Chrome Developer Tools freezes page

Question

I'm running Chrome 22.0.1229.79 m on Windows 7. Recently (in the last 4-5 weeks) Developer Tools has become a real pain to use. If I want to inspect a page, I hit F12 to launch Developer Tools. Within 1 to 2 seconds, the debugger kicks in and automatically pauses the page. If I'm inspecting some CSS via the Elements tab, Dev Tools forcibly switches to the Sources tab. I have to wait a couple of seconds before I can switch back to Elements and continue what I was doing.

However, the page is now frozen and I can't interact with any of its elements while Dev Tools is launched. Hitting F8 doesn't have any effect - buttons are no longer clickable, hover effects are disabled. I have to close Dev Tools and relaunch the page.

This never used to happen and I can't find a setting to disable the behaviour (I can't even find any information about the behaviour). Is this now standard behaviour on the latest version of Chrome or am I missing something?

Answer 1

This has been happening for me for months too, running OS X Mountain Lion - I love chrome but the developer tools are a pathetic let down. They would be great if they worked, but with recent updates (I'm not sure exactly what's caused it) Chrome Dev tools freezes as soon as inspect, or after a minute or so of use. Most of the time it will have to kill the whole tab to stop the browser from crashing.