Camino 1.5: Crashes -- watch out for Input managers; GUI issues

[Published Thursday, June 7th]

Earlier this week, version 1.5 of the superb Camino Web browser -- an offshoot of the Mozilla project powered by the same Gecko 1.8.1 engine as Firefox. Users are experiencing a few issues with the release, for which we have identified some potential fixes.

Crashes -- watch out for Input managers Input managers, installed in the directory /Library/InputManagers or the user-level ~/Library/InputManagers, while useful in some cases, are bad news bears in several respects. They are designed to allow alternate input methods, but can also be used to inject code into any running Cocoa application. One popular application of Input Mangers is the "SIMBL" architecture, which can apply injected code selectively based on an application's unique identifier.

Unfortunately, Input Managers are also a major cause of stability issues, as they modify applications to work in ways unintended by the developer. This is especially significant when new application updates are released, because the new releases have usually not been tested for compatibility with the hacks.

Web browsers collectively represent one of the most popular targets for Input Manager hacks, allowing ad blocking, access to hidden features, customization and more. And, as is to be expected, the presence of these hacks can cause serious issues when new versions of browsers or released, or even intra-version.

Camino 1.5 is falling victim to Input Managers on some users' systems.

Some posters to VersionTracker's Camino product page are reporting that the presence of 1passwd (a password management tool) is causing crashes after the update, and readers elsewhere are reporting crashes with causes undetermined that may very well be caused by the presence of errant Input Mangers.

Our advice is to remove all Input Managers from the following directories:

• /Library/InputManagers
• ~/Library/InputManagers

then restart your Mac. However, if you absolutely need or want specific Input Managers to remain, at least make sure they are updated to the latest releases, as their developers may have made compatibility changes to resolve issues with new application releases.

[See this article for other serious concerns about Input Managers, particularly with regard to security]

GUI issues Meanwhile, some users are reporting GUI issues with the new release of Camino.

With the new 1.5, running on an Intel Core2Duo iMac and 10.4.9, I've notice quite a bit of GUI issues, so much so, I switched back to 1.04 for now.

One reader writes:

"The Yellow minimize window button often turns grey, and is non functional. The Red close and Green maximize button remain unchanged. Also, occasionally opening a new window or a new tab in an existing window, the toolbar icons don't redraw and are not active (even clicking where they are "supposed to be" doesn't do anything). Finally, f you have multiple tabs open, and within the current active tab, you open a dialog (for example, save a file). when the dialog closes, the tab for the active window you were just in no longer has focus. In other words, go up to click the tabs "X" button to close it, and you have to click twice, the first time brings the focus back to the tab, the second time actual starts the close."

If you are experiencing similar issues, please let us know.

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