[bckid]

hey all, i just made the switch and picked up a new rev d. 12" PB (and love it) but i'm having a problem with firefox....

first of all im new to tiger, and macs in general, but i consider myself pretty computer saavy...
so i click download from the site, it downloads and a dmg file goes on the desktop (i assume that means download or download manager or something), then i double click it and a disk appear on the desktop that says firefox and on that disk is the firefox program, so i double click it to start it up

2 things:
1) will the disk on the desktop that says "firefox" always be there when i run the browser? why does only firefox do this and not other programs like safari or word?

2) firefox keeps crashing on me...within about 3 pages from when i load it up, it closes and a dialogue box comes up and says "Firefox was unexpectedly close. would you like to reopen it?" and then it does the same thing all over again....whats up with that?

is there a way i can uninstall firefox and start all over again? or is this a common problem with other people? any advice would be great, thanks guys....

[wataru]

First of all, try doing a search before posting questions. You'll save yourself and us a lot of time.

A disk image (.dmg) is like an .iso file in Windows. It's contains a virtual disk that is mounted on your desktop when you open the file. Ones that you download from the internet are usually read-only, since the idea is that it's merely a content delivery system like .zip or .sit (plus that way they can be compressed). As such, apps often won't work if you launch them from the disk image. Copy Firefox to where it's supposed to be, which is your Applications folder, and then launch it from there.

So to answer your specific questions,
1. No, you don't need to mount the disk image every time. Copy Firefox to your Applications folder, eject the disk image, then either throw the disk image away or keep it around for archival purposes if you like.
2. The crashing is probably because you launched it from a read-only volume.

You don't need to reinstall Firefox as you have not actually installed it yet.

[Ludovic Hirlimann]

Originally Posted by bckid

hey all, i just made the switch and picked up a new rev d. 12" PB (and love it) but i'm having a problem with firefox....

first of all im new to tiger, and macs in general, but i consider myself pretty computer saavy...
so i click download from the site, it downloads and a dmg file goes on the desktop (i assume that means download or download manager or something), then i double click it and a disk appear on the desktop that says firefox and on that disk is the firefox program, so i double click it to start it up

You should read the readme files that comes with Firefox. Firefox, thunderbeird, nvu and sunbird (All products using the same framework) can't be launched from the distribution disk image. This is a know issue, and you should be copying the application into the application folder to solve it. When launched from the disk image Ff bounces, diseapear from the dock - bounces - diseapear from the dock - bounces - etc ....

Now You might encounter a Tiger specific issue with your crash. tell us more and we might help you on that one.

Btw since you're new to the mac world, I suggest you check out Camino.

[bckid]

thanks for all your help guys, but i still cant get it to work....

i download it, drag it over to applications, gets copied, then i eject the disk...all is well there.

then when i am running firefox, it will just randomly shutdown, saying "firefox has unexpectedly closed" the same message i was getting to begin with....soemtimes its when i hit submit to a form, or sometimes its jsut browsing....i'd really like firefox to work, but i guess i could settle for safari...maybe i should try this camino thing...

any ideas?

[Ludovic Hirlimann]

Originally Posted by bckid

thanks for all your help guys, but i still cant get it to work....

i download it, drag it over to applications, gets copied, then i eject the disk...all is well there.

then when i am running firefox, it will just randomly shutdown, saying "firefox has unexpectedly closed" the same message i was getting to begin with....soemtimes its when i hit submit to a form, or sometimes its jsut browsing....i'd really like firefox to work, but i guess i could settle for safari...maybe i should try this camino thing...

any ideas?

Trying Camino is an exellent idea.

Any message present in the console log of os X ?

[Randman]

Try Safari.

[wataru]

Yeah, that'll help him fix Firefox

Try trashing your Firefox prefs in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox.

[RedHerring]

Originally Posted by wataru

Try trashing your Firefox prefs in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox.

Does Firefox have a regular prefs file? Or are you talking about the entire Firefox directory located in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox?

bckid: You might also want to make sure any extensions you have installed are compatible with the version of Firefox you downloaded. I know version 1.0.5 had some extension issues. I've had Firefox crash like the dickens on me because of wonky extensions. That's usually my own fault, tho I'll see that the extension 'technically' works with .9 - 1.0.X... but I'm running DeerPark... and it LETS me install the extension anyway... and then it crashes... haha.

So yeah... double-check any extensions you might have as well.

[wataru]

I meant to trash the entire folder. Backup the bookmarks.html file inside if you want to keep your bookmarks.