twathle

Thank you so much for your support. I have downloaded and installed a copy of 4.5.9, and it is working perfectly so far. Hopefully, this problem is solved.

I uploaded the MBST results file. mbst-grab-results.zip

Have been running with all protections except Web Protection disabled for most of the last several years because MWB kept locking up my WIn7 system. Occassionally, I would update MWB to test whether it still locked up. On 5/12/2022, I updated to version 4.5.9.198. I re-enabled all protections and tried it out. No lockups. I always try to keep a hard copy of downloaded files so that I can re-create working systems if the subsequent updates prove faulty. But I have been unable to obtain offline installable copies of MWB for some time now. In any case, I updated to version 4.5.10.200 on 6/18/2022, and the system has locked up several times in the past three days. How can I get an offline-installable copy of MWB 4.5.9.198 -- the only version of MWB that works on my system?

Gonzo -- A further update. My login problems returned; and after another exhaustive bout of debugging and more websearch, I believe that I have discovered their true cause. A forum entry (by another VPN user with the same problem) claimed that Google punishes VPN users by blocking their access to its capcha tools -- which silently prevents those users from logging into a wide variety of websites. The recommended work-around is to vector your DNS requests thru a "DNS resolver". I believe that a resolver acts like a middle man, passing DNS requests on to actual DNS servers. A resolver prevents corporate spyware (eg. Google) from being able to tell for whom an access is being performed.

Yes. I almost always have to edit my posts becuz they have missing words and such. But MB isn't giving me the right to correct my mistakes. I don't like that.

Gonzo -- While attempting to re-create and log my problems logging into HomeDepot.com and TorrentDay.com, I discovered that I could those problems by disabling, and then re-enabling, Private Internet Access' MACE utility, which apparently functions much like Browser Guard. I disabled an earlier occurrence of these same problems by uninstalling Browser Guard and restarting the PC. I have no idea how to make sense of these facts. I'm just happy that I have found a way to fix the problems. Thank you for your response.

Perhaps I should have titled this posting as "Disabling Browser Guard Fixes Blocked Logins". I can't login to HomeDepot.com. Testing shows that Home Depot's website isn't down. I can access HomeDepot website pages via my history, but I can't login via its signin page. I called HomeDepot.com at 1800-466-3337. I kept selecting the online options (even when they didn't apply). I eventually got transferred to sofware support. The rep was quite competent. She pointed out that a google search on my failure -- that my login page gets stuck with the following msg showing in the bottom left corner of the screen: performing TLS handshake with gstatic.com -- suggested that the problem lay with FireFox, not Home Depot. I verified her claim by performing the same google search. I cleared FireFox's cookies. No joy. I quit out of, and then re-entered, FireFox. No joy. Nextly, the rep wanted me to re-create my FireFox profile from scratch. Ugh. Alternatively, she said that I could try creating a new HomeDepot account with a different email address. I tried to do that. I eventually got to the point where I was supposed to pass a captcha before creating my new account, but the webpage displayed no captchas for me to pass. Instant checkmate. This stink is redolent of my recent login problems with Torrentday.com. Yep. Testing shows that I can't login to Tday either. I verified that both HomeDepot and Tday were listed in Browser Guard's allowed list. I restarted FireFox and tried again. Same result. I reset my PC. No joy. I disabled Browser Guard. I restarted FireFox. No joy. I reset the PC. Joy! Once again, I can login to both Home Depot and Tday. I re-enabled Browser Guard and restarted FireFox. I can still login to both websites. FireFox 88.0 64-bit Automatic updates are disabled Browser Guard 2.3.11 Last updated Oct 31, 2021 Allow automatic updates .... Default There is something funky going on here in that login-blockage events do not coincide with software updates. The first login blockages occurred on 10/6/2021, while running BG 2.3.10. I had installed FireFox 91.1.0esr about 7 days before. I recovered by reverting to a system backup that I'd made 2 months earlier. I was now running FireFox 88.0 -- a version that ran well with my system. Since I disable automatic updates, FireFox 88.0 remained active going forward. The login blockage recurred on 10/30/2021, while running BG 2.3.10. I recovered by disabling Browser Guard and resetting the PC. I updated Browser Guard to v2.3.11. The login blockage recurred again on 11/15/2021. I recovered by disabling Browser Guard and resetting the PC.