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icab keeps crashing
- Thread starter MrMinor
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Yes I'm having the same problem and it also has become very lagy too.
It used to be very fluid when scrolling but not anymore.
It used to be very fluid when scrolling but not anymore.
I'm having the same problem with iCab. When I pinch to zoom on some sites the app struggles to keep up and then it just crashes no matter if I only have one tab active. I wrote the dev about it and this is his answer:
A big issue with the iPad 1 is that this device does not have enough main
memory. So it's almost all the time running at its limits. This is why
Safari by default will release inactive Tabs very soon, to prevent to
run out of main memory. The iPad 2 has more main memory, so here the
memory is no longer such a serious issue.
You can configure what iCab should do in low memory conditions in the
"Settings" App of the device (the settings App can be found on the
homescreen). If you configure iCab to release inactive Tabs in all
low memory conditions, you can probably avoid many of these crashes.
Another thing you could try is to reboot the device. Hold down the Sleep
button at the top of the case until a slider appears on screen to switch
of the device, use the slider and when the device has shut down, hold down
the sleep button again to switch the device on again. This can often
help as well, if the device is running for months.
I tried the workarounds but none of them worked for me. I know iPad 1 lacks RAM but with Safari I get smooth web surfing all the time without crashes (even with iOS 4.3.3). If iCab cant work properly on the iPad 1, it shouldn't be listed on the appstore as compatible anymore.
I also love iCab, but unfortunately I'm also getting lots of crashes with the latest version. I'm on an iPad 1 running 4.3.
It seems pretty obvious to me that it is related to memory constraints, it only really happens when I have lots of tabs open, but I never had many crashes before this latest release so something seems to have changed.
- Julian
It seems pretty obvious to me that it is related to memory constraints, it only really happens when I have lots of tabs open, but I never had many crashes before this latest release so something seems to have changed.
- Julian
Hard To believe it's due to memory only. Sites which opened before, now crashes. Even when I close all tabs plus apps, and only open that one site.
I've found one thing that might help. Last night I had iCab crash again and again within a very short period of time. By "crash" I mean that it drops back to the main iPad home screen. I assumed that the app had terminated completely and wasn't in some sort of wierd frozen state (as far as iOS multitasking is concerned). After about the 5th crash I double tapped the home button to get the quicklaunch bar, I did the hold-down-until-they-wiggle thing and explicitly deleted iCab from the quicklauncher (it was the first entry of course since it was the last thing running before the crash). This avoids any doubt and makes sure that the next launch of iCab is a cold start and not a resume from a frozen state. Anyway, after doing that my iCab was stable for the rest of the night (about another 3 hours).
I'm only guessing about the cause, and it's possible that I'm being hit by one issue and others by other issues, so you (spammerhamster) could well be right. Whatever is going on, I hope the developer gets back to where he was in the previous release as far as stability goes.
- Julian
I also love iCab but the recent issues are forcing me to go back to safari.
First there is the crashing issue which is happening a lot lately.
Second issue is the jerky scrolling.
I emailed the dev about the jerky scrolling and got a reply that explained the problem:
(me) The last couple of versions of iCab have been very jerky when
scrolling
'Yes, I know. Unfortunately I was forced to make this change because Apple
has requested this. There's a big issue with the "Web View" object of the
iOS we need to use to display web pages (Apple doesn't allow other web
engines than their own), and this is issue is that the scrolling is very
jerky, especially on more complex web pages. This is a well know issue
from the beginning. Writing bugreports to Apple didn't help, the scrolling
issue did never get fixed. But because Safari doesn't have an issue with
the scrolling though it uses the same web engine, it seems that there's a
hidden (private) call in the iOS which enabled the smooth scrolling.
So because Apple has obviously no intention in fixing this issue,
developers started to "fix" this by themselves by using this private
(but forbidden) call. All other web browser in the App store are doing
this, and iCab did this as well. But now Apple has detected this in iCab
and demanded that I remove this private call. It is possible that Apple
will be more strict in general now, so maybe in the future you'll see
more and more Apps getting jerky scrolling, when Apple is asking the
developers to remove this special call from their Apps as well.
I'll try to do my best to convice Apple to finally fix this scrolling
issue in the iOS.'
So it seems it's a restriction in iOS that is causing major headaches for web browser developers.
Why are Apple doing this seems utterly bizarre.
First there is the crashing issue which is happening a lot lately.
Second issue is the jerky scrolling.
I emailed the dev about the jerky scrolling and got a reply that explained the problem:
(me) The last couple of versions of iCab have been very jerky when
scrolling
'Yes, I know. Unfortunately I was forced to make this change because Apple
has requested this. There's a big issue with the "Web View" object of the
iOS we need to use to display web pages (Apple doesn't allow other web
engines than their own), and this is issue is that the scrolling is very
jerky, especially on more complex web pages. This is a well know issue
from the beginning. Writing bugreports to Apple didn't help, the scrolling
issue did never get fixed. But because Safari doesn't have an issue with
the scrolling though it uses the same web engine, it seems that there's a
hidden (private) call in the iOS which enabled the smooth scrolling.
So because Apple has obviously no intention in fixing this issue,
developers started to "fix" this by themselves by using this private
(but forbidden) call. All other web browser in the App store are doing
this, and iCab did this as well. But now Apple has detected this in iCab
and demanded that I remove this private call. It is possible that Apple
will be more strict in general now, so maybe in the future you'll see
more and more Apps getting jerky scrolling, when Apple is asking the
developers to remove this special call from their Apps as well.
I'll try to do my best to convice Apple to finally fix this scrolling
issue in the iOS.'
So it seems it's a restriction in iOS that is causing major headaches for web browser developers.
Why are Apple doing this seems utterly bizarre.
Last edited:
Wow Apple, you have to resort to this because various independant developers can produce a set of web browsers that the public chooses over your stripped-down, feature-lacking browser that is for a phone?
There better be tabs and full screen with Safar in iOS 5!
I have had the crashes lately too. Usually it locks up for a minute or two & then it crashes.
Even with the crashes though, I am still sticking with it as my default browser since it is so much better than Safari.
Even with the crashes though, I am still sticking with it as my default browser since it is so much better than Safari.
Same thinking here. iCab lagging and unstability became frustrating so I switched to Atomic Web Browser and my iPad 1 hasn't crashed at all, I'm getting smooth scrolling and pinch-to-zoom all around. RAM constraint isn't to blame this time.
