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Temporary ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED when loading websites while Portmaster is running #2210

Description

@rimage85

What happened?

After enabling Portmaster, some websites intermittently fail to load when opened in Chrome. Instead of loading immediately, Chrome displays an ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED page for approximately 1–5 seconds. If I simply remain on the page, the error disappears automatically and the website loads without any user interaction.

This behavior only occurs while Portmaster is running. If I pause or completely exit Portmaster, the issue no longer occurs.


What did you expect to happen instead?

The website should load immediately without showing the temporary ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED error.


Steps to reproduce

Unfortunately, I have not found a reliable way to reproduce the issue consistently.

The problem is intermittent and appears to occur randomly while browsing.

The only recommendation I can provide is:

  1. Enable Portmaster.
  2. Open Chrome.
  3. Open 20–30 tabs across different websites.
  4. Continue browsing normally.

At some point, one of the websites may temporarily display ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED for approximately 1–5 seconds before automatically loading successfully.

I have not yet identified any specific website or sequence of actions that consistently triggers the issue.

Sono d'accordo: è più chiaro separare i workaround che risolvono il problema dai tentativi che non hanno avuto effetto. Questo aiuta gli sviluppatori a capire subito cosa è rilevante.

Ti suggerirei di sostituire la sezione con questa:

What have you already tried?

Changes that did not resolve the issue

  • Switched between Cloudflare DNS and dns://8.8.8.8.
  • Disabled Secure DNS in Chrome.
  • Enabled the DNS cache in Portmaster.
  • Also tested with both Secure DNS disabled and Portmaster DNS cache enabled at the same time.

None of the above changed the behavior.

Workarounds that do resolve the issue

  • Pausing Portmaster immediately prevents the issue from occurring.
  • Uninstalling Portmaster also resolves the issue.

This strongly suggests that the issue is related to Portmaster rather than Chrome or the DNS provider.


Additional information

The websites eventually load successfully without refreshing the page, suggesting that something temporarily blocks or delays the network request before allowing it.

I have not yet identified whether the issue is related to DNS resolution or to another Portmaster component, but it appears to be directly caused by Portmaster since disabling it immediately resolves the problem.

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