Ummm… am I the only one noticing this and going fucking nuts by it?
Ever since Gmail “2.0″ rolled out with it’s amazingly new-exactly-the-same interface design and tweaked code to make it seem snappier, it has regularly been locking up Firefox for me… in the middle of work… killing off everything I’m doing. This is a lot like taking a family trip, packing the car full of your kids and relatives, then heading out to the highway and having someone slap a blindfold over you while you are trucking along at 75mph.
At first the crashes are really consistent with searching using the “Search Mail” button… which is ironic. Then the reproducible search-lockups stopped and just started occuring when I was using the “Gmail” logo to get back to my main inbox by clicking on it when I was done with emails or done browsing something.
Now there seems to be no terribly reproducible way to get it to lock up every time, but over the last 2 weeks I’d say it’s locked up Firefox about 12 times for me with anywhere from 0 to 5 tabs open (I’m not a crazy tab-whore, but I definatly use them). What’s actually *in* the other tabs changes from time to time, sometimes it’ll be Flash, other times it’s straight text. I can’t really pin-point any consistency with it.
Also, I’m not using Gmail through HTTPS (although I suppose I should be), so it doesn’t seem to be related to that issue either.
Is anyone else having this problem? For the folks thinking I might be a plugin-junkie, I assure you I’m not… this is what my plugin list looks like:
Not terribly interesting.
I did run across this Google Groups conversation pertaining to 2.0.0.9 lockups frequently. The last two posts seem to suggest that the problem is the very-handy Html Validator plugin unfortunately causing the problems. This could be similar to how running the Gmail in a Firefox install with the Firebug addon will issue a warning to you about disabling a certain feature of it.
Update #1: It looks like the author of Html Validator is aware of the issue and said it is an old bug with JavaScripts and timeouts that used to exist in Firefox 1 that has reared it’s ugly head again. No solution or workaround provided except disabling the addon… barf 
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1. December 2007 at 4:37 pm
I have had exactly the same issue, thank you for posting the problem and the apparent source. Bummer, but glad Html Validator is working on a fix. Where would we be without our Firefox tools? Not on IE7 for me!
1. December 2007 at 4:40 pm
Julie,
I’m glad the post helped, it was really driving me nutty. And I agree, I was really sad to see Html Validator go, I loved that addon.
And I also agree that IE7 just doesn’t even come close because of the complete lack of plugin/addon community around it. I’ve come to rely on my addons pretty heavily.
4. December 2007 at 4:41 pm
As of today, there is a new release of the HTML Validator plugin that solves this problem. You need to visit the site directly as the Firefox add-on updater doesn’t see it as of this comment.
4. December 2007 at 6:57 pm
Sweet! Thanks for the heads up Sean, Html Validator is not a addon I wanted to do without for too long.
10. December 2007 at 2:05 pm
In case you are still having issues with HTML Validator and Gmail (like me), you can right click on the HTML Validator icon and choose “Disable for mail.google.com”. That way you still get to use the add-on for all the other websites, all without having issues with Gmail!
11. December 2007 at 11:10 am
Bless you for posting this! One quick google search and the problems resolved.
11. December 2007 at 12:32 pm
Julie glad we could help. I love it when I google for something vague, and think I’m just gonna run around in circles, but end up finding an article that is spot-on to what I want.
28. December 2007 at 1:57 pm
Thanks a lot!
This problem was driving me nuts.
14. January 2008 at 8:22 am
Yep, GMail locks up Firefox 2.0.0.11 at least once a day since I installed HTML Validator 0.8.4.0. Bye, bye HTML Validator.
14. January 2008 at 8:42 am
ttrentham,
Was that a brand new install of HTML Validator recently? Does it *still* crash Firefox after all this time? I figured the author would have fixed it by now… oyvey
15. January 2008 at 9:27 am
Beautiful! One quick Web search and my most annoying computer problem is solved. Thank you.
16. January 2008 at 7:23 pm
Thank You! I’ve been going insane with this problem for awhile now and have searched for solutions before with no luck. I thought it must have been me. It was hit and miss and seems when I was really in a hurry and searched for an email in my gmail with my firefox, BAM – Locked up. I appreciate that you not only documented the problem of firefox locking up when searching gmail but that you also found a solution. Cheers!
16. January 2008 at 8:10 pm
Dave,
I’m glad it helped, I know *exactly* how you feel. Before I found out why it was locking up that was exactly the behavior I was seeing, and I was going freaking nuts.
18. January 2008 at 2:28 pm
hi, im only experiencing problems when i log out, it crashes firefox and closes it so i have to restart it everytime i’m done checking my email, its been going on for 2 months now, i have these extensions enabled web developer 1.1.4, firebug 1.05, and dom inspector 1.8.1.1.1 anyone experiencing the same behavior?
18. January 2008 at 8:05 pm
I blocked html validator for https://mail.google.com and it now works just fine.
18. January 2008 at 8:38 pm
Kate,
Good call. Is it obvious how to block it for a specific domain? (I don’t remember seeing that in the UI before I removed it… was wondering if it was buried in there somewhere).
21. January 2008 at 8:50 am
It’s semi-obvious. If you open Add-Ons under Tools, then go to HTML Validator and click “Options”, there’s a checkbox that says “Enable validation in the browser”. To the right of that is an “Exceptions” button. Push that then add whatever you want to block. It was easiest for me to just block google.com as there’s really no point for me validating any part of Google.
21. January 2008 at 8:52 am
Ahh very nice, thanks John.
23. January 2008 at 7:36 pm
Gmail’s recent behavior has been making me go insane!! Thanks for posting the solution Kate. The difference is night and day.
25. January 2008 at 12:41 am
omg I love you! Thanks for the solutions – this was driving me nuts!
25. January 2008 at 9:44 am
Hah, Frosty that’s how I felt too when I found the fix. I’m glad it helped you.
BTW your eyeball art is freaky:
but awesome looking.
7. February 2008 at 12:18 pm
I have this problem, but I don’t have HTML Validator installed. Has anyone seen other reasons/solutions?
Thanks!
7. February 2008 at 12:22 pm
Libby, what other addons do you have installed inside of Firefox?
11. May 2008 at 8:46 am
Cheers for that!
14. June 2008 at 8:08 am
yea same….gmail/ff locks up. i’ll try the validator issue.
13. August 2008 at 10:18 am
Hi I am wondering if this issue still exists… can you update this pplease please please
13. August 2008 at 2:19 pm
Nolawi, not sure… you could give it a try and let us know?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249
13. August 2008 at 2:22 pm
Well – I am still having issues thats with it.. that is why i am wondering how long it would take for the guy to fix the issue once he was aware of it…
Its just too bad – its one of those addons I use everysingle day you know…
13. August 2008 at 2:24 pm
Oh man, I can’t believe he hasn’t fixed it yet. Is there a way to disable the validator for specific sites (sort of like FireBug?)