504 Gateway Errror - nginx

For the past two days, Firefox has been randomly opening a new window (not tab) on my computer, and this window always leads to a nearly blank page that simply says:

504 Gateway Time Out
nginx

Aside from being annoying as hell, I've since noticed that anything requiring Flash Player doesn't seem to load properly. All the games at Kongregate just leave black screens. Nanaca Crash spouts something in Japanese glyphs at me. MySpaceMusic players don't load up at all. I've had a lot of trouble getting Facebook to load too; the loading bar always stalls out halfway.
I've also noticed that it doesn't matter what browser I'm using; the same window pops up in Internet Explorer as well.

I've run virus checkers, Ad Aware and malware scanners but none of them have turned up any results.

I've googled this problem and the answers have been nebulous at best, mostly because I don't understand some of the terminology.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Any suggestions on what to do to fix it? I don't want to reformat if I don't need to.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Anything funny on your hosts file?

%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

There's nowhere I can't reach.

That sections contains the following files:

• hosts
• hosts.ics
• imhosts.sam
• networks
• protocol
• services

That .sam file sticks out a bit but I don't know enough to determine whether it truly belongs.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Try opening hosts. with Notepad, see what's inside.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by hosts file

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost
208.100.1.93 Gamingforce Network

Is this typical?

How ya doing, buddy?

Looks pretty normal to me. My hosts file is pretty much identical to yours.

Try reinstalling Java and Flash and see if that fixes anything. I'm not 100% sure it will, but hey, it's worth a shot.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

nginx is a web server, so there are three possibilities.

1. Problem on the servers themselves.
2. Problem with your connection.
3. Problem with your computer.

I think we can strike off the first - if there's a server problem, you won't be the only one affected.

Your scans indicate the absence of any malware. Since this appears on multiple browsers, and your hosts file was not maliciously altered, then perhaps it's got something to do with your connection.

Can you explain how you are connected to the internet? Are you hooked up directly to the DSL modem? Laptop via wireless? Do you use any kind of anonymizing software to connect?

FELIPE NO

I'm connected to the cable router via direct connection, no wireless used, though I am using a laptop anyhow. I use no anonymizing software.

I've observed that the pop-up isn't quite so random; whenever I load up a new page or do a search, the window is triggered. It appears to be attempting a connection to some page that does not exist.

I believe this all began occurring two days ago when I downloaded a torrent for King's Quest VI. For some reason, Acrobat Reader was triggered but it prematurely aborted itself and no reader file became viewable. I don't know if this part of the cause but the timing is synchronous.

My daily virus scan did detect and heal a trojan today, but I'm unsure if this was the particular culprit. The scan is still running and the browser window has already appeared once, despite anything AVG has done.

How ya doing, buddy?

Hm, then perhaps it could be your computer after all.

Care to post screenshots of your running processes in Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL), as well as Services and Startup tabs of the System Configuration Utility (Start > Run > msconfig)?

In addition, some logs may be helpful as well. Open Event Viewer (Start > Run > eventvwr.msc) and post both Application and System logs here, in EVT format.

Jam it back in, in the dark.