Quick Fix to “Connection Was Reset”/”No Data Received” Errors on Firefox/Chrome When Installing a Joomla Extension

One of our clients was trying to install an extension today (it was VirtueMart), and she told us that every time she tried to install that extension, she got a “No Data Received” error on Google Chrome. So we checked the problem ourselves, and sure enough, we had the same error. So we tried on FireFox, but we got a “Connection Was Reset” error. Our last resort was Internet Explorer (which is a browser that we only use for testing), and we got the “Cannot display the webpage” error.

Weird! It was the first time that we saw all 3 major browsers agreeing on something!

Here’s what we knew:

• The problem only happened when we tried to install an extension (we tried other extensions and we had the same problem – it wasn’t only VirtueMart).

• Our client was using Joomla 1.5.26.

• The website was nearly a fresh install – VirtueMart was the second 3^rd party extension installed which meant that… (check the next point)

• The client managed to successfully install an extension before.

We first thought that the problem lied in SEF, so we disabled it, but we still had the same problem (on all 3 browsers). We then moved further and renamed the .htaccess file to .htaccess.old but that didn’t work either. What could it be, we thought?

We then started disabling all the system plugins – one by one – hoping that this will solve the problem, but that didn’t either! So we disabled all the plugins, but that didn’t fix the problem. At this point, we started thinking that the problem might lie with the permissions with the Joomla directories (especially the temp directory – because it’s in that directory where new extensions are first uploaded before getting installed), but the permissions were all correct! This problem was getting more and more complicated to solve, and we started suspecting that there’s something wrong with our client’s hosting environment (like a wrong server setting, for example).

But then it hit us: Our client’s website was very small (with only one non-built-in Joomla extension), so we started looking at what made this website’s settings different from all the other websites, and we remarked that the website had FTP information set in the configuration settings – something that nearly 80% of the websites don’t have – and so we removed these FTP settings, and we were then able to install the extension.

We don’t know what exactly caused this FTP issue (as we didn’t have more time to invest in this problem), but we just knew that disabling FTP on the website (something that our client didn’t need in the first place) fixed the problem. She was happy because her problem was solved, and that’s what really matters for us!

If you’re having a “Connection Was Reset” error on Firefox or a “No Data Received” error on Chrome, then try removing the FTP settings from your Joomla configuration page, and if that doesn’t work, then why not contact us? We’ll be happy to serve, our rates are cheap, and we always get the job done!