A download starts when clicking a link

[Loksfjoer]

I've had this when clicking the link to the Twelve Labours General Discussion and again when I clicked the Weird Redirection thread you see in the image. Instead of opening the link, a download called OOC starts.

I also had something downloading when I logged in, but I cancelled it without taking a screenshot and when I clicked a link it turns out I was logged in, even if pressing the login didn't seem to do anything but start that download.

I have no issues with going to my pm's, or clicking on a category in the forum, but when I click a link to go into a thread I usually get that OOC download that starts.

Using the arrow at the right side to go to the last post in a topic doesn't give a download, only clicking the link directly does that.

I'm using chrome and a Bitdefender quick scan doesn't give any issues. I did a CCleaner today and I can do an additional deep virusscan tomorrow, but I don't know if it's something on the site or malware from me. I don't seem to have issues like this on other sites.



Edit:
Additionally, when creating this topic I got an error page, but when I checked though another open tab, the topic did get created:


Edit 2:
Clicking the subscribe button also gives this OOC download, but checking my subs I am subscribed, even if the green button doesn't change to the red unsubscribe. Unless I return to the thread through my subscriptions, using the arrow, because clicking the link directly from my subs gives the same OOC download again.

[Ailyn Evensen]

I personally had no problems opening either of the links you mentioned, but the site has been acting up for a while. I get redirected to server error pages and notifications of VM's but then there's nothing there. Might want to chalk it up to this problem being site-side, but I can't say for certain.

[Loksfjoer]

As an update, the virusscanner didn't find any problems

I tried logging in with firefox instead of chrome, seeing if the problem was the browser. It isn't. Below is the message I got from firefox when I clicked the link to this topic and also when I clicked the 12 labours general discussion topic. Just like last time clicking the arrow to go to the last post doesn't give any problems.



Any ideas on what is causing this or if there's something I can do?

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Edit: And, when I added this post to the topic I got an error, but when I went back to the site the post was added.

[Loksfjoer]

I'm going to add a final update on the problem here.

I ran Malwarebytes, an anti-malware program and just like Bitdefender it didn't find any issues.

Today I also logged in from a different device, another computer in this house. I used Firefox and didn't experience the problems that I mentioned in this topic. Going back to my laptop, the same issue is still present.

The only thing that I noticed with the other computer, which has the ghostery add-on for firefox, is that there is 1 tracker on this site, google adsense. Which I assume is the addbar at the top of the website. I thought I'd show it nonetheless.

[Ellri]

Pretty sure this sounds like an issue with the specific device. Something that the various antivirus/malware thingies you ran did not uncover, @WiseDragonGirl.

[Loksfjoer]

@Ellri that is entirely possible, but this is the only site I have noticed this behaviour so far. I didn't encounter this problems on other websites and there isn't any other strange behaviour that I noticed on this site or other websites that would make me think I have malware issues.

Do you have any suggestions what else I could do to solve this? Another program I could try? Because this is taking away some of the joy coming to this site and I would like to fix it somehow.

*

And to make it a little more interesting, I decided to give Microsoft Edge a try and clicked around a bit, including the mentioned topics a couple of times. I have no problems clicking any links through that browser, no 'OOC' starts to download (like with Chrome) and I'm not asked with what program I want to open the file OOC (like with Firefox).

So that's issues with 2/3 browsers. A solution is of course to switch to Edge, but that won't fix anything.

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Edit: and again, I post this, it loads for a while and then goes to the error below, but the post did get created:


I made a simple and quick post on Edge in a PM and that worked without problems

[Ellri]

@WiseDragonGirl though it can be a pain, completely uninstalling and reinstalling the relevant browsers could perhaps help?

[Loksfjoer]

It's time for an update.
After removing Chrome and installing it again, I still had the issue. When trying to login a download started called 'login'. I just hit the submit button, that was enough to trigger it.
For a moment it seemed like the issue was gone, the first time I hit submit nothing happened, but the second, third and every time after that it did.



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However, after a complete formation and re-installation of my laptop the issue seems to be gone.

I still don't know what caused it, perhaps it was a glitch from windows 10, as I got the problem with both Chrome and Firefox and re-installing Chrome didn't work.

Whatever it was, for now I can say I don't have any problems anymore.