Curious Trouble with and Inability to Access a Single Site

When working in Mac OS X, and using Firefox 52.01 (and other recent versions) I experience the following difficulties only when on the social media site, Ello.co (not .com):

1. When mousing over links or pictures, the little hand that immediately appears changes back into the cursor arrow until the cursor is moved again, at which time the process repeats, indefinitely. Similarly, when typing, the I-shaped cursor symbol that delineates position within a sentience flicks on and off.

2. When, after a time--say, an hour--I attempt to access ello, I can't--it doesn't load, though the tab above shows "ello.com." However,  If I exit Firefox and return to it, I'm able to access the site.

What is going on? As I say, this only happens with ello, in Firefox, on my Mac; no problem with the same Firefox version when working in Windows 10.

I've contacted ello help and they can't figure out what the problem is.

Thanks.
arthurboehmAsked:
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aranaCommented:
have you tried reset firefox to defaults? ( it will remove all your adddons, and set it up as new, this is not the same as uninstalling and reinstalling) , from the help menu option troubleshooting  you will get a link that says repair or refresh firefox, try that and let us know
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
Nope, haven't. Reluctant to do that as I'll have to reinstall the add-ons--which I depend on. So it might be just an exercise in knowing what the source of the problem is.

But the thing is, Firefox is configured for my Windows 10 "computer" exactly as for the Mac one; so would the operating system be the key variable, if the add-ons turn out to be the culprit? I'm not the only person on ello using Firefox in Mac OS. Hmmmmm.
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
I suspect what is happening is that Firefox is logging out from the site after a period of inactivity there.  This is done for security reasons.  You still have access to the site but only as an anonymous user.  If you need to do anything you'll have to login again.

The period of time might be roughly about 20 minutes.

Chrome does this to me as well.  So if I have my banking page open it'll log out and stop other users accessing it.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
But then why only ello and not other sites that are not security-minded, as bank sites are? And why do I have to exit Firefox and not just the site to get onto the site again?

Thanks.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
...and why in OS X but not in Windows?
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
I'm on Windows and Chrome does this for me.  I'll test Firefox on Windows and see what it does.

>>  And why do I have to exit Firefox and not just the site to get onto the site again?

I'll do some more testing.  Might be an hour or two.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
Thanks, dbrunton.
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
OK, Firefox seems to be logging me out of site if I leave page inactive for a period of time.  This is on Windows.  More testing to be done.

Haven't really tried logging in again though.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
Thanks--but my problem isn't that I'm logged out of ello while on it; it's that after a time of being off it, when I try to load the site again, I can't. The Firefox tab above shows the site address, but, again, nothing loads.

As I said. I then have to exit Firefox and open it again, after which I'm able to access the site. If, after time has passed (perhaps a half hour)  I close the site and try to get onto it again, the problem reoccurs.
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
This is what I'm checking on the site I frequent.  

Whether I can log in again without closing Firefox down.  I can browse the site when I'm not logged in but I don't have access to the features that I get when logged in.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
Thanks again.
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aranaCommented:
" I'm not the only person on ello using Firefox in Mac OS"  but your system configuration might not be the same as theirs, as well as your combination of addons,versions, etc., I would backup my firefox installation and try to reset it, then add 1 by 1 your addons and testing, this for is the best way to find out what is causing the problem in order to be able to fix it.
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
OK, get logged out automatically if I don't access the page.

But I can access the page again if I login.

Now this is Windows and you're on the Mac.

So as arana comments "Test your addons" and see if something there is affecting it.  That is the only thing I can see that should be different.  (I disabled some of mine for testing purposes.)
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
OK, thanks, dbrunton.
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
Thought, you are permitting ello to save cookies in your browser?
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
The site has never "asked" me for permission to save cookies. Where would I find confirmation of this, one way or another?
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
Apologies for delay.

At the menu:  Tools --> Options --> Privacy --> Remove Individual cookies

You should be able to see all and any cookies stored on your machine.

Now if you clear all of your history from your machine and login to ello and then exit and go back into Remove individual cookies you should be able to see if any are stored on your machine.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
I can access the list of cookies associated with ello--remove them?

@arana, how do I back up my Firefox installation? Can't I simply go to my ad-ons page and try disabling them one-by-one, checking after disabling each to see if the ello situation has improved? In other words, to see if by elimination I can pinpoint the possible culprit?

Thanks to you both.
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aranaCommented:
you can try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/febe/

or you can just go back in time (time machine?) after you have found the culprit.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
So, arana, do ad-on back up, then check out which add-on(s) are causing the disruption one-by one? Not quite sure what the purpose of the back-up is unless I clean them all out first. Which it doesn't seem necessary to do.

Why go back in time to find the culprit?

Am I missing something?

Thanks.
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dbruntonQuid, Me Anxius Sum?  Illegitimi non carborundum.Commented:
You should be able to disable all of the extensions (addons) and then add them back one by one.

Test with none and see if the problem still occurs.  If it doesn't then the problem is an addon.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
Will do this and report. Thanks, dbrunton and arana, for your continued attention to my problem.
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arthurboehmAuthor Commented:
Success! I removed ad-ons one-by-one, checking Ello after each action and finally isolated the culprit, which was and is TinyURL, now disabled.

Thank you both for your help!

Arthur
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aranaCommented:
the purpose of backup was to be able to RESET firefox as a new install, not just disable addons, but some probable plugin/malware/etc, those you cant usually disable, so best way was to reset firefox and have a backup handy.
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