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Firefox = spinning beachball, Safari working fine

D

dougb256

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 16, 2009
76
0
I don't know what my wife did to her 13" white MacBook, but Firefox is slow as molasses. Safari is working perfectly, but all of her bookmarks are in Firefox.

I made sure she was on the correct network, than added opendns settings to DNS. I downloaded and installed the most recent Firefox and repaired permissions on the drive. I rebooted - same problem. Random beachballs causing the app to be useless.

Safari works perfectly, so it's not an Internet issue. I haven't tried other apps to be sure but right now it seems confined to Firefox.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Doug
 
Gave it a shot - no go :confused: So she is using Safari now, but I sure would like to fix her Firefox problem.
 
Safari rules! :D

Just import her bookmarks from Firefox. In Safari, click File > Import Bookmarks. You'll have to ask around to find out where Firefox stores bookmarks and how to navigate to that folder/file.
 
Safari can't understand Firefox's bookmarks format. In Firefox, choose Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > Export HTML. Save that file in a convenient place, like the desktop.

Then, point Safari to that HTML file via File > Import Bookmarks.

That's how I sync up my bookmarks between the two when they get out of whack. :)
 
Thanks for the ideas regarding the bookmarks, but she'd really like to have Firefox back. Anybody else?
 
Is she using the new beta? Ever since a beta update rolled out Firefox keeps crashing on me at random times. At one point came back to my Mini and firefox was using 99% CPU just sitting on a page... I'd suggest looking at Firefox's bugtracking system and see if others are reporting an issue (assuming your wife is using a beta version)
 
Two things to try:

1. Run Firefox in Safe Mode.
2. Move your Firefox profile elsewhere while Firefox is not running, and restart Firefox. (You'll revert to defaults if you do this, so try it only if the first method doesn't solve your problem.)

If either of these works, try disabling add-ons until you find the culprit.
 
dougb256 said:
Gave it a shot - no go :confused: So she is using Safari now, but I sure would like to fix her Firefox problem.
Click to expand...

I had a problem such as yours. My solution was to download Google Chrome. It had all my Firefox bookmarks in it automatically. I deleted Firefox and downloaded the latest version, and I was in business with my bookmarks intact.
 
maccompaq said:
I had a problem such as yours. My solution was to download Google Chrome. It had all my Firefox bookmarks in it automatically. I deleted Firefox and downloaded the latest version, and I was in business with my bookmarks intact.
Click to expand...

This isn't even a solution as far as the OP is concerned. He already stated he (his wife) wants to stick with Firefox. Not switch to a beta browser like Chrome or an inferior browser like Safari.
 
miles01110 said:
This isn't even a solution as far as the OP is concerned. He already stated he (his wife) wants to stick with Firefox. Not switch to a beta browser like Chrome or an inferior browser like Safari.
Click to expand...

Read my post slowly, and you will see that I went back to using the newest version of Firefox after downloading Chrome.
 
maccompaq said:
Read my post slowly, and you will see that I went back to using the newest version of Firefox after downloading Chrome.
Click to expand...
Yes, but Chrome isn't yet available in a production form on the Mac yet. I would not recommend this "solution" to anyone until Chrome is stable on Mac OS X.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Yes, but Chrome isn't yet available in a production form on the Mac yet. I would not recommend this "solution" to anyone until Chrome is stable on Mac OS X.
Click to expand...
The only reason I went with Chrome was to capture my bookmarks. When I was sure all my bookmarks were secure in Chrome, I deleted Firefox to get rid of a problem. Then I downloaded the newest version of Firefox and was relieved to see that my bookmarks were in the new Firefox browser, which I am now using.

However, I do have my bookmarks also saved in del.icio.us as a backup.
 
Clear the Cache, cookies, and turn off all plugins. See if that helps. If it does, turn on the plugins one by one until the offending Plugin (if any) is found.

I use FFX 3.3.5 and it works really well under Snow Leopard.
 
dougb256 said:
I don't know what my wife did to her 13" white MacBook, but Firefox is slow as molasses. Safari is working perfectly, but all of her bookmarks are in Firefox.

I made sure she was on the correct network, than added opendns settings to DNS. I downloaded and installed the most recent Firefox and repaired permissions on the drive. I rebooted - same problem. Random beachballs causing the app to be useless.

Safari works perfectly, so it's not an Internet issue. I haven't tried other apps to be sure but right now it seems confined to Firefox.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Doug
Click to expand...

I just found this thread after my wife's PC also started with the same problem. Identical to your problem. Firefox simply wil not load and I always have to force a quit. It shows up in the program monitor as crashed app in red.

I have also tried to bin the app by dragging to the trash and downloading the latest version and re-installing but it just does the exact same. You cant go through the plugins to disable as the Firefox interface is crashed and unusable. This is a great pity as it is a great app. I use it all the time on Windows boxes as my browser of choice. With Windows i know that I am confident enough to know how to completely remove all traces of the app and to re-install but on a MacBook Pro using Tiger I am at a loss now. I just downloaded Opera and OmniWeb to see if the might be useful replacements. i will miss the plugins but Firefox is totally useless on this box now. Might as well remove it completely unless anyone has any other ideas?

btw, all other browsers and networking works fine and it is not a permissions issue as i have tried logging in with an admin account and it is just the same.
 
These bugs can be a pain. I keep a copy of Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner for just such occasions.

Try the steps in this post to solve the problems with Firefox.

The cache cleaning will most likely be necessary. Deep cleaning of all of them might just do the trick.
 
We finally brought it up the Apple Store last night and had them run an overnight test on it - hard drive FAIL. They replaced the HDD and re-loaded all of her apps and data and now everything is working A-OK! :)
 
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