Firefox help

[sarae]

I've been using Firefox almost exclusively since getting my 12" powerbook a month ago. But in the last week and a half something distressing has been happening - Firefox will crash.

I know I could just use Safari, but I really like the way Firefox works. Is there anything that I could do to make it stop crash? I haven't even noticed a pattern of what happens just before it crashes - no similar web pages, etc. Could this be a RAM issue? Is it just my tough luck? Any advice is appreciated.

(I still just have the stock RAM that came with my pb. I'm planning on adding more once I a) get some more money from my next paycheck and b) decide on how much I want to add. If it is a RAM issue, I'll just tough it out until I get the RAM.)

 

[bousozoku]

I've not had crashes, but a lot of lockups. Release candidate 1 for Mac is almost ready. There are still bugs to be worked out. If you have an earlier release, you should at least update to preview 1.

For anyone who is interested, the Shockwave plug-in problem has been fixed.

 

[Westside guy]

A couple questions: Have you been using different nightly builds, or have you stuck with the more-or-less official releases? Also, do you have a lot of extensions installed?

 

[sarae]

A couple questions: Have you been using different nightly builds, or have you stuck with the more-or-less official releases? Also, do you have a lot of extensions installed?

since I don't know what you mean by the nightly builds, I'm going to guess that I haven't. I am using the preview 1 release, and I haven't installed any extensions. Sometimes it happens when I have a lot of tabs open, but sometimes it happens when I only have two tabs open. Kind of a bummer.

 

[Westside guy]

since I don't know what you mean by the nightly builds, I'm going to guess that I haven't. I am using the preview 1 release, and I haven't installed any extensions. Sometimes it happens when I have a lot of tabs open, but sometimes it happens when I only have two tabs open. Kind of a bummer.

It doesn't sound like you're using a nightly build, indeed. I asked about that and extensions because some people like to run the very latest development versions, but don't understand those can be very unstable.

The only time I've had stability problems with Firefox is when I've upgraded to a substantially different version without removing my existing profile directory first. Because Firefox is still beta software, they've have on occasion re-arranged how it stores data on your hard drive - and old versions of that data can cause problems for various reasons. BTW "old versions" would also include previous incarnations of that browser such as Firebird or Phoenix.

If you think that may be the case - basically if this isn't the first version of Firefox you've had on your computer - I would suggest removing the existing profile directory (make sure Firefox isn't running). The main thing you'd want to do first, though, is make a copy of your bookmarks.html file so you don't have to re-setup all your bookmarks. This folder would be inside the "Library" folder that's in your home directory. Depending on what previous version you've run before, the profile folder (named, appropriately enough, "Profiles") could be in Library/Firefox, Library/Application Support/Firefox, Library/Firebird, or Library/Phoenix. Find that Profiles directory, copy the bookmarks.html file out of it (it's probably inside a subdirectory named something like "default.xyz"), and then rename or delete Profiles.

 

[jeremy.king]

...But in the last week and a half something distressing has been happening - Firefox will crash....but I really like the way Firefox works....

 

[russed]

have you tried camino from mozilla. its like firefox, a bit more simple and a bit more mac like! its nice and really fast!

 

[Logik]

have you tried camino from mozilla. its like firefox, a bit more simple and a bit more mac like! its nice and really fast!

bah, i tried camino, and while it does use the mozilla rendering engine.. it's... pretty basic... more basic than firefox is if you ask me.. i was not impressed. I'd rather use Opera than camino.

 

[sarae]

Basically, I like the look of it better than Safari (sorry - too much brushed aluminum) and the bookmarks are also WAY better than Safari. I know it's somewhat trivial, put like that, but I figure if it's going to enable/disable me from browsing the way I like, it's important to me.