Adam Howitt's Blog

May 04
2005

Firefox 1.0.3 Dead

At : 11:09 AM | Link | Tech | Comments (9) | Send | 692 Views |

I upgraded to Firefox 1.0.3 when it was released and had no end of trouble.  I'm not sure if it was the extensions I had installed or if it was a symptom of upgrading each time from 0.8 upwards but it began to fail regularly on shut down. 

I suspect it was the extensions since it typically died when I closed it and tried to open again.  This is usually when uninstalls are supposed to happen and when I had tried to solve my problem by uninstalling all the extensions.  The symptom was that the containing frame would open but wouldn't let me interact.  

The workaround was to go to my profile directory while firefox was closed and rename the "Mozilla" directory as "oldMozilla".  When I opened firefox again, all was well.  My profile directory is located here on my Windows XP box.

C:\Documents and Settings\Adam\Application Data\Mozilla

Once I had renamed the profile I went to Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks  and then File > Import and pointed the system at bookmarks.html to get my old bookmarks back and it works like a charm.

Comments (Comment Moderation is enabled. Your comment will not appear until approved.)
[Add Comment] [Subscribe to Comments]
  1. I've seen corrupted profiles cause problems with FireFox on several occasions. Sometimes a crash will do it, othertimes a bad extension install.

    Sometimes I don't even bother to get back all the junk I've added since this works as a really quick housecleaning process.

    Posted By Mike Rankin : Posted At 5/4/05 10:52 AM
  2. if you upgraded directly from 0.8 to 1.03 that could be your problem. they tyipically (they being the firefox people) that you remove old copies of pre 1.0 FF and then install the new flavor.

    Mike is on the button too - you may want to rebuild your profile. Sadly, I can't provide a quick link that explains how to do it even though I have done it myself in the past (pre 1.0 days).

    Posted By Bill Rawlinson : Posted At 5/4/05 11:45 AM
  3. The User Agent Switcher was the cause of my problems after an upgrade. I couldnt even type a URL into the address bar, the entire app was fubar. I started up Firefox in Safemode, uninstalled that extension, restarted the app and everything was fine again.

    I never really used that extension anyways.

    Posted By Jason Grunstra : Posted At 5/4/05 12:31 PM
  4. Ah ha! Jason, I had User Agent Switcher installed too. That could have been it! How do you open Firefox in safe mode? I know I could google it but since you mentioned it, please reply and I'll update the post.

    As for my upgrade path, I believe I went 0.8 to 1.0 PR with a complete reinistall and then each dot release was simply an upgrade. From Jason's post it appears User Agent Switcher may have been the culprit, despite the fact that it is one of the most useful extensions I have found.

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 5/4/05 12:39 PM
  5. I had the exact some problem when I went to FF 1.03.

    Did anyone else notice a significant speed improvement? I thought maybe it was just a result of having no extensions installed.But, I am still enjoying the speedy FF after I have installed all of my extensions.

    Posted By Mark W. Breneman : Posted At 5/4/05 12:52 PM
  6. "How do you open Firefox in safe mode?"

    You add the switch -safe-mode to the end of the shortcut

    Info here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode_(Firefox)

    Posted By Jason Grunstra : Posted At 5/4/05 1:22 PM
  7. Thanks Jason

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 5/4/05 2:43 PM
  8. You can access it also from the windows start-->all Programs-->Mozilla Firefox-->Mozilla Firefox(safe mode).

    Posted By amar : Posted At 5/4/05 11:26 PM
  9. I actually ran into the same problem on OS X. It seemed that the WebDeveloper Extension was the one that was causing me grief, but then the whole thing went kaput. I, unfortunately didn't see your post before I just "trashed" everything and started fresh.

    Posted By Jeff Kenny : Posted At 5/5/05 9:07 PM
[Add Comment]