Last night, I started experiencing this weird thing with Facebook: it was redirecting to MySpace for a few minutes at a time. Specifically, to a custom URL for one Samuel Garcia (aka SR388, whose status reads, “faceebook transition. in progress”).
With my antivirus already running a full scan in the background (it didn’t find anything), I tried to Google for clues. It seems this has been going on for sometime now:
Others who have experienced it are (mistakenly) blaming their browsers:
I tried to narrow down the source of the problem: it can’t be my Windows machine, since my iPhone also exhibits the same problem whenever the redirect is “active”. I plugged my Internet connection directly to my machine to bypass the router, but that didn’t change anything. A DNS cache flush proved useless. As an extra step, I have begun to coordinate with my ISP (and they too have reported that they are experiencing this).
I’ve spent countless hours on Google looking for more answers, but all I get are more accounts of the same problem. At this time, Facebook now occasionally redirects to either a 404 page (for www.facebook.com/home.php) or an empty page (for www.facebook.com). Interestingly, whatever’s causing this is only affecting the main domain, and not the subdomain, such as apps.facebook.com.
So, what the hell’s happening?
History
- 17 November 2009: (evening, GMT+8)
www.facebook.comredirects towww.myspace.com - 18 November 2009: (all day, GMT+8)
www.facebook.comredirects to a 404 page - 20 November 2009: (a little after 10am, GMT+8)
facebook.comassets (images and CSS coming fromstatic.ak.fbcdn.net) redirecting to same 404 page;facebook.comitself is accessible. - 7 December 2009: Switched to Google Public DNS a couple of days back, and haven’t experienced a bad redirect yet. Could this be the solution?
- 14 December 2009: (Tentatively solved.) It seems that a particular model of router (plus firmware) is causing the problem: Linksys WRT160N v3. Similar routers (WRT310N) may be affected. The solution: hard-code your DNS servers in the computer, instead of on the router. Use Google Public DNS or OpenDNS while you’re at it.
haha I’m having the same exact issue to the same myspace page, from Chicago. found your page via google. I think someone’s poisoning the DNS servers somewhere up the food chain.
It’s happening in Northeast Tennessee on Charter Communications. I’m investigating DNS poisoning.
I am glad you also noticed. it was weird man. I talked to a friend in the filed and he thinks it’s an inside job. he also thinks that Samuel Garcia has nothing to do with it; just a landing page. Cheers,
TF
It’s happening to me too! I thought some stalker had hacked my computer.
I use google chrome. I did several full Norton scans, nothing came up. It got so bad that my Windows XP was reporting issues at start-up with the basic black screen with white text. (Sorry I don’t know what this is officially called). I set my computer back to it’s settings from a few months earlier before the problem started and reinstalled Chrome. That seemed to help for awhile, but the problem just came up again! Argh! I didn’t log on to Myspace at all today, I was only using facebook.
So frustrating! How do you get rid of this guy
Getting here in New York as well. Been looking for sometime now on how to correct this or something. Completely stumped. Ive been told that its malware in the server host files but again I cant find those ‘host files’.
usually at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. But that is not the problem. I’m using wireshark and watching the DNS request and it’s returning a myspace ip address. The DNS ip address is getting changed. We have been experiencing this off and on for months now here on roadruner rochester ny.
happening to me in virginia. its giving me some1 named mike moffit??? everytime i go to facebook!!!!!!
This happened to me on Windows 7 64bit (build 7600), Firefox 3.5.5 and IE8.
The first time, a simple flush of the DNS worked. Now it’s happening again, and I can’t fix it.
This just happened to me, I notice OP said Antivirus was running in background, My McAfee was running a scan in bg when it happened to me as well, coincidence?
My bad. I meant to say that immediately after experiencing it, I ran my anti-virus. But I’m guessing you your McAfee didn’t find anything, either?
yeah thats right, it did not find anything. I am not convinced that it is the net though, My wife and daughter were on facebook at the same time and were not experiencing any of this.
This crap just started up for me, too, a couple days ago. Coincidently after installing a new Cisco router? Hmmm.
Happens on my PC in all 4 browsers (Chrome, FF, Safari, IE7), but Safari on iPhone is okay for me.
Has anyone tried to contact Facebook??
Twitter is doing this to me as well. Odd thing is that it’s only happening on ONE machine in the LAN. So it might indeed have some code running locally but nothing finds it.
I’m freaking out. This happens on every browser I have. FF, IE, Chrome, you name it. Virus/malware scans turn up nothing. I’ve got 2 other PCs on the network who aren’t having this problem. It turns on and off. I’ve got Windows 7; I’ll try to reproduce it in Ubuntu.
Do let us know about your results once you’ve tested out in Ubuntu. I’m gonna have to try that myself.
Coincidentally, since switching to Google Public DNS (from OpenDNS), I haven’t had any redirect problems yet. Can anyone else confirm this?
David (From OpenDNS) — We haven’t had any reports of this over at OpenDNS, and checking our resolvers everything looks good. We’re investigating to see what we can find.
I just recently switched to a Linksys WRT310N router which is made by cisco and I have been experiencing this same problem ever since. Could it be related to the router?
Will,
That’s curious, because I just switched that same exact router. These symptoms didn’t exist prior to the introduction of this router.
I had just purchased the WRT160N router by the same company when I noticed this starting up. Hmmm. Haven’t had a problem in a few days, though, since I flushed my DNS.
Run > ipconfig /flushdns
Interesting: I just switched to a WRT160N last month. Could be coincidence, but I’m not sure.
I found 2 threads on the Linksys support forums about people experiencing this problem but they both just kind of died without a resolution.
http://forums.linksysbycisco.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Routers&thread.id=149525
and
http://forums.linksysbycisco.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Routers&thread.id=153135&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
Holy crap – I just switched to a Linksys too…
I think it’s a WRT160N!
I had the problem tonight — facebook.com redirects to myspace.com. I, too, have a refurbished Linksys WRT160N that I bought last week. Could it be the cause?
Could this be a fix?
http://forums.linksysbycisco.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Routers&message.id=104686
Upgrade the Linksys router to the latest firmware @ http://www.linksys.com/download
1. Once you upgrade to the latest firmware or if there is no firmware upgrade, you need to perform a factory reset by holding in the reset button for 30 seconds located on back of the router, you will notice the routers lights blinking. Then wait about 2-3 minutes while the router syncs back up.
Note: The factory reset will erase all previous settings, so you may want to write down your settings as you will have to enter the settings back into the router.
2. Check your Home page setting under Internet Options.
3. Clear out your Cache and cookies.
I think I’ve found the solution. I hope this helps.
http://forums.linksysbycisco.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Routers&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=154543#M154543
Thanks, Dan. I’m trying this one out now. It sucks, though, that you’d have to do this to every machine that’s connected to the router. I wonder if there’s a setting/fix in the router to disable this feature/bug, to make the solution centralized.
Great find. I think it worked too. Facebook popped up a new privacy policy this evening and when I clicked on it I got the privacy policy at skype.com. I deleted the dns address of the router and right away the link worked correctly.
Yes, the Linksys WRT160Nv3 is definitely the problem. I have been experiencing this for months on all computers on our network (Mac and Windows). At one time I briefly switched to an old Netgear router and the problem magically went away. The Netgear router has other known problems so it was back to the Linksys until I stumbled across your site tonight. I have now hardcoded the DNS resolvers in my computer to eliminate the Linksys resolver from the equation. I sure wish Linksys would acknowledge this issue and correct it.
P.S. I originally thought the issue was with my ISP’s DNS resolvers so I switched to OpenDNS. Unfortunately the problem persisted. I am sticking with OpenDNS even after finding the true cause of the issue.
Yeah, we may have pinpointed the problem down to a particular router (plus firmware) model. I will try to voice out our collective findings, and hope they issue a firmware update.
yeah, I had exactly the same problem with my 310 cisco router. I closed the browser immediatly.
is it ppsible that the redirect could load some sort of virus or malicious software on the computer? I’m worried.
It could, especially if it redirects to a malicious site. Have you tried the suggested solution above? I haven’t had a bad redirect since using that.
That one solved the problem for me too. Although, I must admit that I returned the Linksys in exchange for a Netgear WNDR3700 and have not had any problems at all.
Does anyone know how to do the above fix on a MAC? when I go to edit the DNS addresses, they are greyed out; I cannot delete the first one.
wow, this just happened to me a few mins ago. wtf i have 160n too -.-
This happened to my Linksys today. Updated the firmware, flushed my DNS, dropped the cookies, something along the way worked. What a pain in the ass!