suddenly tor and privoxy didn't work - tip

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I am having exactly the same problem. I've been using Tor/Privoxy for the better part of a year. I am based in Florida and access the Internet over a Comcast cable modem. I also am using Mac OS X 10.4.10. One morning, it worked fine; then, that afternoon, pft. It quit working. That would be sometime around Sunday, 20 August 2007, or the following Monday, if memory serves. I deleted all files as per the uninstall instructions at tor.eff.org, installed the latest stable Vidalia bundle, and am getting exactly the same behavior as described above.

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I believe the default configuration of the Vidalia
bundle is to start and stop Tor through Vidalia.

Shutting down Vidalia then shuts down Tor as well,
so if you don't want to keep Vidalia running
you'll have to start Tor through other means.

The FAQ has some more information about
how to chain Privoxy with Tor:
http://www.privoxy.org/faq/misc.html#TOR

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I am the same "Nobody" from Date: 2007-08-23 06:16

I have tried to start Privoxy from Vidalia, and I get the error message:

"Could not bind to 127.0.0.1:9050: Address already in use. Is Tor already running?"

I have turned Privoxy off from my browser. However, I do not know how to stop Tor, short of killing it from the command line.

Let me stress, everything was fine until a couple days ago, as with the individual from Beijing. It worked. It worked. It stopped working.

Thanks for any hints that help sort this out.

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Greetings from South Florida. I am the same "Nobody" from Date: 2007-08-23 06:16 and Date: 2007-08-23 13:06 again.

I got it to work on my Mac, after a bit of swearing and experimentation.

Follow the instructions for uninstalling Tor & Privoxy at the bottom of:

http://tor.eff.org/docs/tor-doc-osx.html.en

[I had to uninstall each of the files manually, which took a couple minutes. The ./uninstall_tor_bundle.sh command did not run for me.]

Download the latest version of the software bundle at http://tor.eff.org/download.html.en

Install it. Try to start Tor from Vidalia. If that doesn't work, try this:

1) Open a terminal or X11 session.

2) Type "top <return>" without the quotation marks.

3) After top starts, note the PID for the thread running tor, if there is one.
[If there isn't one, you are still hosed. Sorry.]

4) Open another terminal or X11 window.

5) Type "sudo -s <return>" without the quotation marks.

6) Type your admin or root password followed by <return>.

7) Type "kill [PID] <return>" where you replace the characters "[PID]" with the digits that you noted in the previous window. For example, if the PID is 183, then run "kill 183 <return>".

8) Double-check in your top window that the tor thread is no longer listed.

9) Once the tor thread is no longer listed, you should be able to start Tor via Vidalia.

I hope that this helps.

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Good to see I was not alone, thanks for all comments. So, also not due to the Chinese Firewall. The comments received are in line with my experience, so to repeat the sequence:
- yes, you need to manually remove all the old tor & related files as indicated in the on-line manual for OSX (a new version BTW, different from the old one!); the new software does not override the old version and indeed blocks the port for tor ("tor in use"); no other way but it is not that difficult
- upload the latest "Vidalia - tor" software (the one I mentioned in my original posting)
- to be on the safe side, also download the latest version of the firefox / tor button
- contrary to the old version, you cannot simply click the tor button in firefox to activate tor: you must activate tor first through the vidalia panel (and not "quit" as I had done by error at first)
- good idea is to put vidalia in the dock of the MAC destop for quick activation
So, with the versions of MAC OS and others as indicated in the original posting, all is well and no need to do anything more complicated. The only question is - why did it happen... No (clear) explanation at the tor website.
By bjprc from Beijing, China

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Same problem here with a PC in France...

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Thank you so much "nobody" from south Florida. I followed your instructions using TERMINAL and you saved the day!!!