Unable to access ShieldsUp port scanner

[russp]

When I select ShieldsUp from web site. All that happens is a dll - ne.dll is downloaded to my pc. This has happened once before (several months ago). Don't know when or how it started working. Tried several browsers, all the same. Any help is appreciated.
Russ Pepe

 

[PHolder]

It sounds like your browser is mis-configured. Which browser are you using? Do you have a different browser available to test with?

 

[Mike in Cambridge]

As a check on GRC.com. A few seconds ago. I was able to access Shields Up without problems. Try a alternative browser. I was using Fire Fox ver 132.0.1 Win 11 HOME.

 

[russp]

As a check on GRC.com. A few seconds ago. I was able to access Shields Up without problems. Try a alternative browser. I was using Fire Fox ver 132.0.1 Win 11 HOME.

When using Chrome or Edge I get a blank white page with url https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bhpbkyd2 Using Firefox a file ne.dll is downloaded to my pc.
Thx for the response.

 

[DanR]

When using Chrome or Edge I get a blank white page with url https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bhpbkyd2 Using Firefox a file ne.dll is downloaded to my pc.

Works fine for me with Firefox, Edge, Palemoon. I'd say there is something wonky with your PC.

 

[PHolder]

Using Firefox a file ne.dll

Firefox has a recovery mode known as safe mode. Okay, when I went to get documentation on it, they've changed it to be troubleshoot mood. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode Try that and see if anything changes.

 

[Jan J]

I'm having the EXACT SAME THING: Download ne.dll on BOTH a PC AND an Iphone 15
On PC i cleared the Firefox Cache multiple times.... Didn't help. This was before I discovered it is also happening on iPhone 15 Safari...
Seeing it's on BOTH.... I don't think it's ME!
I sent email to both GRC Sales and GRC Support.... I hope to hear something...

How to FIX or is this something at GRC?

 

[PHolder]

How to FIX

Your browser is misconfigured. (It could be the result of some extension you have.) Try running Firefox in safe mode. It could also possibly be your router or related to something between you and it, such as a firewall tool or a VPN. Reboot your router, and disable any VPN. (There is no value is using Shields Up with a VPN enabled... it's not telling you any useful info about your own network.)

 

[Jan J]

You don’t seem to understand.
It happened simultaneously on a windows and iPhone.
On windows browser is Firefox.
But the download message showed up simultaneously on Safari on iPhone 15 running latest IOS.
I DID NOT MAKE CHANGES ON 2 different systems simultaneously!!
It worked before. On both. When windows showed issue I then tried iPhone. It did same. I did a google search and found this thread.
I’m telling you something changed.
I’ll try wife’s iPhone and computer later, as neither have ever visited your site.

 

[PHolder]

I’m telling you something changed.

And I'm telling you "it's just on your end".

I tried it here on multiple devices, and it works fine... as one would expect. My conclusion, is it is on your end or in your path. There is nothing Steve can do about that, so you should try some things to try and figure out what might be happening ON YOUR END. I gave you some suggestions, but here's some more. Visit a friend, see if they're having the same issue. If they're not, then try and figure out what is different between them and you. If they are, then try to figure out what you both have in common. Try your phone on WiFi vs mobile data.

The most likely thing happening is some device is proxying your session. This would explain why the metadata would get altered so it would think the dll link was a file download instead of a HTML page.

 

[Jan J]

No it’s not. Safe mode does it too.
Go ahead, put your head in the sand.
Do a search on this

 

[Jan J]

It’s only Shields up area that does it!

 

[Jan J]

The rest of your site is fine

 

[Jan J]

As seen by iPhone 15

 

[Jan J]

Locked from posting pics?

 

[Steve]

@Jan J : If you had any trouble uploading an image, it's likely due to its overly large size. In this day and age of ultra-high smartphone camera resolutions and insane amounts of storage, people have stopped thinking about the consequences of casually uploading unnecessarily massive images to the web. But hosting unnecessarily large images has a significant effect at this end. Keeping the total storage consumed by the forums under control allows for much faster backups, much smaller incremental backups, faster startup, more efficient resource caching ... and on and on.

So, if you will take some responsibility for the size of the image you wish to upload you'll be free to do so, just like everyone else here.

I agree with the others here who are perplexed by what you are seeing. If I use CURL to retrieve the ShieldsUP! entry page...

C:\Programs\Net\Curl>curl -v https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

* Host www.grc.com:443 was resolved.
* IPv6: (none)
* IPv4: 4.79.142.202
* Trying 4.79.142.202:443...
* SSL connection using TLSv1.2 / ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384 / [blank] / UNDEF
* Server certificate:
* subject: C=US; ST=California; L=Laguna Niguel; O=Gibson Research Corporation; CN=grc.com
* Connected to www.grc.com (4.79.142.202) port 443
* using HTTP/1.x

> GET /x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 HTTP/1.1
> Host: www.grc.com
> User-Agent: curl/8.12.1
> Accept: */*
>
* Request completely sent off

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Cache-Control: no-cache
< Pragma: no-cache
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
< Expires: Mon, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMT,Mon, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMT
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
< Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; preload
< P3P: CP="NOI DSP COR NID NOR"
< Set-Cookie: tpag=yyf2s20ft5rj5; path=/
< Set-Cookie: ppag=yyf2s20ft5rj5; path=/; expires=Mon, 01-Jan-2046 00:00:00 GMT
< Server: GRC/IIS Hybrid Application Webserver
< Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 13:08:00 GMT
<
<!DOCTYPE html>

What we see is CURL saying that it will [B]Accept: */*[/B] , meaning anything the server wishes to send it, and GRC's server replying with Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 meaning that the URL that's been requested is a textual webpage. So, as others here have suggested, it appears that for whatever reason your browser(s) are wanting to DOWNLOAD that textual webpage rather than DISPLAY it as the textual webpage that it is.

 

[peterblaise]

Aside: @Steve "... hosting unnecessarily large images has a significant effect at this end. Keeping the total storage consumed by the forums under control allows for much faster backups, much smaller incremental backups, faster startup, more efficient resource caching ... and on and on ..."​

​

- - - - -

Many sites 'adjust' uploaded images to 'fit' their preferred dimensions, color depth, and compression scheme. Would it be possible to add such a shrinker / reformatter to the GRC forums so folks could just drag-and-drop-in what they have and - poof - it becomes no more than your target goals?

@Jan J's pic IMG_0397.png from https://forums.grc.com/threads/unable-to-access-shieldsup-port-scanner.1875/post-14929 seems to be 296 x 640 pixels x 3,247 colors, storage size 77.1 KB ( 78,992 bytes ), display size 555.04 KB ( 568,360 Bytes ).

Free IrfanView can drop it to 16 colors ( 4 BitsPerPixel ) and at 6-compression PNG it becomes 'only' storage size 16.56 KB ( 16,955 Bytes ), display size down nicely to 92.60 KB ( 94,824 Bytes ), increasing Internet throughput for GRC Forum users, and reducing backup time and space - but require a Windows computer, IrfanView does not work a phone.

- - - - -

Your text reply, though comparatively lengthy, appears to be only 4.00 KB ( 4,096 bytes ) for approximately 389 words, 2,522 characters, at that rate, making the size of 1,000 words - the proverbial "a picture is worth" - to be approximately 10 KB ( 10,529 bytes ) at most.

Perhaps they tried to upload additional images from a full-size PC display screen, hit the GRC Forum's 512 KB size block message "... Oops! We ran into some problems ...", and then they responded, thinking that they were "... Locked from posting pics? ..." - no, just limited to 512 KB without being told why.

We can always add links to larger images that we upload elsewhere, the GRC Forums even provide a convenient menu control to upload an image here or reference a link to an image we've uploaded and hosted elsewhere:

That's a crop of a screen grab that I dropped to 16-color PNG 368 x 218 pixels, but it's still 39.27 KB ( 40,216 Bytes ), making even that 'little' picture 'worth' or equal, storage-wise, to approximately 4,000 words of text.

I am reminded of the many @Steve Gibson GRC programs that are tiny, some as small as 1 KB, and the slogan Small Is Beautiful https://www.grc.com/smgassembly.htm

Yet, so much of what we discuss in the Forums - and Newsgrous - is our on-screen information using GRC programs, where sharing images brings terrific and quick clarity.

So, is there a way to meet up both worlds, Small Is Beautiful, and A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words - with some sort of image auto shrinker reformatter?

At least provide some on-screen guidance, by adding a message to the picture inserter:

512 KB max, cropped to the essentials,​

16-color or even grayscale PNG preferred​