I think Google changed something in relation to Gmail yesterday evening. I use two Firefox addons to make managing my email a little more efficient – Better Gmail and Gmail Manager – and as of yesterday, both addons now seem to be broken. I first noticed a problem when Gmail tried to refresh and issued a ‘Could not build contacts’ error and subsequently logged me out. No amount of cajoling or urging could get me logged back in. Initially I thought it was a Gmail problem, but when I tested it out, I found I could still login normally from IE7 and Safari. My next thought, then, was that maybe somehow the Better Gmail addon I use with Firefox to restyle Gmail and add a few convenient functions might have broken. I disabled it and restarted Firefox, and sure enough, I was logged back in just fine. I’m a little annoyed now that some of the features that Better Gmail added are currently unavailable, but I’d much rather not have them than not have access to my email at all.
The other plugin that no longer functions is Gmail Manager. This little addon puts a little module on Firefox’s status bar that allows to check and manage multiple Gmail accounts quickly and easily. Well, Gmail Manager no longer works, showing all emails accounts as having no email, despite there being mail in most of those inboxes.
My guess is that Google changed something in their Gmail API that has caused most, if not all, Firefox addons for the service to break. I haven’t had a chance to do much in the way of research into the issue yet, so I don’t know how widespread this issue is and if it’s affecting everyone or if it’s just something screwed up with my particular instance of Firefox.
If anyone knows anything about this, do please let me know. I’ll try to keep you posted in the meantime.
Update: Turns out this is a known issue. There is a comment from the Better Gmail developer that Google rolled out a new version of Gmail recently. They are currently working on developing a new version of the addon to be compatible with Gmail. No word yet on whether Gmail Manager is being updated.
Gmail has created an API specifically for greasemonkey. Here’s the story.
Hmmm… my link didn’t work.
here’s the URL…
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/11/gmail-api-for-greasemonkey.html
Are you on a Mac? If so you should try Mailplane if you use Gmail.
Thanks, Jim, that confirms what the Better Gmail developer had noted. Guess I’m stuck waiting for upgrades.
Michael, I’m an unfortunate PC user. Mac’s a bit beyond my checkbook at this point.
I was wondering what the heck was going on. I use both those plugins too and things have been weird since then.
The reviews area of the “Gmail Manager” website mentions that the author is working on a fix.
Oddly, it works fine for 1 of my accounts, and I get the “0 new mails” notification on the other two. In each case, clicking on the account name will open up an inbox tab anyway, so no major inconvenience.
Oops. I tell a lie. The new version 0.5.4 is ready for download and has fixed the problem. One minor thing, FF download manager identifies the new version as 0.5.3, but I’m sure that’s just a typo. Bottom line, new version of Gmail Manager is available and working.
Yup, Gmail Manager now has an update and is working fine again. Just waiting on the Better Gmail update now.
Firefox just loaded an update for better gmail when I started up a few minutes ago.
Jim » What version did it load? I’ve got Better Gmail 1.0.1, and when forced to check, Firefox didn’t find a newer version than that. I also checked the Mozilla page for it, as well, and only saw 1.0.1. Gmail Manager, on the other hand, loaded a new version for me yesterday.
I have Better Gmail 1.1 now. Maybe the sun hasn’t reached your timezone yet. Oh wait, you’re same as me aren’t you.
So I don’t know.
Jim » Strange. It probably just hasn’t quite populated through yet. If you’ve got it, though, then I’m sure I’ll pick it up sometime today or tomorrow.
Ok, I actually ended up doing a Google search and found the “Better Gmail developer’s website”:http://lifehacker.com/software/exclusive-lifehacker-download/better-gmail-2-firefox-extension-for-new-gmail-320618.php. She actually has two versions of the addon now – 1.1 which is for the old Gmail and version 2.0 for the new one. 2.0 is pretty anemic by comparison, but that’s because most of the greasemonkey developers haven’t updated their scripts yet. Still it’s at least nice to have some of the functionality back, and I didn’t really want to revert since I like to stay as cutting-edge as possible. :)