its own temporarily for about ~10minutes every so often without me doing anything and then comes back again. I ran a full scan with both MSE and malwarebytes. The MSE scan did not find any threats while malwarebytes found about 20 things which I quarantined. However, this did not solve the issue.

I am still able to play online games and connect to programs such as Spotify and Steam.

I am able to get around this issue by turning on Hotspotshield, but it severely slows down my internet.

Anyone have any idea what else I can do?

[AndyFergo]

Hi jonalbert. Ill try to help you best i can. You mentioned you scanned your pc and malwarebytes picked up 20 detections that you quarantined. So my best guess here is one of those were adware and messed with some proxy settings. The fact the malwarebytes has removed it/them will not fix any settings that it changed previously. So lets try set you back to defaults with a quick walk through. Right click on windows start button\control panel\network and internet\internet options\Connections\LAN Settings. Check to enable "Automatically Detect settings". UNCHECK all other options. Then i want you to open firefox in the top right corner you see 3 lines click those. Then click on options. Scroll to the very bottom and you see "Network Settings" click the settings button and the only thing that should be selected in there is use system proxy settings. All other check boxes or info boxes should be unchecked or blank. Once this is done click on start menu type cmd and hit the enter key. Type these command in the cmd windows iv added " quotation marks but please dont include these when typing the commands. "ipconfig /flushdns" and press enter then type" ipconfig /release" and hit enter and finally "ipconfig /renew" and hit enter. Note your internet will temporarily disconnect when going from the release to the renew command and this is normal. Let me know how you get on.

[jonalbert]

Hi jonalbert. Ill try to help you best i can. You mentioned you scanned your pc and malwarebytes picked up 20 detections that you quarantined. So my best guess here is one of those were adware and messed with some proxy settings. The fact the malwarebytes has removed it/them will not fix any settings that it changed previously. So lets try set you back to defaults with a quick walk through. Right click on windows start button\control panel\network and internet\internet options\Connections\LAN Settings. Check to enable "Automatically Detect settings".  peryourhealth UNCHECK all other options. Then i want you to open firefox in the top right corner you see 3 lines click those. Then click on options. Scroll to the very bottom and you see "Network Settings" click the settings button and the only thing that should be selected in there is use system proxy settings. All other check boxes or info boxes should be unchecked or blank. Once this is done click on start menu type cmd and hit the enter key. Type these command in the cmd windows iv added " quotation marks but please dont include these when typing the commands. "ipconfig /flushdns" and press enter then type" ipconfig /release" and hit enter and finally "ipconfig /renew" and hit enter. Note your internet will temporarily disconnect when going from the release to the renew command and this is normal. Let me know how you get on.

Thanks for giving reply I'll try as per instruction hope it will work ...

[patio]

SPAM...Topic Closed.