Opera "forgets" the proxy definition if the proxy is unreachable

Question

I connect to the the corporate VPN, and inside the corporate network (or VPN) I need to use the corporate proxy server, using an autoproxy configuration.

When I disconnect from the VPN Opera detects that the proxy server isn't available, and connects to the internet without a proxy. When I reconnect to the VPN it stays configured to not use a proxy, which obviously doesn't work. In order to get it to work I need to disable the autoproxy and then re-enable it, which is a hassle.

Is there any workaround for this problem?

Answer 1

Can you provide the step-by-step configuration? If you are using PAC, and the implementation is standards compliant, then the failed connection causes PAC to mark it as unavailable. If you have multiple servers it will failover.

You might even see this behavior if your PAC file returns a list-of-one. If so, it is time to start looking around for a reset button in the UI.

Here is what the spec said...which is really hard to find since AOL "lost" it from the legacy Netscape servers.

Here's a copy I saved before it fell out of the Google cache:

If there are multiple semicolon-separated settings, the left-most setting will be used, until the Navigator fails to establish the connection to the proxy. In that case the next value will be used, etc. The Navigator will automatically retry a previously unresponsive proxy after 30 minutes, then after 1 hour from the previous try (always adding an extra 30 minutes). If all proxies are down, and there was no DIRECT option specified, the Navigator will ask if proxies should be temporarily ignored, and direct connections attempted. The Navigator will ask if proxies should be retried after 20 minutes has passed (then the next time 40 minutes from the previous question, always adding 20 minutes).

Anyhow, the selection of the timeout values was rather arbitrary (this was meant to be a working description of what was to be implemented, and never scrutinized as an RFC). Most vendors that worked on this made modifications to actual failover or timeouts, for practicality (including Mozilla's re-write of the original Navigator PAC).

(This might be hearsay, but I know most of this because had various conversations with the authors when I worked for Netscape and mozilla.org).

I never tested/used Opera much, but check your documentation for more info. If Opera is responsive as a vendor, lean on them for more details. This is the kind of stuff where people should be more clear about what their software does.