Firefox 2.0.0.7 - DOA?
For the past two weeks or so - Firefox 2.0.0.7 on both my OS X machines has been horrible. Multiple crashes, all day long. I'm tempted to switch to Safari, but would be lost without Firebug (oh, and ColdFire). Has anyone else noticed a rise in flakiness lately in Firefox?
Comments
Well, I did have a massive kernel panic today that could have been caused by Firefox 2.0.0.7. Well, to be fair, I haven't had any time to check the logs for the actual culprit, but, with Tiger, those don't happen very often.
# Posted By Jason Brookins
| 9/21/07 10:11 PM
I totally agree, and have had the same issues. Firefox (at least on OSX) has been getting worse and worse over the past year, in my opinion. I have multiple crashes every day, sometimes with JUST GOOGLE open, and no other tabs. I have switched to Safari for my regular browsing, and use Firefox only for debugging, and the web developer toolbar, when I'm working with a site.
# Posted By Chris Mallinson
| 9/21/07 11:00 PM
I installed 2.0.0.7 a few days ago and haven't had any problems. Maybe it's a conflict with an addon you guys have installed? Or maybe I'm just getting lucky.
# Posted By Jake Munson
| 9/21/07 11:06 PM
yeah its been bad every since 2.0. Seems tobe having issues with heavy js or flash sites. I been using wyzo which is ff based but without the issues.
# Posted By dave
| 9/21/07 11:12 PM
I got so feed up with firefox on my Mac, that I switched to Safari, and use Camino for the few web sites that does not support Safari. I wished that Camino supported the add ons like firefox, but until then I just use firefox with the web developer toolbar.John
# Posted By JOhn Barrett
| 9/21/07 11:24 PM
I haven't had any problems on my MBP and I run Firefox 2.0.0.7 all day (with usually 30+ tabs open).The one significant difference is that I don't have any plugins installed yet whilst I slowly migrate from Windows to Mac (my Windows has 30+ plugins on v2.0.0.7, and other than the memory leaks (30+ tabs open) I have no issues there either).
So, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it may be a plugin or two thats causing your issues (this has been known to happen in the past for people in both Win and Mac. Bad programming (for a plugin) can do bad things =\ ).
# Posted By Jeff Coughlin
| 9/22/07 1:13 AM
Yeah, FF has been terrible since 2.0 on OS X. I only use it occasionally when I need a specific bit of debugging via Firebug / ColdFire / YSlow...
# Posted By Sean Corfield
| 9/22/07 1:16 AM
No problems with FF 2.0.0.7 here either... running Firebug and 18 other extensions with usually 10+ tabs open at once. I had some problems, however, installing the 2.0.0.7 update (it failed a couple of times) but after that no other problems.
# Posted By Hugo Sombreireiro
| 9/22/07 7:16 AM
I would go down the list of extensions, disable them all then then do a test drive back to the scripting, if all is well and you have no crashes, then it is one of your extensions.do uninstall, just disable them, then keep checking for the update of that puppy.
don't uninstall, just disable them, then keep checking for the update of that puppy.ps: Ray this blog needs some editing tools that allow for preview, proof, and editing of comments to eliminate the need for this double post ;-)
I think I'm going to give Safari a try for a while - force myself to get used to it.So it's funny - many people mentioned extensions - and that normally is a problem. On my laptop I recently added AdBlock, but I don't have that on my desktop. That's the only extension I can think of that is 'new' to my environment.
Anyway - I always wanted to give Safari a proper test so this will do it.
# Posted By Raymond Camden
| 9/22/07 7:59 AM
@camilo: Just write perfect comments. Problem solved. ;)@all - I'm noticing the comment form here is a bit broken in Safari. If I resize it, it mostly corrects itself. Any other Safari users notice that?
# Posted By Raymond Camden
| 9/22/07 8:03 AM
I haven't had any problems. I removed a few extensions a few patches back and that fixed the problem. Unfortunately I don't remember what the extensions were.
I've noticed the exact opposite. 2.0.0.6 kept crashing on me especially with Rhapsody.com trying to play, but 2.0.0.7 has been nothing but smooth as butter on a hot Texas day for me.I'm only running 5 extra extensions though DownThemlAll, Firebug, FireFTP, Google Notebook, Stop Autoplay
@Raymond:I suspect it's an add-on causing problems. One thing to keep in mind, simpling disabling a Firefox add-on does not necessarily mean it's not causing issues. If you have add-ons you're no longer using, completely remove them.
Also, just to test things out, try creating a new profile and see how Firefox is acting then. I suspect your problems will go away completely.
# Posted By Dan G. Switzer, II
| 9/22/07 3:12 PM
i use FF in windows and since the 2.0.0.7 release i have noticed multiple days where the memory usage has been 900+ mb with just 3 tabs open.
# Posted By Jeff
| 9/22/07 4:57 PM
Hi Ray,haven't got any problem with Firefox 2.0.0.7 on OS X. But I've only installed Firebug as an add on - maybe thats the way to look at. Safari is great, but some things can't be done with it (like WYSIWYG Editing, Codepress Editing...). Which works really fine for me on Firefox.
# Posted By Ulf
| 9/22/07 7:01 PM
@Jeff,whoa! 900MB?!? I notice mine starts lagging when I get around 200+ mb, so I restart firefox. I read somewhere they are working on the memory leaks big time in version 3. Hopefully this will cure the problems.
CooJJ
# Posted By CoolJJ
| 9/22/07 7:33 PM
Same thing for me on Windows. FF1.x never died on me, ever. FF2 has done so since the first release, crashing regularly. The sad thing is that IE7 seems far more stable than FF2 - the only reason I still use FF2 is that it is faster (initial page load time can be a few seconds quicker than on IE). That, and FF tabs are far better than IE tabs.--- Ben
I have made the swap to safari for "surfing" and left my flaky and bloated firefox for development (also due to firebug).. I have found by not relying on firefox for most of my web activity it actually has become less of an issue. Safari also seems to provide a faster and slicker web experience. My only issue with safari 3 beta is the inability to upload files in a web form which is just plain ridiculous.
Hi,Yeah, I have been having issues with firefox lately. I've noticed a slight correlation with flash pages and crashes but nothing concrete..
I would use safari, but I use webdev and other addons so much that it would just get really annoying.
Mat
Another person seeing 2.0.0.7 way less stable on windows than previous releases, multiple lockups (Firefox not responding), which I rarely saw before. May have to do with flash and/or pdf objects.
# Posted By Dave Merrill
| 9/24/07 6:19 AM
I'm using Opera and am loving it! Too bad it doesn't have some extensions such as adblock, noscript, or web developer. It doesn't use much memory and it feels faster to me.
# Posted By Brad
| 9/24/07 7:36 AM
My G5 at home is running Firefox 2.0.0.7 without any extensions and it suffers the same fate as my MacBook Pro which is running several extensions.The 2.0 series on OS X has been buggy.
I'm running 2.0.0.7 on a G5 PowerMac under Tiger with Firebug and Web Developer Toolbar. No trouble!
I didn't have a ref earlier about the memory leaks issue they are fixing, but I found it and here it is.http://slashdot.org/articles/07/09/24/1521240.shtm...
# Posted By CoolJJ
| 9/24/07 12:52 PM
Random back button not functioning properly is the only thing I have experienced. No crashing or other issues here.Ray,
Since you are making a run with Safari, are you aware of any FireBug type app/plugin to use with Safari (or any other browser for that matter)?
# Posted By Mike Benner
| 9/24/07 5:45 PM
Mike, I just started using Safari, so I have no idea.
# Posted By Raymond Camden
| 9/25/07 8:35 AM
It could be Firebug. Make sure that you've set Firebug to only run for the site that you're trying to debug, otherwise it fully instruments and slows down EVERY site that you visit.
# Posted By chris
| 9/27/07 1:39 PM
Interesting. I normally run with it turned on for all. I'm trying this now. Thank you.(And thanks to everyone btw. I'm full time Safari now on my laptop, and staying on FF on my desktop.)
# Posted By Raymond Camden
| 9/27/07 1:48 PM
Hmmm. So it hasn't been 24 hours... but it _seems_ as if this is REALLY helping. I'll report in again at the end of the day.
# Posted By Raymond Camden
| 9/28/07 8:43 AM
Running FF2 since the latest download is now crashing every time, but mostly with Yahoo. I like the features of FF but I am going back to Safari. I wish someone from Mozilla would take an interest since it is obvious that there are some problems. Maybe not everyone is having a problem but enough are.
# Posted By lunatoon
| 9/28/07 12:22 PM
Well here is what I did and it seems to be working so far. I had and old dmg file for an earlier version of FF2.0.0.3 and I replaced it with the 2.0.0.7 and now things are back to working. Strange!
# Posted By lunatoon
| 9/28/07 12:34 PM
I thought I'd report in - since disabling Firebug globally, things have been much better. It's kind of obvious now - but still - I'm happy my FF isn't crashing anymore.
# Posted By Raymond Camden
| 10/1/07 2:48 PM
Firefox has been crashing like mad on all my machines, no extensions etc. Since 2.0.0.2 or so.
# Posted By Steve
| 10/4/07 11:45 AM