According to Eric Damery and Glen Gordon in today's NFB meeting on JAWS, Mozilla is aware of this issue which was caused inadvertently by them in the Firefox 78.x update and it should be fixed when version 79 is released on the 28th of this month.

Alan Lemly

I'm thinking 78.0.2 is crashing less than 78.0.1 but still definitely not good! I'm using Chrome a lot more now, or else using Firefox with NVDA. I tried Jaws 2019 and 2020 and they both crash often with latest Firefox.

78.02 which is now the latest version, also crashes, I mostly use the new Chromium based Edge for the most part.

 

 

 

 

Richard

"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself,” and we forget that only grace can break the cycle of ancient hatreds among peoples. (It is notable that while I have regretted not granting grace to others, I’ve never once regretted extending it.)" - Edward Herbert

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of JM Casey
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2020 9:24 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: Any thoughts on getting latest version of Firefox (78.0.1) to work better with older JFW (2018)?

 

It crashed occasionally before 78.0.1 but it was a tolerable level of wankiness. This update is definitely unveiling something nasty. Mozilla apparently had a twitter back and forth trying to reproduce this bug and it was a tricky one to both find and solve. I guess we wait for next update, which with FF…should be soon.

 

 

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Shirley Tracy
Sent: July 12, 2020 4:59 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io; jfw@groups.io
Subject: Re: Any thoughts on getting latest version of Firefox (78.0.1) to work better with older JFW (2018)?

 

For what it’s worth, I have JAWS 2020 and I have stopped using Firefox for the most part because it crashes frequently. I spoke with tech support at Freedom Scientific who told me they are well aware of it.

 

 

Shirley Tracy

 

From: JM Casey
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2020 2:43 PM
To: jfw@groups.io
Subject: Any thoughts on getting latest version of Firefox (78.0.1) to work better with older JFW (2018)?

 

Hey folks. Yes, I know JAWS 2018 is behind the curve, now, and that an upgrade would be beneficial. However, I’m not in a position to upgrade at this time. At the risk of running a huge struggle to continue using outdated software, I would like to know if anybody has any ideas of configuration settings that might make Firefox less crashy using this screen-reader. I know its’ an issue between interaction with JAWS and firefox and, frankly, always has been since the advent of Quantum. I tested this with nVDA (2019.3 and 2020.1) and it’s a lot less crashy. In fact I have failed to make Firefox crash even once using this other screen-reader. I know some users of JAWS 2020 have reported crashes, too, but I’m unable to test that currently and at a guess, newer versions of JFW should probably work better as well as NVDA. Anyway, since I’m not looking to downgrade firefox and not quite ready to either upgrade or give up JFW for the web browsing experience, in part because it works so nicely with my Focus braille display, just wondering if there are any flags/options I can alter in about:preferences or about:config (firefox’s “hidden” advanced settings page containing literally thousands of configurable options) that might help me have a smoother experience. Right now, since FF updated to 78.0.1 a week or two ago, everything from wikipedia pages to my old wisp’s webmail is crashing tabs. This only happens when jFW is running.

 

NB: I’m aware of other browsers  and use them, so no need to suggest just switching browsers. Thanks!!