spiral
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Post by spiral on Jun 10, 2024 15:45:28 GMT
If I search “my location” in google using Firefox on my desktop PC a map appears for Dublin. If I use mylocation.org my IP shows an accurate location in UK. If I use GPS coordinates my location is “General Post Office, O'Connell Street Lower, Dublin, D01 F5P2, Ireland”.
My PC doesn’t have GPS but this is clearly where Firefox is getting the data.
Microsoft Edge doesn’t seem to suffer the same issue so it appears peculiar to Firefox.
Normally I wouldn’t give 2 hoots about this but because it thinks I’m in Dublin, all my google searches default to Ireland so prices appear in Euros etc. This started about last Thursday.
Anyone got any idea what is occurring and more importantly, how to fix it?
I tried deleting the SQLITE file as suggested on the web. This seemed to work for a couple of mins but then reverted back again (presumably as soon as something tried to access my GPS location and told FF that I was in Ireland).
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jun 10, 2024 16:09:00 GMT
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eeyore
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Post by eeyore on Jun 10, 2024 16:27:55 GMT
I'm running two versions of Firefox - the latest v106 and v102ESR - both appear to be working correctly.
Take a look at the setting for "geo.provider.network.url" in Firefox's about.config - that might provide a clue to what's going on.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jun 10, 2024 18:58:16 GMT
Some thoughts, probably won't help, but just throwing it out there...
(Assuming you're not using a VPN or service based in Eire...)
(Assuming Windows10/11), check date/time/time-zone in Settings> Time & language> Date & time. Ensure daylight saving applied. Check recently sync'd to time server.
Check Settings > Time & language > Language & region set to UK, not Ireland.
I imagine all the above is set correctly though, if MS Edge is working correctly?
Check the Whois database for your IP address. Look for location of your IP address block. Is it based in Eire? Unlikely. Either the RIPE or ARIN database is likely to show you further geographic detail of who hosts your IP address block. Pretty sure this is the primary key for many location-based services, but I imagine they also refine this by other factors like the time-zone and region you have set up above too.
If it helps any, I and my laptop are currently in France. Its Internet connection is being hosted over my phone by one of the French cell providers (currently Orange F). Inspecting RIPE, ARIN and Whois, the IP address assigned to me comes from a block assigned to Three based in Reading, while the maps I'm getting from your links above show me based in London. (All wildly inaccurate, given I'm in France, but I don't like to be tracked so I tend to switch off location services).
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Post by overthehill on Jun 11, 2024 10:14:21 GMT
Is there a question here, I'm not spending 10 minutes looking for it !
The only thing that jumped out at me was somebody is using Microsoft Edge !
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spiral
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Post by spiral on Jun 11, 2024 14:58:42 GMT
Location services was on. FF and Edge were both set to use this. What I had never done was set a default location (and none was visible) so I have now set that . I have also disabled "allow location override" and I will see what happens.
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spiral
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Likes: 486
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Post by spiral on Jun 11, 2024 15:00:12 GMT
I'm running two versions of Firefox - the latest v106 and v102ESR - both appear to be working correctly. Take a look at the setting for "geo.provider.network.url" in Firefox's about.config - that might provide a clue to what's going on. This shows "https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key=%GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%" Not sure if this is correct or not.
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spiral
Member of DD Central
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Post by spiral on Jun 11, 2024 15:06:25 GMT
Some thoughts, probably won't help, but just throwing it out there... (Assuming you're not using a VPN or service based in Eire...) (Assuming Windows10/11), check date/time/time-zone in Settings> Time & language> Date & time. Ensure daylight saving applied. Check recently sync'd to time server. Check Settings > Time & language > Language & region set to UK, not Ireland. I imagine all the above is set correctly though, if MS Edge is working correctly? Check the Whois database for your IP address. Look for location of your IP address block. Is it based in Eire? Unlikely. Either the RIPE or ARIN database is likely to show you further geographic detail of who hosts your IP address block. Pretty sure this is the primary key for many location-based services, but I imagine they also refine this by other factors like the time-zone and region you have set up above too. If it helps any, I and my laptop are currently in France. Its Internet connection is being hosted over my phone by one of the French cell providers (currently Orange F). Inspecting RIPE, ARIN and Whois, the IP address assigned to me comes from a block assigned to Three based in Reading, while the maps I'm getting from your links above show me based in London. (All wildly inaccurate, given I'm in France, but I don't like to be tracked so I tend to switch off location services). Settings are correct for UK. The only place I can see on Whois is Amsterdam but that appears to be the address of Ripe's coordination centre. I can't see anything regarding where my IP address comes from (unless it is Amsterdam which would be even more confusing).
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spiral
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Post by spiral on Jun 11, 2024 15:07:43 GMT
Is there a question here, I'm not spending 10 minutes looking for it !
The only thing that jumped out at me was somebody is using Microsoft Edge !
I don't use Edge, I just tried that to see if it was a cross platform issue.
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spiral
Member of DD Central
Posts: 967
Likes: 486
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Post by spiral on Jun 11, 2024 18:10:25 GMT
It looks like this has fixed it. Searches now return UK sites and if I use GPS coordinates, it now returns the location that I set to default. Why on earth it had set itself to a post office in Dublin last week is anybody's guess. More bizarre is my PC doesn't have GPS tracking so why that method of trying to assume my location could return anything is strange. I have been using FF for about 20 years now and never had anything like this before. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion it looks like it has worked. Fingers crossed.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jun 11, 2024 19:48:05 GMT
Some thoughts, probably won't help, but just throwing it out there... (Assuming you're not using a VPN or service based in Eire...) (Assuming Windows10/11), check date/time/time-zone in Settings> Time & language> Date & time. Ensure daylight saving applied. Check recently sync'd to time server. Check Settings > Time & language > Language & region set to UK, not Ireland. I imagine all the above is set correctly though, if MS Edge is working correctly? Check the Whois database for your IP address. Look for location of your IP address block. Is it based in Eire? Unlikely. Either the RIPE or ARIN database is likely to show you further geographic detail of who hosts your IP address block. Pretty sure this is the primary key for many location-based services, but I imagine they also refine this by other factors like the time-zone and region you have set up above too. If it helps any, I and my laptop are currently in France. Its Internet connection is being hosted over my phone by one of the French cell providers (currently Orange F). Inspecting RIPE, ARIN and Whois, the IP address assigned to me comes from a block assigned to Three based in Reading, while the maps I'm getting from your links above show me based in London. (All wildly inaccurate, given I'm in France, but I don't like to be tracked so I tend to switch off location services). Settings are correct for UK. The only place I can see on Whois is Amsterdam but that appears to be the address of Ripe's coordination centre. I can't see anything regarding where my IP address comes from (unless it is Amsterdam which would be even more confusing). Glad to see you've (probably) found the solution. Just to round off the above, your public IP address will definitely be registered in one of the Internet Registries. You need to search inside RIPE itself. If not RIPE, then most likely you'll find your block in ARIN. Other registries do exist, but these are the usual suspects for our part of the world as far as I recall from my professional days.
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spiral
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Post by spiral on Jun 12, 2024 7:13:37 GMT
Glad to see you've (probably) found the solution. Just to round off the above, your public IP address will definitely be registered in one of the Internet Registries. You need to search inside RIPE itself. If not RIPE, then most likely you'll find your block in ARIN. Other registries do exist, but these are the usual suspects for our part of the world as far as I recall from my professional days. Searching within Ripe and Arin shows the country of origin as GB so I suspect the ip was never the source of this problem.
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eeyore
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Post by eeyore on Jun 12, 2024 11:46:38 GMT
I'm running two versions of Firefox - the latest v106 and v102ESR - both appear to be working correctly. Take a look at the setting for "geo.provider.network.url" in Firefox's about.config - that might provide a clue to what's going on. This shows "https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key=%GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%" Not sure if this is correct or not. That's the same as in both my Firefox installations. I suggest you open the Firefox Help function and search the Firefox Support forum - you'll find lots of queries about exactly the same location problem as you're experiencing (with different solutions suggested!) Somewhere in the Firefox configuration settings there's something that's gone awry... I had assumed that you'd realised that the "Dublin" location wasn't being displayed because of your IP address - your search of mylocation.org, which uses your IP address to find your location, rules out that possibility. One option would be to do a second (new from scratch) installation of Firefox in a different folder on your system (in parallel with your existing installation to preserve all your current set-up) and check what the location reports.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jun 12, 2024 16:23:10 GMT
This shows "https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key=%GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%" Not sure if this is correct or not. [...]I had assumed that you'd realised that the "Dublin" location wasn't being displayed because of your IP address - your search of mylocation.org, which uses your IP address to find your location, rules out that possibility. Essentially you're right, but could we be certain mylocation.org was returning 100% accurate information? Since it uses a number of factors to determine a location ("your IP address, your wireless network connection, which cell tower your device is connected to, built-in GPS hardware"), it did no harm to verify by more fundamental means, i.e. the Internet Registries, where the IP address is assigned geographically. mylocation.org tells me I'm currently in London, despite I'm actually in France.
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spiral
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Post by spiral on Jun 12, 2024 16:53:43 GMT
One option would be to do a second (new from scratch) installation of Firefox in a different folder on your system (in parallel with your existing installation to preserve all your current set-up) and check what the location reports. I didn't do this but did actually create a new user profile (forgot to mention that originally) which would at least rule out my profile (Win 11). Logging into the new profile worked initially but changed after a couple of minutes of searching. Presumably the initial searches were using my ip then something decided to use the GPS to locate me and everything was awry from that point on.
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