OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Einar Lygre on July 19, 2016, 08:45:31 pm

Title: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Einar Lygre on July 19, 2016, 08:45:31 pm
The problem has nothing to do with "run!"
I am running TB 31.8.0 and FF 38.2.1
I can start each of them if the other is not running. If FF is running and I try to start TB nothing happens. If I try to start FF when TB is running I get this message: (http://F:\Temp2\Captured002.jpg)
"The application has been updated, but your version of SQLite is too old and the application cannot run."
If I then run ANPM to update SQLite. The message is than There is no newer version.
Then I try to delete SQLite using ANMP. The message this time is a long list of packages including Python and RPM and a message: You have selected to uninstall at least one package which is required for package management framework to function. This operation cannot proceed.
I then look into the content of SQLite (using ANPM). It lists only sqlite3.exe, sqlit3.dll, readme and sqlite3.1(without extension). I thought these would be the parts that would be uninstalled, but ANPM would do a deeper cleaning.

Any suggestions of how to proceed?

Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on July 20, 2016, 06:06:20 am
Mozilla does not use the system sqlite so anything you do with ANPM won't help. It uses mozsqlt3.dll, which should be in your FF/TB program directories. If you are correctly using RUN!, I don't see how you're having that problem.
I'd suggest updating to the same level of TB and FF, preferably 38.8.0. You still need RUN! to load FF after TB if lightning is installed.
BTW, did you look in your TB program directory for any trp files? Or popup.log  for any sys2070's involving FF or TB?
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Joop on July 20, 2016, 06:03:24 pm
I run very different version of TB and FF. Both use RUN. Don't have any problem running both next to each other. Also use different versions of FF, because later versions do have problems with footage.

Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on July 21, 2016, 02:56:32 am
Correction, seems the latest 38.8.0 uses both mozsqlite3 and sqlite3, at least if using the yum/rpm supplied nss and nspr
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: roberto on July 25, 2016, 09:49:19 am
The problem has nothing to do with "run!"
.....
"The application has been updated, but your version of SQLite is too old and the application cannot run."
.....
Any suggestions of how to proceed?
See the readme.os2 file this:
===============================================================================
-- Compatibility Warning ------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================

After using Firefox v4.0, Seamonkey v2.1, or Thunderbird v3.4 (or any later
version) your History and Cookies databases (places.sqlite & cookies.sqlite)
will NOT be compatible with earlier versions (i.e. FF3.6, SM2.0, or TB3.1).
A REXX script is available to restore compatibility.

* To preserve compatibility BEFORE running the new version:
  - download 'dbrestore.zip' from
      ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/incoming/mozilla/dbrestore.zip
    or
      http://e-vertise.com/warpzilla/dbrestore.zip
  - unzip it into your profile directory
  - make backups of places.sqlite and cookies.sqlite

* To restore compatibilty BEFORE running an earlier version:
  - run the script from your profile directory.

* To restore compatibilty AFTER running an earlier version
  (i.e. you forgot to run the script before):
  - look for 'places.sqlite.corrupt' and 'cookies.sqlite.corrupt' in your
    profile directory,   If they appear to be the right size, remove the
    '.corrupt' extension after deleting the newly-created versions.
  - run the script
  - if your history and cookies aren't restored, use your backup copies.

Saludos
Roberto
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: ivan on July 25, 2016, 01:51:53 pm
Hi roberto,

I doubt that what you quoted is relevant to the OPs problem.  He is not talking about corrupt SQL data but the fact he gets an error message abour SQLite itself.

In fact it is much more likely that there is an old version early in his libpath that either needs updating or removing.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Einar Lygre on July 27, 2016, 03:55:17 pm
Thank you for your interest in my problem.

Now I have reinstalled FF (38.2.1) and TB (38.6.0) .
Things are different but not solved:

I can start FF when TB is running. I can not start TB when FF is running. There is no error messages, but a TRP file is created. Nothing in the POPUPLOG.os2.
I can from FF select the command EmailLink from the File button and the "New email" from TB opens and let me mail the link til someone.

The TRP file doesn't tell me anything so here I need help.

I have also looked up the cookies.sqlite and places.sqlite with the results seen in the attachments. No corrupt here.

Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on July 27, 2016, 04:41:07 pm
It's the usual trp from mixing different versions of TB and FF, basically a debug breakpoint, see the INT 3 just before the failing NOP under "Failing Instruction"
I know you said it isn't a run! problem but all your errors say otherwise. Please post your run! command that you use for starting the programs.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Einar Lygre on July 28, 2016, 11:45:20 am
I don't really understand what you are asking me to download. Is it the RUN! exe-file? (that is not a command file) or is it copies of how it is used to start the programs?
Anyway I now have downloaded the 38.8.0 versions of both programs and will (try to) install them in the weekend.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: ivan on July 28, 2016, 02:52:38 pm
I assume you read the Run!v080.txt file.  In that you would have seen a section labelled OPTIONS those are what Dave is enquiring about.

Quote
OPTIONS
Insert these options between the '!' and the '.exe'.  They are not
case-sensitive and can be entered in any order. (* = new in v0.80)

General:
  L  - set LIBPATHSTRICT (use option 'U' to turn it off)

  E  - modify environment using file 'exename!.ENV' (e.g. xyz!.env)

  K  - keep Run! in memory until the program ends so that WPS icons
       show they're in use - requires an extra 600k of memory

  Z  - set priority:  use 'Z' by itself set the priority to 400,
       or use 'Zcdd' to specify the priority [c= 1-4  d= 00-31]

 1|2 - use the primary|secondary codepage

  B  - enable BiDi language support, if available

  M  - start VIO programs minimized

  N  - don't close VIO windows on exit

  Q  - quiet operation:  no beeps or error messages

  R  - show messages for non-fatal errors ('Q' overrides this)

  C  - use if command-line parameters aren't passed to the program

* -x - use a minus sign to turn off an option set elsewhere -
       see the examples in "Environment Variables" for details


As you can see there are quite a few of them.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on July 28, 2016, 04:33:40 pm
I don't really understand what you are asking me to download. Is it the RUN! exe-file? (that is not a command file) or is it copies of how it is used to start the programs?
Anyway I now have downloaded the 38.8.0 versions of both programs and will (try to) install them in the weekend.

Right click on the program object. Choose properties and copy what is in the Path and file name: field. Here for SeaMonkey,
F:\MOZILLA\SEAMONKEY\SEAMONKEY!LG.EXE
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on July 28, 2016, 07:00:24 pm
I cannot run more than one of the Mozilla derivatives at any one time. If I try to start a second one, it crashes. I cannot prove it beyond any doubt, but I am convinced that the problem is that there is not enough shared memory left, after I get the first one started. It doesn't matter what order I start them in, or whether I use RUN!, or not, the second one never even gets started.

I normally use Firefox (now 38.8.0) for browsing, PMMail for e-mail, and Pronews/2 for news groups. Most of the time I can use that combination without problems,but FF seems to consistently eat more shared memory space, and depending on what I am doing, it may crash in a couple of hours, or it may crash after a couple of days. I can watch the amount of shared memory space shrink, until it gets to about 100 meg free, then it is only a matter of time before the crash, and sometimes, the crash takes out the whole system.

I do not use upper shared memory with these programs, simply because they crash about 80% of the time, when terminated, and about 80% of the crashes, cause the whole system to crash. I do have the 106 kernel installed, which is supposed to have a fix for that problem and I have lots of upper shared memory available. Obviously, the unload problem isn't fixed.

I do use upper shared memory for AOO 4.12. That works okay as long as I also use the Quick start feature, which keeps the DLLs loaded. If I don't do that, it crashes about 80% of the time on close, and 80% of the crashes take out the whole system. Most inconvenient. If I load AOO low, it  becomes another program that must run alone, because it uses too much shared memory.

After doing a lot of experimenting, I can't seem to reduce the amount of lower shared memory that I need, and that causes me to reboot almost every day. Something needs to be done about this problem.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: guzzi on July 28, 2016, 08:09:36 pm
I do not use upper shared memory with these programs, simply because they crash about 80% of the time, when terminated, and about 80% of the crashes, cause the whole system to crash. I do have the 106 kernel installed, which is supposed to have a fix for that problem and I have lots of upper shared memory available. Obviously, the unload problem isn't fixed.

Doesn't happen here. Do you load both data and code segments high?
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on July 28, 2016, 11:15:23 pm
I'm now running Firefox 38.8.0 and Thunderbird 38.8.0 at the same time. Memory is marked however it was when I downloaded it. My run parameters are !K for firefox and !LK for Thunderbird.

The system is a bit fragile, but after a reboot, it always works for a while.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on July 29, 2016, 12:03:57 am
Quote
Doesn't happen here. Do you load both data and code segments high?

I do in AOO 4.12. It doesn't seem to make any difference in FF. As long as something is loaded high, it crashes on exit, most of the time. I have even tried just XUL.DLL loaded high, but it still crashes on exit. It seems that the latest CLAMD.EXE also loads high, but it is never terminated so it doesn't crash. It is possible that I missed something when I updated eCS 2.1 to use the kernel from eCS 2.2b2. Anybody got specific instructions?

Currently, I am using SHMEMMON (from JVW) to measure the low free shared memory, but it seems that the shortest sample time is 1 minute, which is far too long to capture what is happening in real time. After I rebooted, it showed 233.0 Mb free. I started FF 38.8.0, and it showed 115.0 Mb free (RUN! with only "!"). Now, it is showing 114.8 Mb free. Above512 is showing:
Code: [Select]
current free virtual address space in kB (private / shared):
  247360 / 113984 below 512MB line, 2293760 / 1831372 above 512MB line
Now, SHMEMMON is showing 111.7 Mb free. Since TB, and SM, use more than that, I am not overly surprised that they can't start. Even if they sneak in, anything else that needs shared memory is not going to get it.

Quote
My run parameters are !K for firefox and !LK for Thunderbird.

Some time ago, I tried !K and discovered that doing that caused even more shared memory to be used, so I took it out again. It wasn't much, but it seems that every byte helps.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on July 29, 2016, 01:26:14 am
'tis strange. I run SM and TB and occasionally FF, all with the DLLs (not the ones marked readonly) marked high. I never get crashes when closing them but after a couple of days I'll open a page from TB and the system will reboot itself so I try to make it a habit to reboot every couple of days.
Sometimes I use LIBPATHSTRICT (RUN!L) and sometimes not. Without it calendar needs to be at the same level in SM and TB and FF has to start after, or not having calendar installed, it doesn't matter which order things are started.
Currently after a day of uptime, with both SM and TB loaded, I have 253 MBs of free low memory. I really should be marking some of the DLLs in @UNIXROOT\usr\lib to load high.

I wonder what part of clamd is loaded high and if that could be triggering a problem? Are you relying mail to Win boxes? Otherwise I can't see any point in running clamd, which probably uses resources.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on July 29, 2016, 03:35:18 am
Quote
Currently after a day of uptime, with both SM and TB loaded, I have 253 MBs of free low memory. I really should be marking some of the DLLs in @UNIXROOT\usr\lib to load high.

Since I rarely use TB, or SM, it is easy enough to stop FF first (if I don't the second one simply doesn't start). I am puzzled why you have so much more free shared memory space, although that is close to what I see on my laptops. It is my main machine that has the problem, but I haven't been able to isolate what the difference is. During boot, it is XCenter that eats the most, and that is 40 Mb (after I removed all of the DLLs that I don't actually use). I have a second XCenter, but it only uses an additional 2 Mb.

Quote
I wonder what part of clamd is loaded high and if that could be triggering a problem?

I don't know. I used ClamD for a long time, until I started having severe low shared memory problems (about 3 years ago). After I discovered that the latest version loads high, I started using it again. It doesn't seem to use any low shared memory, but, according to Theseus, it uses about 300 Mb of shared memory space, which I assume is in high memory. I believe that most of it is the database. I don't know why that would need to be in shared memory space anyway. FWIW, I was having this problem long before I started using ClamD again.

Quote
Are you relying mail to Win boxes? Otherwise I can't see any point in running clamd, which probably uses resources.

I do forward e-mail sometimes, and I will admit that ClamDscan rarely actually finds anything to complain about, but I don't like to expose windows users to any more problems than they already have, so I scan all incoming mail. The only resources that it seems to use (other than high shared memory) is private memory, some disk space, and a few machine cycles.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Einar Lygre on July 29, 2016, 06:43:47 pm
It's the usual trp from mixing different versions of TB and FF, basically a debug breakpoint, see the INT 3 just before the failing NOP under "Failing Instruction"
I know you said it isn't a run! problem but all your errors say otherwise. Please post your run! command that you use for starting the programs.

E:\PROGRAMS\THUNDERBIRD\THUNDERBIRD!K.EXE
E:\PROGRAMS\FIREFOX\FIREFOX!K.EXE
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Andi B. on July 29, 2016, 06:58:42 pm
Quote
Currently, I am using SHMEMMON (from JVW) to measure the low free shared memory, but it seems that the shortest sample time is 1 minute, which is far too long to capture what is happening in real time.
I think I've suggested this REXX script for watching memory a few times. Direct link -
http://www.os2.org/download/file.php?id=87 (http://www.os2.org/download/file.php?id=87)

'above512watch.cmd' uses above512 (included in the .zip) and prints the memory values every second. For people who understand German the whole thread is here -
http://www.os2.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=247&p=1127&hilit=above512#p1127 (http://www.os2.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=247&p=1127&hilit=above512#p1127)
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on July 29, 2016, 07:27:38 pm
System Load (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/system/sl103.zip) from Vasilkin Andrey has an excellent view mode for shared memory. It's called DosQuerySysInfo. It updates dynamically.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: ivan on July 29, 2016, 11:10:01 pm
Einar,

You should have at least the L option if you want firefox and thunderbird to work at the same time.

E:\PROGRAMS\THUNDERBIRD\THUNDERBIRD!LK.EXE
E:\PROGRAMS\FIREFOX\FIREFOX!LK.EXE
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on July 30, 2016, 12:23:43 am
Quote
I think I've suggested this REXX script for watching memory a few times. Direct link -
http://www.os2.org/download/file.php?id=87

Actually, I have used Above512, but the version that I have does not have the script. That does make the granularity somewhat better. Thanks...

HOWEVER. It seems that various tools show different values. See the attachment. Note that Free Shared Mem, and Above512Watch show similar numbers, while SHMemMon shows more like what I expect to see, since I had closed FF before taking the picture (about half an hour before). Both Free Shared Mem, and Above512Watch do not show the shared memory being returned to the system, while SHMemMon does.

Quote
System Load from Vasilkin Andrey has an excellent view mode for shared memory.

Yes, it does. I will need to experiment more with that, but I don't see any way to record what it is showing. Since the system dies at the interesting point, it would be good to have some sort of log.

Quote
You should have at least the L option if you want firefox and thunderbird to work at the same time.

E:\PROGRAMS\THUNDERBIRD\THUNDERBIRD!LK.EXE
E:\PROGRAMS\FIREFOX\FIREFOX!LK.EXE

Actually, only one of them needs the "L". Since using "L" seems to mess up sound, it is usually best to use it with Thunderbird. Or has that problem been resolved?
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Greggory Shaw on July 30, 2016, 02:10:25 am
Einar,

E:\...\FIREFOX-38.8.0\FIREFOX\FIREFOX!EK.EXE

\..\THUNDERBIRD!ELK.EXE


I use the E parameter to modify environment using this config file.

My ENV file for RUN! see below:


File name: FIREFOX!.ENV (create in same directory as FF & RUN!)

*******************

SET MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
rem SET LIBPATHSTRICT=T  (or use the FIREFOX!L.EXE which is the same thing)
SET KAI_AUTOMODE=DART

SET MOZILLA_HOME=E:\Programs\Internet\Firefox\firefox-38.8.0\firefox
rem SET BEGINLIBPATH=E:\Programs\Internet\Firefox\Firefox-38.8.0\firefox
rem SET MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=E:\Programs\Internet\Firefox\Firefox_Flash\firefox\moz_plug

*******************

Also, here's a universal installer for FF, SM and TB !

http://os2notes.net/os2firefoxdd.html

Known issue when upgrading: some files in the TB directory are marked Read only, they must be deleted before upgrading & may affect a SM upgrade too. (Fixed for FF).


Greggory

Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Einar Lygre on July 31, 2016, 12:56:28 pm

Quote
You should have at least the L option if you want firefox and thunderbird to work at the same time.

E:\PROGRAMS\THUNDERBIRD\THUNDERBIRD!LK.EXE
E:\PROGRAMS\FIREFOX\FIREFOX!LK.EXE

Actually, only one of them needs the "L". Since using "L" seems to mess up sound, it is usually best to use it with Thunderbird. Or has that problem been resolved?

Thank you.
This made it. I have used RUN! for years, but this time I did it wrongly. I believe it is because I have installed so many new versions the last year that I became a little too loose.
Anyway, now I will install the last version of both; FF and TB
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Greggory Shaw on August 01, 2016, 08:15:36 am
Doug, where did you get 'Free Shared Mem' app from ?


What's the procedure for marking FF & TB for high memory ?

Which dlls ? I have highmem.exe from OpenOffice.

Do you use the -c or the -b option.


Thanks
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 01, 2016, 06:13:15 pm
Quote
Doug, where did you get 'Free Shared Mem' app from ?

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=690.0;attach=811 (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=690.0;attach=811)

Quote
What's the procedure for marking FF & TB for high memory ?

Same as for OpenOffice. Look in the CMD files for hints about how to do it.

Quote
Which dlls ?

I only do the DLLs that are in the private files for the app. I have not experimented with the common DLLs, yet. It seems that a program needs to be compiled to allow using high memory space, so I don't want to mess up programs that don't understand it.

Quote
Do you use the -c or the -b option.

I have tried both, but -b works okay with AOO, as long as I also use the Quick Start feature to prevent unloading the DLLs. I tried both with FF, but it was unusable because FF crashes on close, and about 80% of those crashes take out the whole system. That is still under investigation.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 01, 2016, 06:21:53 pm
Quote
Actually, I have used Above512, but the version that I have does not have the script. That does make the granularity somewhat better. Thanks...

I like this.  :D  I changed the script to add logging and date/time, and it only displays, and logs, when there is a change to the previous data. It is still checking once per second.

Seems to work okay, but I am still sure that it does not show that shared memory gets returned to the system when a program (such as Firefox) gets closed. Now, if anybody knows how to add information about what caused the changes, it would make this a LOT more useful.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 01, 2016, 08:34:04 pm
Quote
I am puzzled why you have so much more free shared memory space, although that is close to what I see on my laptops.

It seems that there are a number of things at play here:

1) I have been using "dllbasing=OFF" near the top of CONFIG.SYS, for years. I REMed that, and now loading Firefox DLLs high doesn't seem to crash at close (at least not as often, I have only done it half a dozen times).

2) I did manage to crash the system after changing Thunderbird to load high (using THUNDERBIRD!L.EXE), but I need to do more experimenting with that.

3) As an experiment, I started using the Blank screen, instead of the Cairo clock, with Doodle's Screen Saver. I need to do more experimenting with that too.

Now, I am staying close to 174 meg of lower shared memory free, according to Above512, or 181 meg, according to SHMEMMON. In either case, that is a LOT better than it has been. I have some work to get done, before I try closing FF, or playing with TB, again.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 02, 2016, 12:31:58 am
Don't use any of Doodles Cairo screensavers. Really they need to be updated to use current Cairo as the early versions of Cairo were buggy.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Greggory Shaw on August 02, 2016, 04:07:35 am
Einar,

If you're still having issues I have good results with FF 38.8.0 & TB 38.6.0 & no crashes when closing them (see settings above posted) !

Both are now marked high mem (-c option ) with 160-70 MB of lower shared memory free (with FTP server & GoServer running too).


Thx Doug for the info & links ! (was down to 10-20Mb)

Cheers
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 02, 2016, 04:28:42 am
Quote
I REMed that, and now loading Firefox DLLs high doesn't seem to crash at close (at least not as often, I have only done it half a dozen times).

Well, it is a little better, but still not useable. It would be good, if it wouldn't crash when I close it. When it does crash, it seems to mess up my profile. I cannot run FF, loaded low, at all, without DLLBASING=OFF. T'Bird is even worse, but that is probably why Above512, and Free Shared Mem don't show the memory being returned to the pool. FF, and TB, may not be able to load XUL.DLL because there is no contiguous area of memory to put it in. Unfortunately, I seem to have run out of things to remove, to free up more shared memory.

Quote
Don't use any of Doodles Cairo screensavers. Really they need to be updated to use current Cairo as the early versions of Cairo were buggy.

First I have heard of that. I did have one problem with DSS, where it would go to the screen saver, and it was impossible to wake it up again (the system was running fine, in the background). That happened when I happened to move the mouse, or press a key, just as it would start saving. I turned DSS off because of that. In this case, it doesn't seem to make any difference if it is turned off, or not. Just having the Cairo clock selected seems to eat up some shared memory space (not a lot, but some). I am going to leave DSS enabled, with the blank screen saver, and see if that happens again. If it does, I will probably uninstall DSS, since it really doesn't do anything useful anyway.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 03, 2016, 09:38:17 pm
I have found another major user of low shared memory space. E.EXE (actually AE.EXE). I tried to load a 160 MB log file, and watched as Above512Watch stepped down to 64K, when E.EXE popped up an error message. I was able to terminate the program, and that immediately returned the low shared memory. At least E.EXE handles the problem correctly, but if some other program had tried to get some low shared memory at the same time, and did not handle it properly, I expect that some sort of crash would have occurred.

Why would something like E.EXE use shared memory (low or high) for data?
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 16, 2016, 10:40:22 pm
Interesting...

I finally got around to properly configuring eCS 2.2b2 on my main machine. Now, it should be set up exactly like eCS 2.1. There is one major difference though, Above512Watch shows that about 20 meg of something moved from lower shared memory space to upper shared memory space. That does leave more room for other things (like Firefox).

Is there some way to know what is loaded in upper, and lower, memory space, and how much space they are actually using?

I do have a record of Firefox using about 700 meg of shared memory space (from Theseus).
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 17, 2016, 03:10:32 am
Use Theseus. Highlight a process such as Firefox, then go to Process-->Shared Object Summary. Then scroll down on Shared Object Summary window until the left column shows the high memory. Low memory ends at 1FFF0000 and high start at B49C000 here. Then you have to read the other columns and perhaps use a calculator to convert from hex to decimal.
Perhaps try other processes.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 17, 2016, 07:04:15 am
Use Theseus. Highlight a process such as Firefox, then go to Process-->Shared Object Summary. Then scroll down on Shared Object Summary window until the left column shows the high memory. Low memory ends at 1FFF0000 and high start at B49C000 here. Then you have to read the other columns and perhaps use a calculator to convert from hex to decimal.
Perhaps try other processes.

It seems that I have the same addresses. It will take some study to understand what it is trying to say.

Thanks...
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 23, 2016, 10:40:34 pm
Today, Theseus shows Firefox using 1222.152 MB of space, and Above512Watch says I still have 154752 KB of lower shared memory available. It also shows that something has used about 30 MB of upper shared memory space, that wasn't used earlier.

Very strange.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 24, 2016, 01:05:12 am
Remember that Firefox, being built with -Zhigh-mem, will generally allocate memory from the high arena, eg open a new tab and FF will ask the system for more memory, preferring high memory. The exception is memory that needs to be accessible by 16 bit code, which can't access high memory. There are also places in the code that directly attempt to allocate high memory such as in the JavaScript engine.
This is besides marking the DLLs to load the code (about 31MBs for xul) and/or data high. I believe the data is static variables, constants and such.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 24, 2016, 05:31:58 am
None of FF has been marked to load high (at least not by me). The usage seems to have been very sudden, and for no reason, that I know about.

As I said, "very strange". At least it didn't crash.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 24, 2016, 07:04:29 am
Going by memory as I can't find the original discussion.
At some point the JavaScript garbage collection (moving unused chunks of memory and compacting it, sorta a defrag for memory) needed some specifically aligned memory which is unsupported on OS/2. Rich solved it by allocating larger and larger blocks 16 times and testing for alignment and if that failed due to fragmented memory, allocating a large block and returning an aligned address in this block.
I tested quite a bit with some debugging printf's added and usually it succeeded in a couple of recursions. You've probably hit the rare instance where it didn't succeed and allocated a large block.
Note that this is independent of whether the DLLs are marked high, the code first tries to allocate in high memory and then falls back to low memory.
There are other places where it'll first try to allocate high memory and without doing that, FF (or the system) will crash after opening a couple of tabs.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 24, 2016, 06:30:09 pm
That probably explains a lot of it. It doesn't matter if it uses upper shared memory (I still had more than 1.5 GB left), but it would be instant death if it ever tried that with lower shared memory, and didn't do the proper checking. Even more likely to cause a problem, would be a second program trying to allocate more lower shared memory, without checking to see if it is really available.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 30, 2016, 07:25:45 pm
Looking in ABOUT:CONFIG, I found "browser. cache. memory. enable", and set it to false. Firefox seems to be much more stable, although it consistently uses more upper shared memory (for some unknown reason, but it doesn't seem to cause a problem). Closing, and opening, Firefox does consistently use more lower shared memory, but it is not enough to cause a problem, for a couple of days. If I watch lower shared memory usage, and reboot when it gets below 100 meg, my system seems to be pretty stable.
Title: Re: FF and TB not running at the same time.
Post by: guzzi on September 03, 2016, 01:25:53 am
On my machine if firefox has been running for a while things get tricky with memory too, even though there is plenty of free shared upper memory. Fragmentation is the cause. It doesn't only happen with FF. Other applications have a similar effect. Opening a lot of pictures with PMView (over a few hundred) will also lead to memory shortage, even though freesharedmem shows plenty of free memory. Closing all apps and doing a WPS restart does not resolve it. A reboot is the only way to return to a stable working system. I do not have the knowledge to figure out the why's and how's but I did use theseus and it does show fragmented memory.