Bits of MeTa freezing in Firefox

January 14, 2011 8:27 AM

Bits of MeTa freezing in Firefox

Many bits of MetaTalk (nowhere else on the site) make Firefox (3.6.13 on Win 7) freeze (terminally) when I click the link. This thread is an example. It's mainly going into individual posts, but there was something on the main page for most of last week that meant I couldn't load MeTa at all.

Doesn't do it in IE, and only does it if I'm logged in...

posted by monkey closet to Bugs at 8:27 AM (14 comments total)

Just given it a go. I can do 'Older Posts' as far as Jan 6 (and one post from Jan 5). Then it dies.
posted by monkey closet at 8:30 AM on January 14, 2011

Do you have any MetaTalk-specific Greasemonkey scripts installed? You might try disabling extensions for a while and see if the problem clears up.

I can't think of anything we've changed or added lately that could be causing it.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:30 AM on January 14, 2011

No, only thing I have is AdBlock Pro (and no, I can't get into that thread either, without logging out), and disabling that doesn't make any difference.
posted by monkey closet at 8:33 AM on January 14, 2011

hmm, that is unusual. No other extensions at all? (You can check by choosing Tools --> Add-ons --> Extensions Tab.) That's the only thing I can think of that would be causing problems. Maybe someone else has experienced this or has some troubleshooting ideas?
posted by pb (staff) at 8:41 AM on January 14, 2011

That's weird. If I disable the Java Console add-in, it still freezes, but it loads the page first...
posted by monkey closet at 8:48 AM on January 14, 2011

Run the profile manager and create a new blank profile and then use it to try accessing the site. (You can always return to your regular profile afterwards.) If the site works fine then it means there's a setting/extension/leftover bit of fluff that is at fault, not anything to do with MeFi or Firefox itself.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:54 AM on January 14, 2011

No, a new profile doesn't help...
posted by monkey closet at 8:58 AM on January 14, 2011

How about Safe Mode with everything disabled?
posted by pb (staff) at 9:10 AM on January 14, 2011

Do you have Metafilter Thread Highlights greasemonkey installed? That one makes Firefox slow on really big threads. Have you tried just turning off greasemonkey entirely?
After that try safe mode.
posted by special-k at 9:38 AM on January 14, 2011

If he's already tried a blank profile then by definition he has no extensions and therefore no greasemonkey scripts.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:19 AM on January 14, 2011

To be fair, that e-mail forward from your crazy uncle Ernie did warn you that something bad would happen if you didn't send it along. If you'd bothered to read the damn thing before trashing it.

Have you considered an exorcism?
posted by Eideteker at 12:40 PM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's working fine for m
posted by Plutor at 12:46 PM on January 14, 2011

I seem to be getting odd periods of non-responsiveness in FF. Could be something else running somehwere, but I am noticing it most on Metafilter.
posted by Artw at 3:26 PM on January 14, 2011

Based on this and the other report it sounds like Google's CDN that hosts jQuery might have a few malfunctioning nodes. That would explain why it only happens to a few people.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:48 PM on January 14, 2011