I have found the bug if you want the solution. I commented out the offending line and updated

} else if (this.axis == xpathAxis.PRECEDING_SIBLING) {
//This is the worst ever
//for (var n = input.previousSibling; n; n = input.previousSibling) {
for (var n = input.previousSibling; n; n = n.previousSibling) { nodelist.push(n); }

Actually, there are a total of 4 places with the problem (I only managed to find them because of the information you provided in your original forum post). They are at lines 655, 660, 686 and 707.

Google has released an updated xpath.js with this fix incorporated: http://ajaxslt.googlecode.com/svn/tags/release-0-6/

I downloaded google's ajaxslt 0.7 from http://code.google.com/p/ajaxslt/downloads/list , took necessary files and merged in the fix by Patrick Lightbody to allow node selection to be case-insensitive.

It works like a charm with selenium 0.8.0. Xpathes for /parent or /preceding-sibling no longer hang.
other expressions looks to be resolved slightly faster.

I attached archive with code necessary.
Just replace current xpath libraries with those (backup old ones just in case) and include new javascript files in teh testrnner.html

xpath 0.7 taht resolves hangs on searches for /parent etc. elements

xpath 0.7 breaks selenium in IE for me. I get XML_NC_NAME not found. FireFox is fine however.

Colin,

you need to update testrunner.html (if you are using s-core) or other corresponding file ( if you are using s-ide, or hta, or something else)
see http://forums.openqa.org/thread.jspa?threadID=6483&tstart=15&start=0

We've submitted some important patches back to AJAXSLT that don't appear in version 0.7. mesch said that he expects a new version to be released real soon now; we should upgrade to that instead of to 0.7.

core revision 1919