oddball problem

[scooteraz]

Today, every time I navigate to "Forum" or go to post, suddenly Citrix ICA wants to open on my mac. It only happens on this forum (no other web page or forum). Any ideas?

I've done the normal restart and flushing the caches, and it still happens.

Actually, each time I hit the forum button, the file "sc.aspx" downloads, which then autostarts the citrix desktop that is installed. When I un-install the citrix desktop, the "sc.aspx" still auto downloads and tries to run, but since citrix desktop is gone, it stalls (with citrix installed, it stalls on looking for the server).

Just a bit more info.

[TDPRI]

It is one of the ads being randomly supplied by one of our ad networks. I've deactivated that network while I figure out what's going on. So this shouldn't occur any more.

It's not a virus or anything. But nontheless, I recognize it's a problem.

[TDPRI]

I'm having one other member in Finland with this problem. He says that even with the ad network removed he's getting the same error.

A Google search for the sc.aspx shows up two mentions. Both yesterday and both related. Someone at a BMW car fansite has reported the problem at Mac Rumors. So, there is discussion on Mac Rumors, but it's about the problem showing up on www.e46fanatics.com.

I have a PC and a Mac. I have logged on here and at www.e46fanatics.com and I do NOT get the error message. But then, I don't have Citrix installed on my Mac. Do you?

Also, the member in Finland says it only happens in Safari.

I'm trying to find the cause and remove it, but rest assured there is nothing on the TDPRI that is trying to load a file on your Mac.

[TDPRI]

Seems to be some issue with Safari and Citrix and on a Mac only at this point. I'm stumped about what it is. But will keep looking.

[TDPRI]

Our member in Finland removed the Citrix ICA Client and he thinks the error has completely stopped now.

[scooteraz]

Thanks for the help. Let me tell you what I found out.

The downloaded file was something called sc.aspx. From what I understand, it is some sort of ad, but it never would open aparently because my citrix was not actively attached to a citrix server at the time.

I found a thread here that basically outlined the issue.

I saw this potential solution:
"Two choices I can see:

1. Edit /etc/hosts and add tag.contextweb.com to point to 127.0.0.1
2. Use Firefox, install Adblock Plus, and block http://*.contextweb.com/*"

I then looked up on the apple site a way to easily edit the /etc/hosts file. They pointed me here

I installed the widget, and followed item 1.

Seems to have worked instantly. I agree that this is only an issue for macs with the citrix remote desktop installed. However, once initiated, even after I removed citrix, the download kept going.

Thanks again for the help.

[TDPRI]

Yeah, I found all that stuff too. I passed it on to our member in Finland but he didn't get to try that fix. He just removed Citrix and said that fixed it.

It appears some ad, but I don't know which one, is causing it. It's certainly not trying to open a Citrix app. It's just unfortunately named in such a way that it's inadvertently doing that.

I actually found for a website of a Microsoft supplier that has a webpage named sc.aspx.

ASP is a web programming language. And ASPX pages are active server pages. But for some reason when a page is named sc.aspx your Mac wants to download it as a file and use Citrix to run the active part of the webpage.

None of our pages are ASP, in fact we have no ASP anything here. As best I could determine from the member in Finland was that a "certain" ad seemed to be responsible. But he didn't know which one.

Contextweb is a ad network that we use some, but not very much. I deactivated it today but it's unclear if that fixed it or not. It's possible that it's coming from a Google supplied Ad, too. Because both of them sometimes have the same advertisers.

[scooteraz]

Well, I think my problem is most likely fixed whether you have the ad network on or off. So, if you want to turn back on (and gain the revenue) that's fine as far as I am concerned. If you do, I will let you know if there is an issue.

I knew that ASP was a web programming language. But I have never used it, so I didn't put two and two together to think a file named *.aspx would be associated with ASP. I can be dense that way sometimes.

Thanks again for your fast help.