Why would my browsers keep crashing?

[Adelante]

"The application Mozilla-bin has unexpectedly quit"

It's happening with Safari and Camino and Mozilla and Firefox. It's not every time but it's been a couple of times a day.

Any suggestions?

[Adelante]

1. Anybody?

I've been trying to figure this out all week - I'm going blind from reading about crashing browsers :cry:

[Elwood P Dowd]

2. What system & OS? How much RAM.

What is your Activity Manager showing? Have you run Disk Utilities? Have you cleaned out the cache and cookies? I imagine those are some of the questions you will be asked.

With OS-9 and before, you usually could stop this by adding more memory to the browser and not running the browser with several other programs open. I've never encountered this with Panther or Tiger.

[Adelante]

4. Thanks

OS X 10.3.9
Machine Model: iMac G5
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.6 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1.25 GB

Yes, I've run Disk Utilities and Onyx and I made a fresh install of OS X. I tested the memory with, I think it's called, ReMem and everything passed. I'm currently on SeaMonkey and don't seem to be having problems, so far. SeaMonkey, OmniWeb, and Opera appear more stable than others, and Safari, although it has crashed a few times, has been relatively stable. I trashed Firefox and downloaded a fresh FF/Deer Park today, so I'll give that another chance. Same with Camino and Shiira. Those three have been the biggest culprits, crashing even after I did all the prep work above. So I'm switching around and monitoring the activity. I ended up with all these different browsers trying to find a couple that wouldn't crash. So we'll see what happens. It's been quite an education this week. I actually suspect the problem stems from Firefox. The reason is that FF worked great until the last upgrade and that's when little by little all of this started happening and instensified as time went on. I'm no expert, certainly, and a newer mac user, but it's my observation that there's a memory drain that at some point tips and affects the CPU somehow negatively, so everything comes almost to a stop. There were days I couldn't post to DU or post anywhere because I couldn't get the computer to even type into the entry form no matter what the browser. So it's been pretty scary. I'll keep testing each browser and get rid of the ones that don't perform well, I guess.

Thanks again and to the other person who responded :hi:

[Elwood P Dowd]

6. I think that kernal-task thing is a scheduler or something

but you shouldn't mess with it.

Mine shows it using about 30, but the Mini is in the other room with nothing running right now.

You should always repair permissions both before and after you install any new software. Don't forget that. Also, you might want to boot with Panther install disc, open disk utilities after it boots up, and then run disk repair.

You shouldn't be having memory problems with 1.25 gigs. I'm running a used original Mini recently purchased, and it works fine on 256. That being said, I'm used to running Macs on low memory and know my limits. Hopefully, next month I will have the cash for more memory and DiskWarrior.

[Adelante]

10. Run repair permissions before and after

That's something I never did, so thanks very much for that advice.

I bought DiskWarrior, but apparently I need a separate disk from them to use it. Right now the hard drive doesn't dismount. It's tough here because deliveries get "lost" on a regular basis. I may have it sent to a friend in New York sheduled to visit in a couple of months and have him carry it down with him.

[Adelante]

11. The memory thing

I agree memory is not the problem. But there's something happening with the CPU usage, where all of a sudden it spikes very high, sometimes all the way. For example, yesterday on Deer Park/FF over a while of surfing, the memory usage climbed to 89 RM and the CPU usage to 87%, where it had been 70 RM and 30% CPU, and stayed at the higher figures with a significant slowdown, although not a crash. But I shut it down afraid it would crash. I'm just guessing at all of this, though.

[realisticphish]

3. that sounds like a memory problem

theres no reason that ALL of them would be crashing, that i can think of

[Adelante]

5. One more?

One other question (remember I know shite about all this - I only just met the Activity Monitor today).

Is it normal for kernel_task to be using 89 MB of Real Memory? It's always the highest usage except when I have FF open.

[alfredo]

7. Go into the Applications/Utilities folder

and look for the console. If and when you have a crash, open the console and copy the contents. Paste them here.

Trash your Mozilla/camino/safari preferences. Found in Library/Preference.

[Adelante]

8. Thank you

I looked in Library>Preference, and see no preferences at all for those browsers. Only an Opera folder.

In Library>Mozilla, I see something named "Global.regs" and that's it, nothing else.


Meanwhile, in the console log, I saw this separate issue:

Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
2006-03-11 09:09:14 -0600

dyld: /Previous Systems/Previous System 1/Library/PreferencePanes/StuffIt AVR.prefPane/Contents/Resources/StuffItAVRDaemon.app/Contents/MacOS/StuffItAVRDaemon version mismatch for library: /Library/Frameworks/StuffIt.framework/Versions/A/StuffIt (compatibility version of user: 1.0.0 greater than library's version: 0.0.1)

dyld: /Applications/StuffIt 10.0/Archive Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/Archive Assistant Scheduler.app/Contents/MacOS/Archive Assistant Scheduler version mismatch for library: /Library/Frameworks/StuffIt.framework/Versions/A/StuffIt (compatibility version of user: 1.0.0 greater than library's version: 0.0.1)

I had upgraded StuffIt, but it was after the browser problems were well begun, so there is probably no connection. I'll go to the StuffIt site and see how to resolve this one.


There's a guy I can call in to do all this, but he has to come from 50 miles away (in Mexico) and he charges an arm and a leg. So I appreciate all the advice I'm getting in this thread very much. When I get paid on the first I guess I should have him do some kind of overhaul on the computer. Oy.

[Adelante]

9. StuffIt is fixed nt

[alfredo]

12. There's other resources that might help

Macnn has some great forums. http://www.macnn.com/ You might find a solution using their search function.

Browsers do crash, but you seem to have more than the usual crashes.


Here's a browser I use with great success http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/en

Shiira is built using Web Kit, the same rendering engine used in Safari. It required 10.3.9 You can change its appearance to suit your tastes.

[Adelante]

13. I have Shiira

I like it a lot. It's been crashing, too, but not a lot. I wonder if it's not the browsers, but something else going on. I've been in those forums reading, but I felt intimidated to post. I think after this DU thread, though, I know more than I did so I will go back to the mac forums and speak up. Thanks for the help.

[Adelante]

14. Oh, boy, here's a new one

2006-03-11 09:56:48.920 /Users/doris/Desktop/SeaMonkey.app/Contents/MacOS/seamonkey-bin: can't map file: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)

Maybe my whole Library is screwed up and I should not be approaching it from the browser standpoint.

Going to mac forums now :hi:

[alfredo]

15. Mac forums are pretty friendly. You will see little flaming

like I have seen on other computer forums. I think it has to do with the historical underdog/outsider status of the Mac community.

the Linux community was and probably still is a very friendly place for the newbie. They really welcomed us Mac users when we were urged to use Linux to get acquainted with how the Nix's work. (that was our first hint that Apple was going UNIX)

[Ezlivin]

16. Try creating another user account

Then restart under that account and see if you can duplicate your problems. This allows you to operate in a "clean" state and see if the problem lies within the current user account or in the underlying OS.

[Adelante]

17. Okay, I did that

I had error messages in the console log starting Camino on my original account. They duplicated on the new account.

Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
2006-03-14 18:59:07 -0600
/Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/Camino: can't map file: /Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/Default Plugin.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)

/Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/Camino: can't map file: /Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/MRJPlugin.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)

### MRJPlugin: getPluginBundle() here. ###

### MRJPlugin: CFBundleGetBundleWithIdentifier() succeeded. ###

### MRJPlugin: CFURLGetFSRef() succeeded. ###

/Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/Camino: can't map file: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime Plugin.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)

/Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/Camino: can't map file: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Java Applet.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)

/Applications/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/Camino: can't map file: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)

I have no idea :shrug:

[Adelante]

18. Damn

Now I have this:

Mar 14 20:04:00 doris-Computer /Users/doris/Desktop/Opera.app/Contents/MacOS/Opera: *** Warning: ATSUSetFontFallbacks has been deprecated. Use ATSUFontFallbacks objects instead. ***

This is all very nervewracking. I guess it's back to the mac forums for me. :(

[Elwood P Dowd]

19. Maybe you should just do an erase and install

Save your data with an external hard drive or flash drive and start over. I purchased a used Mini with OS 10.4.3 installed but didn't have the that particular install disc. The owner wanted to keep it for another Mac he had, so he gave me the 10.3.7 disc that came with the Mini. After a couple of weeks some problems showed up that my dumb azz couldn't figure out, so I did an erase and install. Although I took a step down in operating systems, the Mini has been flawless since then.

[Adelante]

21. I did a clean install the other day

It didn't help at all. What I ended up doing is an fsck in Unix. I was terrified, but I did it and it may have solved the problem. I've been on several browsers testing things out and the first time I've had no problems in two weeks. I can't believe it. I also had a corrupted font and I understand that brings trouble, too, but that's fixed now. Fingers crossed, though.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this thread. It really helped give me some confidence. :)

[wiggs]

20. Got Limewire?

We have two Limewire casualties at our house....had to zero out the hard drives on both they were so messed up by Limewire (free music download software). Safari crashed, Acrobat Reader crashed, other odd things.

[Adelante]

22. To wrap this up

It took a long time and trying a ton of things, but every browser I have is now working perfectly and my mac hasn't been this speedo in months! It took uninstalling the Macromedia Flash Player and that's all it took. A brighter world for me. Thank you to everyone who helped. :D