oh god, why’d it break‽

To resolve this error:

“Google Gears” could not be installed because it is not compatible with your Firefox build type (Linux_x86_64-gcc3). Please contact the author of this item about the problem

Stan Joel posted the lastest (5.18.0) on Issue 335

• Download: http://jms.id.au/~shenki/gears/gears-linux-x86_64-opt-0.5.18.0.xpi
• In Firefox,  click File -> Open File, find gears-linux-opt-0.5.18.0.xpi
• Click “Install Now” when prompted
• Restart Firefox

I keep up to date on the latest by checking Issue 335 on code.google.com. [Update #5]

Just as I installed (and was very impressed by) Wordpress 2.7,  I immediately ran into an issue trying to get Google Gears going in Firefox x64.  It says right under the install button that it isn’t supported,  but of course I didn’t even notice that the first time around and got this error:

“Google Gears” could not be installed because it is not compatible with your Firefox build type (Linux_x86_64-gcc3). Please contact the author of this item about the problem

Did a quick search and found a TechRecipes post which has everything you need.  Already having burned myself once,  I checked to see what the latest Gears version was,  then read through the user group link from TechRecipes which has a really interesting discussion between an independent developer and some of the Gears devs about earlier x64 patches.

Now that Gears 5.7.0 was installed I went back into my Wordpress Site Admin and clicked the Tools menu – the button still showed “Install Now”.  Burned twice.  Clicking “Install Now” took me to the Gears install site again.  I checked my Firefox addons and saw that 5.7.0 was successfully installed.  Took a look at the source code to see if there was a direct link and found a variety of status messages (gears-msg1 through 4 in source) so for some reason the site did not realize that I had Gears installed at all.  Went back to the drawing board from earlier and found that everyone who has said that Gears works for them was using 4.9.0.  Removed 5.7.0,  restarted Firefox, installed 4.9.0 and was able to get ‘Turbo’ mode working,  all files downloaded successfully.

Man, I gotta say – the dashboard is definitely snappier.  It was worth it.

(Update) Ivanhoe has helpfully mentioned that his version was built for the latest gentoo in the comments and will have instructions on making your own for the next update.

(Update #2) Neils Peen has posted version 5.1.1 compiled on Kubuntu using Firefox 3.0.5 – I removed the 4.9.0 addon and updated with his and it worked fine.  While digging around I also found Issue 335 on Google Code which details this problem.

(Update #3) livibetter has posted version 5.1.3 compiled on Fedora 10 x64_63 with instructions to do so yourself – I removed the 5.1.1 addon and updated with 5.1.3 – tested by removing my Wordpress Gears download and going through the process again successfully.

(Update #4) Tux Wears Fedora has the latest x64 Gears version, tested with 8.10 & Firefox 3.0.6,  worked fine.