The new update for Firefox which rolled out today, is already causing problems. We noticed here at Bloom Media that the commonly used “View Source” feature caused the browser to crash. It doesn’t seem to matter what page you are trying to view, the browser will crash regardless.
This seems to be linked to the “Web Developer” add-on for Firefox, if you uninstall the add-on, the problem goes away. We have tested this with Web Developer 1.1.6 in FireFox 3.0.9. Other versions may not have this problem.
UPDATE : I received an e-mail from the author of Web Developer : Chris Pederick. It seems that although we found that removing the Web Developer add-on solved the issue, the fault actually lies with the HTML Validator add-on. You will all be glad to know that an update for HTML Validator was pushed out this morning : Version 0.8.5.2.
HTML Validator Update 0.8.5.2
This is a statement from the author
- Previous versions hit a bug of FIREFOX 3.0.9 in DOM API ! The real solution is Firefox 3.0.10 but it will not be available before 1 month. Practically, you do view source in Firefox 3.0.9 then crash ! Some lines of code that were working since Firefox 1.0 are now crashing Firefox… Due to this, I have to release very fast 0.856 to work-around the Firefox 3.0.9 bug So, the highlight of the lines with HTML errors is now disabled ! Unhapilly, I had no better solution.
Good find Richard. I wouldn’t have upgraded had I known this. Thank God for Firebug!!
Very helpful, it is happening a lot to me.
))
No body can be more annoyed than your face
Interesting (and annoying) feature – well found Richard! Does that mean you’ll be fixing everything up real nice for us?
That avatar pic…is a thing of extreme beauty!
Not as beautiful as your little (attempt) at a beard
It seems that uninstallation and reinstallation of the plugin doesn’t work after all. Full uninstallation is the only way to get Firefox 3.0.9 stable again. Looks like we’ll have to wait for Firefox 3.0.10 or Web Developer 1.1.7 before we see them working together happily.
Im using 3.1b3 have you tried it?
No, I’ve not tried the Beta. I’ve found in the past they can create more problems than they solve!
Interesting research indeed Richard. Already facing a lot of problems with Firefox and it seems they need to work upon it to remove the bugs.
Hey Richard, I am using firefox 3.1 and so far so good, it doesn’t like online banking for some reason but other than that am enjoying the ride!! ahem.
Well at least I know it’s not just me! Was getting pretty frustrated with this problem yesterday – let’s hope a Web Dev update sorts it out soon!
Cheers Guys!
Decided to get the nightly build of Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 – View Source now works like a charm (Have to force enable addons though)
Headache gone ;o)
Well, I sent a message to the author of the add on – Chris Pederick. He replied stating that even though we’ve found removing Web Developer Add-On fixed the problem, the issue is actually with the HTML Validator plugin!
And wouldn’t you know? An update for HTML Validator came out this morning! I installed the update, then reinstalled Web Developer and so far everything is fine. I’ll update the main post with the solution.
Thanks to everyone for their contributions!
starting with Firefox 3+, Firefox crashes at least every couple of days. It seems to be content in certain web pages that precipitates the crashes. I do have Web Developer which I depend on, so I am forced to put up with all the crashing. Chris Pederick, can you make a version of your excellent addon for IE8? IE8 doesn’t crash nearly as often as FF.
Hi Richard
Well done …please tell me you do not want another cheque!!!!!!