How do you do that fix? I have a mac (OS 10.6.5 laptop) and I can't find access to anything "boolean" anywhere! This is extremely annoying. How do I go about getting a non-beta Firefox version back on my computer?

miskmask... glad you finally got the escape thing to work. And, speaking of old age pensioners... I'll be 70 this August and have been retired since 2002 and loving it. I surely hope they get this bug fixed soon....

Don't know anything about "macs" but if its like IE or Firefox, in the address bar you just type about:config

Then you can scroll down to find the entry for html5 and change the boolean entry from true to false by clicking on that line until the value changes.

I'm still waiting on FF to fix this so I can change that value back because I'm not sure what else it effects.

The "bug" is with Windows Live / Hotmail and it is related to their implementation of HTML5. If Mozilla "patches" the HTML5 parser to try to fix that Hotmail problem, it might create problems with other websites which implement HTML5 closer to the "standards".

Hotmail is aware of their problem, and plans to have it fixed before the Firefox 4.0 Release Candidate (the version that comes after the last Beta) is released. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627729#c63

Only way to cope is pressing the ESC key or the STOP red button to stop the page from reloading, quie annoying in fact.

could be a ploy by MS so that people switch back to IE

I use the stop technique. Annoying but it works, and it's a stop-gap until MS fixes their own bug.

Sounds absolutely unacceptable. Someone, somewhere should fix it or we should all abandon mozilla

No that doesn't work.

Well I did change the html5 boolean value to false instead of true and it seems to be working for me....Hav'nt found any side effects from switching over to false either.

sheltarling I've abandoned it long time ago, Hotmail that is; only open it from time to time to check if someone old didn't get the address change. Btw., unlike Micro$oft (and Yahoo) other free emails have direct pop3 support, etc.

PS. This IS a M$ bug (as usual :)), they don't follow standards.

In desperation I've now changed html5.enable boolean from true to false, and that solved the problem entirely with Hotmail. My only concern is that now Firefox is dumbed-down, and when will I know when another site is using HTML5 formatting. I might be missing out on the latest and greatest developments. Will Firefox peeps tell us, those who have changed it, when we should try undoing the changes?

I rolled back my Firefox to the 3.6 12 version, no more Hotmail problems. Also read on cnet Firefox is working on a 5.0 version. I recommend they get the bugs out of 4.0 first.

Since that Hotmail Bug affects only the Firefox 4.0 beta versions, it shouldn't be that big of a deal - you should just switch back to the stable release version of Firefox when you come across websites with problems like that and proceed with what you want to do.

If you guys can't handle "quirks" like this with Hotmail, maybe you guys shouldn't be using beta software to begin with and stick to stable releases?? Or maybe stop using websites like Hotmail / Windows Live which are notorious for doing updates that aren't thoroughly tested with anything except for IE??

edmeister, I'm not quite sure how to take your comments in the 2nd paragraph as reporting functionality problems and anomalies are part of the testing process. Nevertheless, I took onboard your info of a week ago stating "If Mozilla "patches" the HTML5 parser to try to fix that Hotmail problem, it might create problems with other websites which implement HTML5 closer to the "standards." and it was in connection with that statement that I concluded changing that setting from true to false might adversely effect performance on other sites.

According to Microsoft, there is a patch for Hotmail that fixes this issue but they aren't pushing to have it release. You can let them know that you think it's urgent to fix here: http://windowslivehelp.com/forums.aspx?productid=1

Thanks that for Cww. I'm fine for now after switching html5 to false.

Currently the only reliable thing that Mozilla can do is to have an exception built into Firefox that says "if you're looking at hotmail specifically, don't use HTML5 but otherwise do". It's definitely not a good thing to have stuff like that built in so it'd be a lot better if Microsoft could get their act together and release the fix they already have.

I HAVE EXACT SAME PROBLEM WITH THE NEW FIREFOX 4 BETA 11

Anyways, not that I'm not going to keep using firefox but i was wondering if anyone knows if the new IE is faster then fifrefox 4 beta 11? I tried chrome, but its slower, just a bit easier to use in some ways.

Cww, I used the feedback link at the bottom of Hotmail's page for pleading a fix.