# CM9 Stock Browser Keeps Crashing



## reallynice (Oct 13, 2011)

Hello all,

I have been running CM9 from it's beginning. I have been updating regularly to newer builds. However, since the last few builds, the stock browser has been crashing when loading many websites. These websites include this forum, twitchtv and many others. This problem seems to be shared by other people in the Official Nightly thread. A clean install was made not long ago, but the problem still persists. I am now running the latest nightly: 2012-09-09.

Any ideas?

EDIT: This seems to happen when user agent is set to Desktop.

The method suggested by numerous people worked for me so far:

1. Disable javascript in browser settings,
2. Go to CWM and wipe cashe and dalvik cashe,
3. Re-enable javascript in browser.

Fingers crossed.


----------



## azt3 (Sep 16, 2012)

Not just stock browser, but it is the stock browser that seems to crash the fastest. When I disable javascript in each browser it does not crash.


----------



## brentos (Aug 21, 2011)

I also started seeing this behavior recently and I'm on the 9/03 nightly, I tried clearing all the browser settings except for my stored passwords, which I should try too.


----------



## gamesfrager (Jul 11, 2012)

Maybe if you can monitor the memory usage it might give an indication if you are running out of memory and android is closing programs to free some of it.
Just a thought, not sure if it's a memory related issue.

Sinan


----------



## trekrev (Feb 22, 2012)

azt3 said:


> Not just stock browser, but it is the stock browser that seems to crash the fastest. When I disable javascript in each browser it does not crash.


Nice catch on the Javascript Azt3. I Hope the developers see this because it is clearly causing the crash on multiple sites. i will check the lastest Official Nightly and report back if it still crashes. Thanks

Update: Downloaded the latest Nightly 20120916 and the stock browser still crashes with Javascript Enabled







... I will mention this thread in the Official Nightly thread.


----------



## nevertells (Oct 29, 2011)

trekrev said:


> Nice catch on the Javascript Azt3. I Hope the developers see this because it is clearly causing the crash on multiple sites. i will check the lastest Official Nightly and report back if it still crashes. Thanks
> 
> Update: Downloaded the latest Nightly 20120916 and the stock browser still crashes with Javascript Enabled
> 
> ...


Just for the record, the stock browser in the August 19 nightly is crashing too. I have not had any crashes when using Chrome, Boat or Firefox. So is this a Java issue in the forum software or the browsers?


----------



## trekrev (Feb 22, 2012)

nevertells said:


> Just for the record, the stock browser in the August 19 nightly is crashing too. I have not had any crashes when using Chrome, Boat or Firefox. So is this a Java issue in the forum software or the browsers?


Very good question NT!


----------



## BadKitty (Sep 18, 2012)

This crashing issue started for me on about 9/13. No changes at all had been made to the TP - the stock browser just started crashing when visiting certain sites (including the forum here). Had a mid July nightly installed. Tried installing newer and older nightlies with full wipes with same results. Not to be deterred I uninstalled CM9 with ACMEUnistaller, wiped the SD card, reverted the TP to stock with WebOS doctor and then reinstalled the original Alpha CM9 from February (fullofbugs). Same problem - very, very strange.

Am now running the 09/16 nightly with same issue, however, can confirm that turning off Javascript seems to stop the problem but pretty much cripples the browser.

BUT ALSO, setting the user agent to "Android" or "Honeycomb-Xoom" seems to also stop the problem. I noticed that the stock browser using the "desktop" setting on THIS page tries to load a banner ad at the bottom that seems to crash the browser. Using the "Android" or "Honeycomb-Xoom" setting does not load the offending banner ad. Not sure if it is Flash based or not. Flash not currently installed but had issues with and without it installed earlier.

Checked both Boat and Chrome and they both load the ads in "desktop" mode but do not crash.


----------



## wineaux (Aug 28, 2012)

Yes, I'm seeing tons of crashes of the stock browser as well. It's been a real PITA lately.


----------



## ricklynchcore (Feb 29, 2012)

+1 on browser crashes

Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2


----------



## nevertells (Oct 29, 2011)

trekrev said:


> Very good question NT!


And just for the record, since disabling Java Script, the stock browser does not crash and the Rootzwiki pages load really fast.

The downside, certain websites complain loudly that Java Script is disabled and refuse to work properly.


----------



## nevertells (Oct 29, 2011)

BadKitty said:


> This crashing issue started for me on about 9/13. No changes at all had been made to the TP - the stock browser just started crashing when visiting certain sites (including the forum here). Had a mid July nightly installed. Tried installing newer and older nightlies with full wipes with same results. Not to be deterred I uninstalled CM9 with ACMEUnistaller, wiped the SD card, reverted the TP to stock with WebOS doctor and then reinstalled the original Alpha CM9 from February (fullofbugs). Same problem - very, very strange.
> 
> Am now running the 09/16 nightly with same issue, however, can confirm that turning off Javascript seems to stop the problem but pretty much cripples the browser.
> 
> ...


So to me the question of the day is why did this just start happening recently across all builds of CM9? Is there any developer out there who has a clue why it started and how to fix it?

I've had my stock browser set to "Desktop" long before this all started. Maybe you have hit on something about the rogue advertisement causing the crashing. Java turned off does not let ads load or run. Probably why web pages load so fast.


----------



## gamesfrager (Jul 11, 2012)

I came across this blog post from css-tricks.com

http://css-tricks.com/crashing-mobile-webkit/

Maybe this helps.

Sinan


----------



## markek (Jul 18, 2012)

BadKitty said:


> This crashing issue started for me on about 9/13. No changes at all had been made to the TP - the stock browser just started crashing when visiting certain sites (including the forum here). Had a mid July nightly installed. Tried installing newer and older nightlies with full wipes with same results. Not to be deterred I uninstalled CM9 with ACMEUnistaller, wiped the SD card, reverted the TP to stock with WebOS doctor and then reinstalled the original Alpha CM9 from February (fullofbugs). Same problem - very, very strange.
> 
> Am now running the 09/16 nightly with same issue, however, can confirm that turning off Javascript seems to stop the problem but pretty much cripples the browser.
> 
> ...


Almost identical situation for me. July build seemed fine until just recently. Downloaded the 9/9 build and didn't help. So bad right now I had to go back to Webos to surf!!


----------



## andylap (Aug 29, 2011)

my browser was crashing atleast once an hour stock browser and firefox i disable the java script and it did stop and then i cleared all cache and everything on stock browser re enabled java script and my browser hasnt crashed in 2 days of constant use


----------



## markek (Jul 18, 2012)

andylap said:


> my browser was crashing atleast once an hour stock browser and firefox i disable the java script and it did stop and then i cleared all cache and everything on stock browser re enabled java script and my browser hasnt crashed in 2 days of constant use


Tried to clear cache and then enable JavaScript - didn't work for me. Only thing that seems to work is disabling JavaScript.


----------



## Razor512 (Aug 22, 2011)

yep, it is extremely annoying (also posted the issue on the cyanogenmod forums (hopefully they notice it especially since their own site is able to crash the browser 100% of the time)

(video of the issue)


----------



## frog23 (Feb 1, 2012)

i assumed no one even uses the stock browser.








with Chrome, Opera and Dolphin as other choices, i never touch that browser.


----------



## BadKitty (Sep 18, 2012)

I tried andylap's suggestion of turning off javascript in stock browser, clearing both caches in CWM recovery, rebooted, turned javascript back on, set user agent to "desktop" and since last night, no crashes. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Side note: I am amazed at how much quicker certain sites load on the TP with javascript disabled. Too bad it is not practical to keep it that way.


----------



## nevertells (Oct 29, 2011)

frog23 said:


> I tried andylap's suggestion of turning off javascript in stock browser, clearing both caches in CWM recovery, rebooted, turned javascript back on, set user agent to "desktop" and since last night, no crashes. Keeping my fingers crossed.
> 
> Side note: I am amazed at how much quicker certain sites load on the TP with javascript disabled. Too bad it is not practical to keep it that way.


I actually use the stock browser, Firefox, Boat and Chrome as each one has attributes that I like and certain features I do not. I like the way a certain browser behaves on a certain website. That being said, I have found that turning off Java Script to get the stock browser to behave is a royal pain. The alternative way to avoid the crashing problem is to change the User Agent from desktop to Android and leave Java turned on.


----------



## Razor512 (Aug 22, 2011)

I mainly like the stock browser because of how responsive it is.

other browsers such as chrome try t add some kind of smoothening to the scroll animation and this causes a delay between when you start trying to scrolling and when the scrolling actually happens., this makes the browsing feel a bit sluggish

then there is the issue of browsers such as chrome not allowing you to set the browser to desktop mode, thus having most websites with mobile versions, load the mobile version and not give a desktop version option.

The stock browser is also the fastest one perceptually. while others may load many pages at a similar speed, the stock browser gives a better perception of speed because it begins rendering data as it is received rather than waiting for like 80% of it do be downloaded before starting to render.

I also like the idea behind the mobile version of firefox but it has the worst tab management ever imagined. You basically have to rebuild the Large Hadron Collider, discover a new element and then send it through, then create antimatter and figure out what flavor it is in order to switch between tabs (may be slightly exaggerated  )

so while firefox mobile is more responsive than chrome, it still needs a way to use a desktop user agent and also discover how much more effective it is to have the tabs on the main window instead of pretending they are gold ore by making them just as hard to find.


----------



## markek (Jul 18, 2012)

What exactly does java script do? Ive had it disabled for a few days and do not see a difference.


----------



## Razor512 (Aug 22, 2011)

java script is mainly for the non static parts of a website. eg dropdown menus, the quick reply box options that appear when you click on the bottom of the page, and many other things (most of what is considered web 2.0 relies on java script and CSS, and by disabling java script entirely, you lose a large portion of the web's functionality.

though some websites will use java script to detect if you have it disabled or enabled and if it is disabled and fails to run, it can load up a non java script optimized version of a page with reduced functionality so the pages are not completely unusable.


----------



## markek (Jul 18, 2012)

Thanks Razor.

Turned off java script. Wiped all cache. Rebooted and made sure i was in desktop mode and stock browser did not crash for the last couple hours.

Tried pretty much the same thing a couple days ago and it didnt work. Not sure why it seems to be working this time but i have my fingers crossed!!!


----------



## bulletmark (Jan 22, 2012)

I've only seen browser crashes since the latest (and current as I type) 0916 CM9. It happens a lot.


----------



## BadKitty (Sep 18, 2012)

Stock browser crashes occurs amongst a whole range of nightlies (I tried 5 different ones). Certain ads seem to trigger the problem. Unknown why it suddenly started last week but others have had the same experience. For me, the "turning JS off-wiping both caches-turning JS back on" method seems to have fixed the problem for now. Now, if somebody could explain *why* this method works and what caused the problem in the first place...


----------



## markek (Jul 18, 2012)

I agree. Was using an older nightly without a problem up until just recently. Tried a couple new nightlies which didnt help. Turning off javascript, wiping cache, rebooting and then turning javascript back on is still working for me. Weird.


----------



## nobi125 (Oct 7, 2011)

BadKitty said:


> Stock browser crashes occurs amongst a whole range of nightlies (I tried 5 different ones). Certain ads seem to trigger the problem. Unknown why it suddenly started last week but others have had the same experience. For me, the "turning JS off-wiping both caches-turning JS back on" method seems to have fixed the problem for now. Now, if somebody could explain *why* this method works and what caused the problem in the first place...


This method did not work for me. Have the same issue with Dolphin as well.

I'm on the Dec 02 nightly.


----------

