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Why does Google Maps not work in Firefox 4?

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Google Maps worked fine when I was using Firefox 3.6.15 but as soon as I "upgraded" to Firefox 4 they have never worked even after a fresh reboot. They work in Internet Exploder 7 on the same PC running XP SP3, but since adding FF4 no response from the Google Maps page. The map of Australia loads but then it refuses to do anything - cant zoom, won't search for addresses, it just freezes on FF4, but uninstall FF4 and put an older 3.6.x copy back on and Google Maps is working again, uninstall (who thought that word up) FF3.6.x and reinstall FF4 and bam, Google Maps frozen. After 5 or so seconds a dark yellow bar appears at the top of the page that states "Still loading... Slow? Use the troubleshooting guide or basic HTML.". Any ideas anyone? I notice embedded audio files also cause FF4 to crash, especially when the website tries to load Quicktime to play the audio track, that 3.6.15 had no problem with.

Google Maps worked fine when I was using Firefox 3.6.15 but as soon as I "upgraded" to Firefox 4 they have never worked even after a fresh reboot. They work in Internet Exploder 7 on the same PC running XP SP3, but since adding FF4 no response from the Google Maps page. The map of Australia loads but then it refuses to do anything - cant zoom, won't search for addresses, it just freezes on FF4, but uninstall FF4 and put an older 3.6.x copy back on and Google Maps is working again, uninstall (who thought that word up) FF3.6.x and reinstall FF4 and bam, Google Maps frozen. After 5 or so seconds a dark yellow bar appears at the top of the page that states "Still loading... Slow? Use the troubleshooting guide or basic HTML.". Any ideas anyone? I notice embedded audio files also cause FF4 to crash, especially when the website tries to load Quicktime to play the audio track, that 3.6.15 had no problem with.

All Replies (7)

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Firefox 10. Ubuntu 11.10 Starting firefox in safe mode does not work

Map loads but entire page except main menu is non interactive. "Still loading... Slow? Use the troubleshooting guide or basic HTML" It comes up on google.com.au but not google.com

It happened after they added the new privacy popup with with MapGL also being added.

Disabling all cookies with Web Developer or browsing in private mode works but when settings are put back to normal it stops working. I deleted all cookies and cleared cache but that did not help. Strange that clearing cookies did not solve the problem because disabling cookies works.

I tested with another browser and it works... but I want firefox forever.

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Try to clear the DOM storage.

You can do that by clearing the Cookies via Clear Recent History (Ctrl+Shift+Delete) and set the time range to "Everything".

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Now on FF 10.0.1 Thanks but that did not work.

I think it may have something to do with conditions that set cookies for MapsGL (for compatibility?) when the page is loaded because it all started when google added Experience MapsGL which never came up on maps.google.com.au instead I got the message "Still loading... Slow? Use the troubleshooting guide or basic HTML."

What ever it is, it probably has something to do with a cookie being set when the page loads and that triggers "Still loading... Slow? Use the troubleshooting guide or basic HTML." It could be the cookie is set and then read again or the cookie is set and it causes and error in a script. could be advertising for chrome :(  :D

Something like that would explain why disabling cookies or private browsing works but deleting cookies does not.

It's still strange that it happens on the .au site. Will keep looking because this is driving me crazy.

EDIT> to clear thing up maps.google.com.au loads the entire page but the little yellow guy is not yellow. (disabled) then if I try drag or use the map, then I get the error "Still loading... Slow? Use the troubleshooting guide or basic HTML."

I will do anything to track down the problem.

Not sure but error console has lots of error with and without cookies enabled but this one stood out and was only there with cookies enabled

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x8052000b (NS_ERROR_FILE_CORRUPTED) [nsIDOMStorage.getItem]" nsresult: "0x8052000b (NS_ERROR_FILE_CORRUPTED)" location: "JS frame :: http://maps.gstatic.com/cat_js/intl/en_au/mapfiles/395d/maps2/%7Bmain,mod_util,mod_rst%7D.js :: <TOP_LEVEL> :: line 1108" data: no]

SushiAddiction modificouno o

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Delete the file webappsstore.sqlite in the Firefox Profile Folder to remove all cookies stored in DOM storage.

cor-el modificouno o

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Thanks again but that did not work. I added more to my previous post too.

Is there something else I can use like error console to find the problem?

EDIT> now maps on .com and .ca now have the same problem *tear*

SushiAddiction modificouno o

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I was reading some old post https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700841 I have never installed it before but it seemed to have an influence on my problem (even though they say it caused the problem)

So I installed better privacy and now everything works. I have no idea why. It's strange.

Maybe some javascript on google maps checks flash cookies and there was an error there.

SushiAddiction modificouno o

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I had exactly the same problem with a fresh installation of FF 10.0.3 (ESR), on a brand new computer, using the default FF profile created on first launch, no add-ons of any kind (ever) installed. OS is Win7 x64. Chrome and IE work fine on the same machine.

No amount of cache clearing or cookie deleting had any effect, but switching to Private Browsing instantly fixed the problem. I never tried the Better Privacy addon, but SushiAddiction's post got me thinking about whether other security/privacy addons might have a similar effect, so I installed NoScript, and voila! Google Maps was working again. NoScript version 2.3.7 (all default settings).

It's interesting that NoScript doesn't appear to be blocking any javascript at all on the Google Maps page (the google domains are whitelisted by default), so the impression at first glance is that it's not actually doing anything on loading that page, but clearly something has changed. I don't think NoScript does anything (directly) to block cookies, so anything cookie-related would probably have to be dependent on some javascript.

I get the impression NoScript is an extremely popular addon, so that could be causing this issue to be under-reported. I was planning on installing NoScript anyway, so it's not a killer for me anymore, but it was driving me nuts before.