Trobuleshooting Firefox 3.5

July 7th, 2009 IRA

The upgrade didn’t go that smoothly. I installed Firefox 3.5 in two PCs. After install Firefox detected my plugins, updated some ones like Firebug, and disabled the incompatible ones. Pretty standard procedure.

Then I experienced the following bizarre behavior:

  • The vertical scroll bar went  to the left side. This is by far the strangest behavior.
  • The search box wouldn’t accept the Enter key.
  • Links in pages wouldn’t work.
  • Black text on white background would be rendered white, therefore unreadable.
  • On Firebug, the console wouldn’t work.
  • Many other annoyances that just rendered the browser unusable.

How did I solve it? Start Firefox in safe mode.

firefox-safe-mode

Hit ok in the popup window. Then go to Tools->Add-ons. Uninstall/Disable everything you can. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to do an individual testing, so I have to go for the broadest option.

Exit and start Firefox again. Everything should be ok. Then install again the add-ons you really need and are supported by Firefox 3.5.

This is the first time I experienced this problem with Firefox products. I’m still testing it but I think it’s worth the bother.

Hope this saves you some time.

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