Dooble releases, Qt5 builds

[Holger Schuett]

Hi Dave,
this worked, but now the previous versions crash with the same trap, very strange indeed.

Holger

[Dave Yeo]

It is strange. Something to do with the sqlite3 database's I guess. You could try vacuuming them, under Edit, though probably won't help.
It's surprising the differences between builds. My environment hasn't changed so I guess just the Dooble code changes are triggering the results. Here, the latest is closing like it should, unlike the last few versions, and the first tab doesn't load, have to open a 2nd one to load a page.

[Pete]

Hi Dave

What I see as common to all builds of Doodle to date:-

Takes around a minute to load and become useable

First tab never loads anything but about:blank which I have set as homepage

Browser use lasts between 3 minutes and around an hour depending on use. Playing videos generally gives short use. When browser crashes it often takes the system down as well requiring a press of the system box Power Off button.

As svg support is missing bits of websites can be invisible eg ebay has a sort order and list or gallery view options that are not visible using Dooble.

Your builds: Only difference that I have noticed is that it is necessary to press Enter after selecting a url from the url history dropdown list in order to load that page - other browsers and earlier builds of Dooble simply load the selected url without the need to press Enter.

Is the above behaviour common?


Regards

Pete

[Tom]

As svg support is missing bits of websites can be invisible eg ebay has a sort order and list or gallery view options that are not visible using Dooble.

You can also add for example

&_sop=10

after the URL in order to switch the sort order to 'newly listed'. And there are other sort options that can be added after the URL, like &_sop=1 for 'ending soonest' etc.

[Paul Smedley]

As svg support is missing bits of websites can be invisible eg ebay has a sort order and list or gallery view options that are not visible using Dooble.

Not actually sure why svg support is missing - pretty sure qt5 includes qt5svg.dll - unless the webengine doesn't use the qt provided version of svg?

I'll have to test with a Qt6 webengine.

[Dave Yeo]

As svg support is missing bits of websites can be invisible eg ebay has a sort order and list or gallery view options that are not visible using Dooble.

Not actually sure why svg support is missing - pretty sure qt5 includes qt5svg.dll - unless the webengine doesn't use the qt provided version of svg?

I'll have to test with a Qt6 webengine.

It's not totally missing, just some SVG's aren't rendered. https://www.repubblica.it/ is a good testcase, at the top of the page is "la Repubblica"  rendered by svg. Dooble renders "l   e   li". I captured the svg code in SeaMonkey and fed it to the svgviewer example, which displayed it fine. This is the same for the Qt5 and Qt6 based Dooble. At that many of the issues I see are the same for Qt5 and Qt6. Be nice if Dimitriy's life settles down to the point where he can work on these bugs, many which are likely in Chromium.
I attach the svg testcase.

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Pete,

Hi Dave

What I see as common to all builds of Doodle to date:-

Takes around a minute to load and become useable

I don't see this, it becomes usable pretty quick here if the tabs aren't being restored, if they are, once loaded it is usable.

First tab never loads anything but about:blank which I have set as homepage

Seems it used to work here, but yes, the first tab looks like it is loading the page but doesn't render it. Open a new tab and it works fine. Later the 1st tab does load pages, at least some times.
I see the same on the Qt6 builds

Browser use lasts between 3 minutes and around an hour depending on use. Playing videos generally gives short use. When browser crashes it often takes the system down as well requiring a press of the system box Power Off button.

I get longer use, have left it open all day. But I'm still mostly using SeaMonkey and only lightly using Dooble and eventually the system will lock up. I avoid videos as often they don't play. The Qt6 versions seem more crashy, especially when it comes to video.
I think the biggest problem is memory, all browsers are dropping 32 bit support due to being too crashy. The web. as rendered by modern browsers, has become very memory intensive.

As svg support is missing bits of websites can be invisible eg ebay has a sort order and list or gallery view options that are not visible using Dooble.

Your builds: Only difference that I have noticed is that it is necessary to press Enter after selecting a url from the url history dropdown list in order to load that page - other browsers and earlier builds of Dooble simply load the selected url without the need to press Enter.

I don't seem to have to press enter to load a page, in the current tab, when accessing history in the History menu.

Is the above behaviour common?

The other behaviour I see is sometimes clicking the exit button on the frame rather doesn't work or leaves a zombie process that can easily be killed. Latest build is better but still sometimes leaves the zombie. True for both Qt5 and Qt6 builds. At that the builds seem to share most bugs, excepting Qt6 likes to crash on AV1 videos and seems to use more resources and dies sooner.

[Pete]

Hi Dave

Not the History menu, the dropdown list on the url entryfield ie click down arrow at end of url entryfield and select from that list.

Hmmm... wonder why it takes so long to become usable here... It has been like this since the first release.

What I see once Dooble is onscreen is the browser trying to load the homepage  which is what takes most of the "startup time". The browser is not usable until the url entryfield shows the homepage about:blank. I can open a new tab using the + during this time which ends up waiting for the about:blank homepage or try loading something from Favourites or History in a new tab which results in the url showing in the url entryfield and the browser pretending it has loaded the selected page.

If I do not wait for the first tab at startup to actually load the about:blank homepage Dooble simply does not display any webpage until restarted and about:blank has finally loaded.

All libs involved are up to date - unless Dooble needs something later from netlabs-exp?


I think we all wish Dimitriy the best and hope that he will be able to look into the various bugs with qt5/Chromium in the (near-ish) future.


Regards

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

OK, the URL bar completer, yes, I have to press enter to load the URL, never noticed if it was different earlier.
Here, about:blank loads fast. You could always change the homepage to nothing and see if that helps. Only works for the more recent releases.

[Pete]

Hi Dave

Silly question: How do I set homepage to nothing?

I have tried deleting about:blank as homepage but on restarting Dooble loads about:blank as homepage - which is what the settings still show.

Using your latest build dated 10/04/2023


Regards

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

I just went to Settings-->Display and pressed the X (looks like its in a stop sign) at the end of the Home line which erased about:blank and then pressed the Apply button. Opening more tabs do show about:blank but the first one just has "Enter Address" in the URL bar

[Pete]

Hi Dave

Yes, that gets rid of about:blank as the homepage.

Trouble is it "moves " slow loading to the next tab opened which then fails to display the webpage - in this case https://www.os2world.com/cms/ - although Dooble behaves as though the page has loaded.

Opening a third tab and entering a url works.

Think I'll revert to about:blank as homepage and cut out the middle stage above.


Regards

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

It's strange, have you tested with a new profile?

[Pete]

Hi Dave

Had not investigated Profiles but on looking it seems that deleting the .dooble directory is the way to create a new profile when dooble is next started.

Well, that worked, Dooble starts much more quickly and is ready for use immediately - as long as I open a 2nd tab to enter a url into. If I try to use the 1st tab nothing loads.

So loading problem solved - wonder what was in the profile causing the problem.

I then discovered most of the text is missing from webpages and had to rack my brain to remember that it was necessary to select a different Sans Serif font to that pre-selected. I opted for Droid Sans, reloaded os2world.com and all the missing text appeared. Just documenting that here for when I cannot remember the font trick again  :-)


Thanks

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

Seems the sqlite3 files can get corrupted too easily when a crash happens, I've had to start over a few times with a new profile, and also keep the Qt6 profile separate from the Qt5 one.
Interesting about the font. I have a lot installed here and it generally defaults to various Bitstream Vera ones.