Firebug and FireFox Crashing when Viewing Pages on my Site that Contain Google Ads


NOTE: the concepts presented in this article are now considered obsolete possibly because better alternatives are available.

Update!! 02-27-2007 - I just got an e-mail from my team member Marcel who pointed me to this article: http://forums.asp.net/thread/1501276.aspx

Funny thing is, I was already using the code from that article to fix an issue with Ajax RC. Turns out that with the RTM release this code is no longer necessary, and additionally, now seems to crash FireFox when using Firebug. I removed the offending JavaScript and everything is fine now. Thank you Marcel!!

If you still have issues browsing this site with Firefox, please let me know.

Over the past couple of weeks, I received a number of e-mails from people reporting that their FireFox browser crashed when browsing my site.

Introduction

At first, I couldn't reproduce the problem but then someone reported they were using Firebug, a very helpful developer's tool that I had installed, but not enabled.

I re-enabled Firebug on my browser and opened an article on my site. It instantly crashed. I am not exactly sure what's causing it, but it seems it has to with the loading of the Google ads on my page, as suggested by reader Jake.

Hopefully, either FireFox, Firebug or Google Ads will change something to their software to avoid this problem in the future. Until then, you can work around the issue by following these steps:

  1. Start FireFox and choose Tools | Firebug | Allowed Sites... from the main menu.

  2. Next, under Address of web site, type imar.spaanjaars.com and click Block. You may need to repeat this step and at www.spaanjaars.com as well if that's the URL you're using. You should end up with a screen like this:

    The Firebug Blocking Dialog

  3. Click Close and then restart FireFox. You should now be able to view articles on my site.

To enable you to view this article without the changes made in Firebug, I disabled Google ads on this page.

If someone finds a better way to solve this problem, I am all ears....

Hope this helps.


Where to Next?

Wonder where to go next? You can read existing comments below or you can post a comment yourself on this article.

Doc ID 422
Full URL https://imar.spaanjaars.com/422/firebug-and-firefox-crashing-when-viewing-pages-on-my-site-that-contain-google-ads
Short cut https://imar.spaanjaars.com/422/
Written by Imar Spaanjaars
Date Posted 02/24/2007 13:15
Listened to when writing Play Dead by Björk (Track 14 from the album: Greatest Hits)

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