Firefox crashes when I close gmail, so I tried out Safari
This has been going on for way too long. It definitely started after Google released the new interface for gmail, but it didn’t happen immediately. Now, I’m not blaming Firefox, and I’m not blaming Google. I’m 95% certain that it’s the result of conflicts between one or more of my extensions. I’m always changing up my extensive (hehe) lineup of extensions, and many of those extensions dramatically impact the way the browser works. I love web development extensions, debugging tools, power toys, etc.
Thankfully, I recently read an entry on Mishoo’s blog, which started out describing some [presumably completely unrelated] Firefox performance issues, and ended with a short, positive review of Safari. I decided to give it a try, for curiosity’s sake. I tried Safari when the Windows version was first released, and I remember not being impressed, to say the least. I don’t remember what I didn’t like, but I do remember uninstalling it immediately, so it must have been pretty bad. I don’t use Opera every day, but I do respect it enough to keep it installed and reasonably up-to-date.
Anyways, I tried the newest version of Safari, version 3.0.4, and was pretty impressed. The interface was attractive, simple, and fairly intuitive. Just what one might expect from Apple, I guess. I’m not a big Apple fan; I do not own an iPod or an iPhone, I don’t use iTunes, and have never owned a Mac. But even I know that Apple has a reputation for attractive, simple, and intuitive products.
Using Safari hardly felt different from using Firefox, to me. Almost all I do miss my Firefox extensions, though, and Safari’s Bookmarks menu leaves a lot to be desired. But it is fast, and I almost all the websites I’ve been to have looked and acted just fine. Best of all, it doesn’t crash when I close gmail!
So, where I had been using Firefox for 99% of my personal browsing and Internet Explorer for 1%, I now find myself splitting that 99% pretty equally between Safari and Firefox (and IE for 1%, since some sites just demand it).
One of these days I’ll probably try running Firefox in Safe Mode, and if closing gmail doesn’t crash it, I’ll start disabling one extension after another, until I find the culprit. For now, though, I’m content using Safari part of the time.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Man… NOT closing gmail (I always want to know about my email!) seems a lot easier :)
January 25th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Well, it turns out that the crashing only happens when gmail is the only tab open, so as long as I keep a tab with gmail and a tab with google reader open, I won’t risk crashing if I accidentally close the gmail one. :)
January 25th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
aren’t windows with only one tab open an insult to the tab functionality? ;)
January 25th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Actually, I have EXACTLY the same behavior… using Safari!
February 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
It’s been happing to me for the past few months (since Google updated gmail). At the time I was working on a Mac (uhg!) and it happened in both FireFox and Safari. On my home box (Ubuntu) it happens in Firefox (haven’t tried other browsers) and on Windows it happens in FireFox, Safari and IE. I think it has to do with a JavaScript library if I’m not mistaken. I’ve reported the issue to Google (at least I think so because there’s no way of being sure where to report bugs to gmail). And that was in the first week I noticed the issue. I think it is for Google to fix this one…
February 27th, 2008 at 8:59 am
FYI: It’s firebug causing the problem. If you disable Firebug the problem goes away. It’s fixed in Firefox 3 but the Firebug developer(s) have no plans to fix it for Firefox 2.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I use Firefox 3 and I’m still getting this problem (it’s super annoying!). Yeah, I use Firebug, but I disabled it a while ago (hoping that would fix the problem) and closing Gmail still crashes Firefox.
Does anyone have any ideas? Maybe it could be an extensions problem, but…. I love my extensions…
April 20th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Gmail works fine for me. Yahoo mail crashes on close every time. And sometimes it crashes on loading the inbox. But, yes, I’m running a lot of web dev extensions, and some greasemonkey scripts from lifehacker.
This is just about the only reason I use Safari, too.
But this thread inspired me to go look at the long list o’ extensions, and I think I’m going to pare them down and see if it helps.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I have been having the same issues for a few weeks. I did the “disable” for Firebug on mail.google.com - still crashes, when its the only tab open.
Here’s an interesting post related to this and it makes sense because I just recently imported some neat fonts from my laptop to my desktop and office computer.
http://www.plexusweb.com/staff/adam/blog/post/102/Firefox-Crashes-on-Gmail
Now to figure out how to find corrupt fonts on my systems……
June 11th, 2008 at 11:20 am
[FLAME ON!]
Honestly, if the only thing to keep gmail from crashing in a tabbed browser is to have multiple tabs, then perhaps you should use the browser as intended — with multiple tabs — rather than wasting time chasing a bug? How many milliseconds does it take to hit Control-T? At the very least, I like having Google Reader and Google Calendar open, but even an empty google tab would prevent the crash and be useful. Hitting control-tab to switch tabs isn’t that hard, it’s no harder than alt-tab to switch windows.
Anyone who spends time trying to chase a bug that they have no control over, which can be fixed in 1 keystroke — has a messed up sense of priorities, and is wasting their own time.
It’s quite simple: Don’t do what crashes your browsers, and you wont need to worry about browser crashes.
It’s stuff like this that makes people justifiably laugh at nerds obsessing over technical details that have no real life bearing…
June 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Im pretty sure its a Firefox issue, because this bug happens on my two Ubuntu machines and my Windows Xp machine. Always the same, i close the gmail tab and firefox crashes. I don’t have firebug so i have no idea how to solve this issue. The only common addon i have is Adblock Plus.
September 27th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I have no extensions. Google desktop search gives a half dozen results and a note to see the rest in a browser. If I click to see the other results of the search, Firefox 3 crashes. I just upgraded both programs(today) No help.