Why does Firebug say there is No Javascript on this page when there are clearly loads of JavaScript on the page. I even reloaded the page several time to make sure but it still show the same message.
It never used to do that before, but all of a sudden it misbehaves.
Is it because of some configuration issues or because of something else?
As of Firefox version 50, it seems that Firebug will no longer work as Mozilla are migrating to Firefox Devtools. The tab Tools/Web Developer has a 'debugger' option. See this page for a discussion on the migration. Read all the posts dated 19 November for further information.
It seems to me that the option gives less functionality but Firebug per se is never going to be fixed for Firefox 50 and beyond
EDIT 2017 April
This answer is now outdated and I'm not even testing it anymore because I'm no longer using Firebug (a shame, I loved it years ago in a time it was The tool of trade for web developing).
EDIT 2014 November
The original answer is now more than a year outdated due to firebug evolution.
Thanks to #AmadeusDrZaius to keep it on tracks
Answer for outdated firebug versions
For anyone still with this problem after updating Firebug.
Just click Clear Activation List option inside the Firebug menu.
For those who can't find it, note that "Clear Activation List" shows up in the dropdown from the Firebug icon in the toolbar, but not the Tools > Web Developer > Firebug menu.
I guess due to the bug previous hitting your working page it stays listed as "no activate FB for this site please".
I encountered No Javascript on this page after upgrading Firefox to ver 50.0, with Firebug ver 2.0.18. I tried refreshing Firefox, even completely uninstall Firefox and installed again. Nothing works for me.
A couple of hours later, I downgraded Firefox to 49.0.2, and voila, it works right away. I downloaded the old version here.
I tried everything on this list and nothing worked for me except resetting Firefox like so:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-problems
I realize there are already 10 answers to this question, but in my case none of them helped. I'm running Firefox version 39.0 and Firebug version 2.0.11. The only fix is to completely restart Firefox (i.e. not just the tab or instance with the problem).
Perhaps it's due to Firefox's over-usage of memory, or maybe there's a bug in Firebug. I can't speak to that, but what I do know is it didn't work. I killed Firefox, opened the exact same page again with no changes made and now it works. This has happened to me numerous times and a complete restart always fixes it, but that's the only thing that does.
Since Firefox 49.0 and Firebug 2.0.18 the Script panel is broken. This is due to some internal Firefox API changes. And because Firebug is officially discontinued, this unfortunately won't get fixed anymore.
There was also a bug in Firebug 2.0.11 (and below) in combination with Firefox 39.0 causing this problem. This bug is filed as issue 7918.
It happens when the Script panel is enabled and you close Firebug and reopen it.
You can see two related error messages logged to the Browser Console (can be opened via Ctrl+Shift+J or Firebug menu > Developer > Browser Console):
error occurred while processing 'attach: TypeError: docShell is null
Stack: getChildDocShells#resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://gre/modules/devtools/server/actors/webbrowser.js:53:7
...
and
onPacket threw an exception: Error: Server did not specify an actor, dropping packet: {"error":"unknownError","message":"error occurred while processing 'attach: TypeError: docShell is null\nStack: getChildDocShells#resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://gre/modules/devtools/server/actors/webbrowser.js:53:7
...
Solution:
The only solution until this bug is fixed is to restart Firefox completely.
Similar things have happened to me because I forgot to add the closing tag.
DON'T do this:
<script src="some.url" type="text/javascript">
or
<script src="some.url" type="text/javascript"/>
DO this instead:
<script src="some.url" type="text/javascript"></script>
The same problem just happened to me. I thought that it was a problem in my scripts, but I checked google.com and the problem persisted.
My problem was that I had updated my version of FF and kept the old version of FireBug. When I updated FireBug and everything was solved.
From firefox 49, the fire bug will be built in and it is called fire-bug next. So the fire bug add on won't work properly and no issues will be solved. So you can use firefox inspector. See here for details information
If the problem only shows up on a single page, check that your script folder is referenced from current folder (".") or that's reachable from the server root ("/").
<script src="./scripts/pagescripts.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
may not be the same as
<script src="/scripts/pagescripts.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
As mentioned, sometimes there's a Javascript syntax error that invalidates the whole script. But I have also had this, and simply opening up the page in a new tab or window and refreshing firebug (disable, enable) gets the javascript to show up again.
One time this caught me out was when I published one of my sites and I was checking it out. No Javascript was working, there were no errors in the console and firebug showed no scripts.
It turned out that in that instance, I'd forgotten to allow the site in NoScript - so there really were no scripts being loaded.
Not sure if that's the problem you're facing but it's worth being aware of.
I also got this error when attempting to use Ajax to a different server than the one serving up the page. JavaScript only allows Ajax access to the server that served up the page.
This problem is STILL happening (Aug 2015) with Firefox 39.0.3 and Firebug 2.0.11
For people saying the code is wrong or missing end tags etc. all I did to get all the javascript to reappear in tab was to shut down Firefox and restart it. I didn't change anything. Also that "Clear Activation List" option didn't work (no idea what that means)
I upvoted #Tom_Thomson's answer above, but I am wondering if simply removing and then reinstalling the Firebug add-on might not have accomplished the same thing without losing all the other stuff like bookmarks.
FWIW this problem is still happening in August 2016. I'm using Firebug 2.0.17 with Firefox Dev Edition 50.0a2.
As a workaround, I'm able to use the Developer Tools, though they are not as robust as Firebug (when it's working).
Well Firefox native Inspector is good... I know that you will miss some things, but in general we can survive with it. The good news is... less one addon, FF will be faster :)
This answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/10929430/749227
to this question Is possible to debug dynamic loading JavaScript by some debugger like WebKit, FireBug or IE8 Developer Tool? is spot on for debugging dynamic scripts.
The issue I am facing is that I have a page that has a script on it, and after it loads an ajax request fires which returns with some HTML and a script that get put into the page. With the //# sourceURL=myDynamicDocumentFragment.html bit added, I can debug the dynamic script just fine.
But once it's loaded, then the other script that is part of the outer page that initially loaded goes off the rails. I can set breakpoints on blank lines and can't set them on legitimate lines. The debugger will stop on them but it won't be at the place in the code where I'd expect.
What it appears to be is that the dev tools window is showing the original script, and the debugger itself is running on something else - some updated version of code that includes both the outer page's script and the dynamic script that was added later. Or maybe it just hiccups with respect to line numbers it's displaying and what those map to in the code it's actually running.
I wish I had a good simple code snippet to demonstrate the issue, but I don't. Has anyone seen this, and does anyone know of a way to have Chrome 'refresh' the dev tools scripts/debugger without refreshing the page? (it has to be w/o refreshing the page since things work fine when the page loads - it's only after the dynamic script is dropped in that the wheels come off)
Note: I've tagged with Chrome since that's what I'm using (v 38). I don't know how other browsers fare.
You can find scripts injected into head or evaluated, here is a break point added on youtube evaluated (another js file).
You can find this in chrome as well, adding console.log (click on message shown), and voila you have source code you can add break points.
Here mozila print debugging/breakpoint over evaluated script on utube page:
Update
Sorry, I understand chrome was out of the scope, my engrish :)
How I did debugging on chrome over injected scripts, but there are cases when you cannot attach to execution if script is active (page load plus few milliseconds), you need to search for workarounds.
Added this at the begin of the script injected:
//# sourceURL=jseinjectedsource.js
console.log("evaluated");
and voila console:
Better check this way better than my explanation chrome developer
Check to see if your script is using a source map (if you're using TypeScript this is typically on by default for VS projects).
I've found Chrome to be really bad with source maps, often refusing to update them, or stop displaying them after the source map line is removed from the code.
Last night, I was trying to debug a particular bit of vanilla JavaScript on a private page.
After a half an hour or so, the browser crashed while in the middle of stepping through a troublesome section.
When FireFox restarted, FireBug insisted that there was no JavaScript on the page - does anyone have any ideas what is causing this? Clearly the JS was (nearly) valid before the crash, and wasn't changed before I restarted. The only thing I can see, is that FireBug probably installed an update at that point?
I've tried cutting out all of my code, but nothing seems to make a difference. Other pages, even on the same intranet site, still work, but this one doesn't list any files under the "Script" drop down.
I've compared with the built-in Dev tools, and they also show no JavaScript loaded. The JS is a form submission handler, and clearly it is no longer running when the form is submitted.
I struggled with this for much of today. Eventually resolved it by creating a new profile.
I would be very interested in learning of the root cause if anyone figures it out.
I'm using Firebug to develop a JS app. All of a sudden, when I got to the page, it appears that I do not have JS enabled - the <noscript> warnings are rendered, and nothing works. When I go to the same page in Chrome, everything works fine.
What could be happening? I reverted recent changes back to a point where it worked, but it's still failing.
UPDATE: I just went back to the page in question, and now it works fine. I had been working on it in Chrome. Odd.
Honestly, I've had to disable Firebug entirely. Way too many errors and bung-eyes there.
Worked wonders for a long time, but recently... not so.
I've switched to Chrome + Developer extension - which does fall short, but it does the trick.
I want to debug a javascript file that is embedded in the HEAD element.
I navigate to the site, see the code, and make a breakpoint:
(source: deviantsart.com)
But when I click on Reload, the script disappears and it doesn't stop at the breakpoint:
(source: deviantsart.com)
Debugging was working earlier so I know it works in general. What do I have to do so that Firebug always debugs my script?
I've noticed this behaviour before as well. It seems that it can happen if you refresh the page while the debugger is running (i.e. after you've hit your breakpoint and are stepping through code). This is far from conclusive, just something I've casually observed over time.
Also, I try to avoid having multiple tabs open with firebug active, as it seems to get confused.
Edit: just thought I'd add that I've seen this manifest itself in a few different ways:
the external script file does not appear at all in the scripts panel.
the external script file appears but firebug doesn't "see" it. You know this has happened because the line numbers beside the code where a breakpoint can be set won't be highlighted (used to be green but now appear to be just a darker shade than other lines). I've seen this happen with inline javascript on a HTML page (horrors!) as well.
the external script file is there, but you can only see a single screen full of code. Where "screen full" is the firebug panel viewport.
shut down firefox and then restart. sometimes firebug gets confused. also make sure you have the latest version.
You need activate the script tab
I'm not sure that having a <script> inside <head> (as opposed to, inside <body>) is actually legal HTML. If it's not, as I suspect, you can't fault Firebug for not supporting it well...!-)
The bugs in script processing that I know about are 1) jquery dynamic loading of scripts fails, 2) new Function() cannot be seen, 3) some kinds of document.write() cannot be seen.
Firebug processes script files in series with Firefox. This means that Firebug must be active when the page loads and it means that any exception in the path will cause the files to be mis-processed. If you opened firebug before loading and you still see problems, then the most likely fix is to install Firebug in a new Firefox profile. This causes you to get a completely fresh set of default options and you run Firebug without other extensions. As you re-add other extensions, look for problems in seeing scripts: then maybe you will discover what extension is interfering with the code path for processing scripts. I know this is a pain in the neck, but so is JS debugging without source ;-). We are working on testing with more Firebug and Firefox extensions installed to try to reduce these problems.
In our case it was the bundling of JS files.
It is not only FireFox, it is same for Chrome.
We moved the file out of the bundle and put it on the page where it needed to be referenced and it started working like charm.