Shellbar icon confusing whitelist?

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JohnE
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Shellbar icon confusing whitelist?

Post by JohnE »

Hi all,
Have a most curious problem. We're adding a new program to our public computers and I ran into a very strange problem.
When I added the shortcut to the shellbar PWB suddenly started blocking one site.
What is even more curious is that it only blocks the site if I navigate to the link via an anchor. If I scroll down to the link I can access it just fine.
After a little more work, I found that it was any new shortcut added to the shellbar. There is alread a shortcut for MS Word and there's never been a problem before.

We use PWB v2.10.7.

Any more info needed, let me know.

JE

Scott
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Post by Scott »

What was the shortcut you added to the PWB shellbar?

Are you using the PWB filters?

--Scott
Last edited by Scott on Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

JohnE
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Post by JohnE »

Scott,
The first icon was for Winway Resume. I then also tried Notepad. Both caused the problem.
We use a url filter. The affected site is allowed.
Without the icon in the shellbar I can access the site no problem. Either by scrolling to the link or using the anchor to navigate to where the link is.
Add any icon to the shellbar and while I can access the site if I scroll down to it, navigating to the link via the anchor results in a block.
When I check the history file, it does not even register that I tried to access the site, no entry is logged. Also, any site I try to access after this will be blocked, no entry in the history file is logged either.
Restart the browser and all will be fine untl I try to access the site via the anchor again.

Scott
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Post by Scott »

What is the URL of the site with the anchors?

--Scott

JohnE
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Post by JohnE »

Scott,
http://www.fvrl.org/libraries/vm

JE

Follow the Government Information & Tax Forms anchor and then the troubled link is the Washington State Court Forms

Scott
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Post by Scott »

The site seems to work without issues.

Please send a copy of your INI and filters files as an attachment to support@teamsoftwaresolutions.com.

This will help us similuate your configuration.

--Scott

Scott
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Post by Scott »

I believe we found the issue. The link opens a new window and your URL filter file is pretty complex. When the new window opens it opens to About:Blank then navigates to a URL. Before the new window is shown it first loads the page and checks it against the URL filter file, then loads the Shellbar. In between the page tries to navigate again. The second Shellbar button slows down the process just enough to disrupt the filter.

Fortunately the fix is pretty easy and will actually speed up the user browsing experience. Change the following in the PWB INI file.

[Security]
CacheFilterFiles=True

This will cache the filter in memory which it can read much faster then from disk. Since each time a page is navigated to PWB needs to parse the filter file, reading from memory as opposed to the disk will speed up the entire
process.

This has been tested on several test systems and seems to clear up the problem. Please let me know if this change in the INI file fixes the problem on your end.

--Scott

JohnE
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Post by JohnE »

Made the adjustment and all works now.
Thanks so much for the quick resolution on a very bizarre problem.
Sorry for the complex filter, they just keep tossing more and more sites I need to whitelist for the public machines.

JE

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