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For Students: Fixing Code that Crashes the Browser
For Students: Fixing Code that Crashes the Browser

What's happening if your code is causing the browser to time out, freeze, or crash

Claire Sindlinger avatar
Written by Claire Sindlinger
Updated over 6 months ago

Often, if your browser becomes unresponsive or crashes after running or checking a program, it means that the code contains an infinite loop.

Infinite loops occur when loops have no exit condition, or no way to stop. When the program is run, it loops forever with no break, causing the browser to crash. This happens most often with while loops, but any kind of loop can become infinite. Learn more about loops by checking out this tutorial.

Remember, debugging is at the heart of programming! Every programmer will write programs with errors and each one is a chance to learn!
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🔁 What an infinite loop looks like

Let's take a look at this Python code:

Screenshot of code that creates an infinite loop

The value of i is set at zero, and never changes, so i will ALWAYS be less than 10. That means that the print statement will run INFINITELY. 😱

This will cause our Chrome browser to freeze and/or crash:

Screenshot of the Chrome browser message displayed when a page crashes

An infinite loop can also cause any other buttons on your screen to become non-responsive.

➡️ If you notice your "check code" button is not working, you may have an error in your code or an infinite loop!

🪲Debugging Infinite Loops

The best first step for debugging an infinite loop is to comment out different sections or lines of code, then run the program to see where the infinite loop is occurring. Start by testing any sections that contain for or while loops, then if/else statements, then other blocks of code.

Once the program runs successfully, you know that your infinite loop is in the commented section of the code. Check the code carefully to make sure that it contains a condition that will cause the loop to stop.

Example questions to ask:

  • In a while loop, will the condition get to false to break the loop?

  • In a for loop, does i increment correctly?

  • In an if/else statement, are all possibilities accounted for?

  • Could I use a break or continue statement in my while loop?

Each time you make a change to your code, running the code again will show whether you've successfully debugged the loop! 💪

🐞More Debugging Skills

If you are interested in learning more debugging skills, check out our tutorials here:

Still have questions on debugging?! Ask your teacher for help!

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