0

I’m having an insanely frustrating problem. I have no router right now, and am at the mercy of the ISP gateway, and they don’t give permission to port 9050. Starting Tor Browser, I instantly get closed unexpectedly/error, with no log message whatsoever. But running tor.exe manually I saw the problem.

I changed torrc SOCKS port to 443 and it works, tor.exe is starting. BUT, the actual browser will not start, it gives the same unexpected error. Tor service actually works though, if I enter the local proxy manually into my standard browser it reaches onion links. But that is not really a solution. I have tried looking through prefs.js and sqlite files but could not find any option for either proxy settings or ‘9050’. Can I change the proxy port manually without starting TorBrowser/FF?

(A completely fresh bundle will not start either)

Edit: tor.exe output

Feb 12 00:51:09.042 [notice] Tor 0.4.2.5 (git-bede4ea1008920d8) running on Windows 8 [or later] with Libevent 2.1.8-stable, OpenSSL 1.1.1d, Zlib 1.2.11, Liblzma N/A, and Libzstd N/A.
Feb 12 00:51:09.043 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
Feb 12 00:51:09.052 [notice] Configuration file "xxx" not present, using reasonable defaults.
Feb 12 00:51:09.052 [warn] Path for GeoIPFile (<default>) is relative and will resolve to xxx. Is this what you wanted?
Feb 12 00:51:09.052 [warn] Path for GeoIPv6File (<default>) is relative and will resolve to xxx. Is this what you wanted?
Feb 12 00:51:09.053 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
Feb 12 00:51:09.053 [warn] Could not bind to 127.0.0.1:9050: Permission denied [WSAEACCES ]
Feb 12 00:51:09.053 [warn] Failed to parse/validate config: Failed to bind one of the listener ports.
Feb 12 00:51:09.053 [err] Reading config failed--see warnings above.

Now with torrc and SocksPort 443:

Feb 12 00:53:01.083 [notice] Tor 0.4.2.5 (git-bede4ea1008920d8) running on Windows 8 [or later] with Libevent 2.1.8-stable, OpenSSL 1.1.1d, Zlib 1.2.11, Liblzma N/A, and Libzstd N/A.
Feb 12 00:53:01.084 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
Feb 12 00:53:01.094 [notice] Read configuration file "xxx".
Feb 12 00:53:01.094 [warn] Skipping obsolete configuration option "SocksListenAddress".
Feb 12 00:53:01.099 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:443
Feb 12 00:53:01.099 [notice] Opened Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:443
Feb 12 00:53:01.000 [notice] Parsing GEOIP IPv4 file xxx.
Feb 12 00:53:01.000 [notice] Parsing GEOIP IPv6 file xxx.
Feb 12 00:53:01.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 0% (starting): Starting
Feb 12 00:53:03.000 [warn] Your configuration excludes 99% of all possible guards. That's likely to make you stand out from the rest of the world.
Feb 12 00:53:03.000 [notice] Starting with guard context "restricted"
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 3% (conn_proxy): Connecting to proxy
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 4% (conn_done_proxy): Connected to proxy
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 10% (conn_done): Connected to a relay
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 14% (handshake): Handshaking with a relay
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 15% (handshake_done): Handshake with a relay done
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
Feb 12 00:53:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
Feb 12 00:53:05.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done

Resource Manager says port 9050 is not in use, Firewall is open. Ultimately I don’t think the problem is in my computer

3
  • Why do you think it is the ISP blocking port 9050? Can you explain a bit more of your setup? (like where is the client for port 9050 and where is the server). If you leave Tor Browser alone (no configuration changes and no Tor service, just the Browser), it will connect and setup the socks server on port 9050. Then you can browse from Tor Browser directly or from another browser (and you will have to tell it to use the socks browser). Then you can move on to setup a service, if you still need it. Feb 12, 2020 at 1:31
  • Yea some others too said my problem doesn’t make sense. But it worked for years until yesterday, when I removed my router. Literally no other changes made. I will add the output of tor.exe so you can get a better glimpse. And I use the Tor Bundle for Windows.
    – psisis
    Feb 12, 2020 at 1:58
  • I can launch tor.exe and I know I can use tor from my normal browser with SOCKS 127.0.0.1:443 But I still need anonymity and the Torbutton, it seems it’s not supported for Firefox anymore
    – psisis
    Feb 12, 2020 at 2:09

1 Answer 1

0

This may be a problem not of a port being blocked by a firewall or ACL, or of another program using the port, but instead of the Windows NAT Service reserving ports in blocks of 100 for its own use, sometimes many such blocks at any given time. If you have Hyper-V, WSL, and/or Docker installed, you could well run into this.

This question and related answers about reserved ports provided the following commands.

First, run this netsh command in an admin cmd.exe or PowerShell window to determine if there's an overlap in the ports:

netsh int ipv4 show excludedportrange tcp

Next, stop and start the Windows NAT Service to force it to relinquish the reserved ports:

net stop winnat
net start winnat

Finally, check the reserved ports list again. It should be much smaller:

netsh int ipv4 show excludedportrange tcp

Here is the output before I ran the above commands; I cut out dozens of lines for brevity. The line that includes 8985-9084 prevents the default tor.exe port from binding, and the next line, 9085-9184, prevents the port assigned by the Tor Browser from binding.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> netsh int ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

Protocol tcp Port Exclusion Ranges

Start Port    End Port
----------    --------
      1124        1223
      1224        1323
      1324        1423
      1424        1523
      ...
      8081        8180
      8181        8280
      8281        8380
      8381        8480
      8481        8580
      8581        8680
      8681        8780
      8781        8880
      8884        8884
      8885        8984
      8985        9084
      9085        9184
     10000       10099
     10100       10199
     10200       10299
     10300       10399
     10400       10499
     10500       10599
     10600       10699
     ...

And here is the output after I ran it:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> netsh int ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

Protocol tcp Port Exclusion Ranges

Start Port    End Port
----------    --------
      8884        8884
     50000       50059     *

* - Administered port exclusions.

I will note that I followed the advice of numerous others on various forums, help sites, and social media by rebooting, removing and reinstalling, and fiddling with configs. It was something much more subtle, so it's not surprising that so many have overlooked it.

I know this is almost four years later and you have hopefully found your way into the Tor network since your question. Maybe you still run into it. I hope that you and others might find this answer useful.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .