Author Topic: FirefFox feedback  (Read 12004 times)

karotlopj

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FirefFox feedback
« on: May 27, 2016, 01:20:45 pm »
In my opinion FireFox is the single most important program which runs on OS/2 and am really happy to be able to use it.

It's annoying that it crashes so often (three or four times a day), although I realise that it is in development and that there isn't an army of programmers developing it on OS/2, and I know Dave provides excellent support on this forum, and probably countless other lists/groups/fora.

I just wondered which was the best place to provide feedback...

Greggory Shaw

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2016, 02:48:31 pm »
I just wondered which was the best place to provide feedback...

Did you read the README.OS2 file ?
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 02:45:00 am by Greggory Shaw »

Dave Yeo

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2016, 04:32:27 pm »
Why are you getting so many crashes? I run SeaMonkey, mostly the same code and it is very stable here as long as I restart the computer every few days due to shared memory slowly leaking away. Had one sys3171 in pixman.
Have you installed exceptq along with the dbg files? If so are you getting trp files in your program directory?
Did you mark the DLLs to load high?
There is an issue tracker at Github if you want to file a bug report

Doug Bissett

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2016, 01:11:02 am »
Quote
Why are you getting so many crashes?

Now that is a good question. Of course, if anybody knew the answer, the problem could probably be fixed.

I have exceptq installed (latest that I know about), and I don't get any TRP files, but FF (38.2.1) causes a PROCDUMP about 50% of the time when I shut it down. I can see no reason why that would happen. The FF DLLs get loaded low, and I use Free Shared Mem to monitor for a shortage of shared memory. It is almost always more than 128 megs free.

I have had problems with AOO 4.1.2, which has the DLLs set to load high. Since it crashes at every shutdown (yes, I DO have the updated kernel), I use the quick start feature, to keep it loaded, which works. If I try to load the AOO DLLs low, and start FF while AOO is running, it is an instant hang condition, every time.

Now, the really odd problem is that sometimes I can reboot, and the system will run for several days, with no problems. At other times, it will crash, or hang, after a few hours, but only when I am using FF. Free Shared Mem usually indicates a sudden drop in available shared memory, when that happens, but it still shows about 75 meg of free shared memory (which could be gone before it can show it). Using VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072 has improved the situation, but it has not fixed the problem. I am suspicious that there is some sort of startup conflict that is causing trouble, but I have not been able to isolate it. I will note, that when it runs for longer periods of time, that Free Shared Mem is showing about 160 meg of free shared memory, and it doesn't seem to drop.

Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2016, 05:43:26 am »
My comments are regarding FF 17.x, but for what it's worth:

1) I re-boot my machine as little as possible...usually every 10 days or so, mostly because the low shared memory problem starts to impact WPS

2) usually i have anywhere between 7-10 FF windows open, most with about 5 tabs each, these stay up and running at all times, "about:memory" usually shows about 1Gig used

3) when FF dies it does so with a gracefull exit...so no hangs, etc, etc...occasionally I may encounter a problem and can NOT kill FF...that usually requires a re-boot

Ian Manners

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2016, 06:24:35 am »
My comments are for FF 38.2.1 and latest AOO. Both have DLL's marked loadhi.

I only have VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=1536 in my main OS/2 box, which is getting a solid workout with University assignments and other work at present. FF and AOO are both running fine under load, AOO gets the biggest workout as I'm darting into various documents and spreadsheets but I do turn my computer off everynight.

I'm using many uni related websites for quizz's, unit management, tuts etc, as well as my normal comic/news/security sites all without problem.

The only problem I have noticed is related to LinkedIn, were if I scroll down a lengthy page if goes into a 100% load but will after a few minutes give me a 'Script Busy, end or continue' type message. I normally kill FF as it's quicker and restart it.

I don't use YUM but manually update dll's from rpm/zip files as required.
If I need to go yum then I think it would be easier with a clean OS/2 install, this main OS/2 install of mine was installed in the early 90's and has simply been xcopied over the years to new harddisks as I've upgraded my hardware so it's customised the way I like it. With the O/S upgraded as new drivers etc have arrived.

Unfortunately I have also discovered that the only browser that works with everything is Chrome. Sometimes I have to boot a linux box for some uni related websites, though I have noted they are only some UWA's Business school related websites, everything else from engineering/science/admin works fine under FF.
Cheers
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karotlopj

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2016, 09:54:19 am »
I just wondered which was the best place to provide feedback...

Did you read the README.OS2 file ?

I think I'm suffering documentation fatigue at the moment, trying to master about 20 or more applications on different platforms...

But having looked at the above I noticed:-

https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/wiki

which tells me that there has been a refresh of the latest FF beta which I wasn't aware of, and which I've now installed.

Dave Yeo

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2016, 10:11:32 am »
The new release is only a few hours old so most are not aware.

karotlopj

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2016, 10:12:07 am »
Why are you getting so many crashes? I run SeaMonkey, mostly the same code and it is very stable here as long as I restart the computer every few days due to shared memory slowly leaking away. Had one sys3171 in pixman.
Have you installed exceptq along with the dbg files? If so are you getting trp files in your program directory?
Did you mark the DLLs to load high?
There is an issue tracker at Github if you want to file a bug report

I only managed to get the current version working recently, and have been using it rather than trying to debug it.

I'm still in the process of trying to configure and stabilise my system which may take a while yet. I'll go through the docs for FF and make sure I'm running it optimally before raising any specific issues.

Andi B.

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2016, 12:02:58 pm »
Dough, I stopped using freeSharedMem.exe cause it does not display short spikes. I once had a SM crash where I did not see too less mem in freesharedmem but I saw it in the list http://www.os2.org/download/file.php?id=87 produces. It was clearly to less shared mem when SM crashed probably due to some scripts (amazon.com IIR).

ivan

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2016, 03:45:20 pm »
Ian, when you say I have noted they are only some UWA's Business school related websites, you do realise that MBAs can't help it.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 09:42:50 pm by ivan »

Ian Manners

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #11 on: May 28, 2016, 08:58:11 pm »
Hi Ivan,

I won't comment about MBA's, I'm doing something different :)
I'm quite happy over in the Science and Engineering parts of uni.

Hmm, this new Firefox 38.8 doesn't ok, now it does have spelling check.

Hint to others, backup your previous FF 38.x.x and unzip the new zip file over the top of it. That fixes the the DLL error messages.
Been working well here the last few hours.

Cheers
Ian B Manners

Dave Yeo

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Re: FirefFox feedback
« Reply #12 on: May 29, 2016, 02:07:37 am »
It should have spelling check since a long time, perhaps FF 3.5