strange behaviour with Thunderbird

[Joop]

Now I know that Thunderbird is not the latest with version 10.0.11, but up to installation of Firefox 31.8.0 it worked fine. After installation of Firefox 31.8.0, better said the needed libs, I experience strange behavior, even if Firefox 31.8.0 is not used. I still use Firefox 24.8.1. If I start Thunderbird after I have used FF it sometimes looks like a part is not loaded or so. Memory mostly shoots up to over 900Mb, but in some cases this stays below the 700Mb. In that case the screen is not build properly. Only where your mouse pointer hits the screen is revealed. So if you do this with your complete screen you end up with all kind of blocks and the frame of Thunderbird is missing. Fortunately I can go to the part of the menu to end this session. Restart of Thunderbird has no effect. The only way is a restart of OS/2. After that Thunderbird works as it should, but it has to be used before FF is started. This sounds to me that some needed lib for FF latest is not completely downwards compatible or some sort. So I have the question if other OS/2 users do have this experience. I'm on OS/2 1.2 Dutch, 1Gb memory and some rotating metal. I don't expect that some part of the memory on the graphics card or main memory is wimpy as all other programs do work normally.

[Dave Yeo]

Thunderbird 10.0.11 only used libc065 as an external dependency so it's hard to see how Firefox would interfere.
How are you starting? Have you marked anything to load high?

[Joop]

Thunderbird 10.0.11 only used libc065 as an external dependency so it's hard to see how Firefox would interfere.
How are you starting? Have you marked anything to load high?

I don't think FF will interfere, but I suspect that the successor of Libc065 is not downwards compatible or works different in memory. I saw this only after I had installed FF31 with the necessary libs. I start TB with Run and I use an ENV file. As far as I know I have only Java set to load high or I missed the setting in config.sys, on the other hand, there is not much left with 1Gb for setting high. May be I have to delete XUL.mfl and the directory startupCache because they are corrupted in some way.

[Dave Yeo]

Assuming you use L (libpathstrict) with run!, you could try putting a copy of the real libc065.dll in your Thunderbird directory.
The reason for marking the DLLs to load high is to save on the lower shared memory rather then to save all memory. There is not much low shared memory available to begin with and especially Firefox can eat it up.
TB 17 and lower has not been tested for loading high and might well fail due to using GCC 4.4.6 so you might be better off only marking FF to load high and ideally you should have the 106 kernel which means having access to the 2.2 beta of eCS.
While it won't hurt to delete xul.mfl (does TB 10.x even still use it?) and the startup cache, this doesn't sound like a problem that it will fix.

[Joop]

Found probably the problem. But its weird. After I have had Java active, FF, PMView and Embellish, all closed down. I get back free shared memory, its going up to 267Mb or so. Then I start TB as the only active program (besides whats loaded standard by OS/2-eCS) and its loaded. Up to the very last moment suddenly my free shared memory is consumed from 267Mb to about 8Mb. After that TB is building its screen, but due to not enough memory it can't perform. When I run TB just after start it performs as it should. Most of the times it does so after running FF, but sometimes it fails like above. The problem is its not hard this or that. Sounds to me still some incompatibility in loaded libs.

[Dave Yeo]

I saw something similar once. TB decided to rebuild its databases and it used up all shared memory IIRC.
Try starting TB (before having Java active) and look in the activity manager, under tools. If it says indexing folder name (where the folder is whatever you have), let it run to completion. This could take hours but may cure the problem. It's also possible that your global-messages-db.sqlite file is corrupt, which would mean deleting it and allowing it to rebuild, probably overnight. My global-messages-db.sqlite is currently 390 MBs.
I doubt it is an incompatibility with loaded DLLs but as I mentioned, you can test with the real libc065. Also you could test in safe-mode in case it is an add-on problem.

[Greggory Shaw]

Found probably the problem. But its weird. After I have had Java active, FF, PMView and Embellish, all closed down. I get back free shared memory, its going up to 267Mb or so. Then I start TB as the only active program (besides whats loaded standard by OS/2-eCS) and its loaded. Up to the very last moment suddenly my free shared memory is consumed from 267Mb to about 8Mb. After that TB is building its screen, but due to not enough memory it can't perform. When I run TB just after start it performs as it should. Most of the times it does so after running FF, but sometimes it fails like above. The problem is its not hard this or that. Sounds to me still some incompatibility in loaded libs.

With all these problems you are posting about memory. If it's an older system think about using $5 bucks on eBay & buy 1GB.

I've running OS/2 with 2GB forever & the only problem I had is with OpenOffice sometimes (havn't used the mark high mem yet).

[Joop]

You could be right Greggory, have to find the motherboard manual, I have it  somewhere so I can buy the right ones, but don't think it will be that cheap as you say.

[Dave Yeo]

I wonder why my above comment has half of the message struck out?
Adding memory isn't going to fix the low shared memory issue and 1 GB should be enough with only occasional swapping if really using it. I had 1 GB for the longest time and the only problem I had was when building Mozilla apps where I had to shut everything else down as one file used close to 900 MBs to compile. Now to compile a debug version, I get some swapping with 2GBs when linking xul.dll and virtualaddresslimit has to be set to 3072 to not run out of address space.
Joops problem sounds like running out of low shared memory, something I've experienced a few times with early builds.

[Joop]

I wonder why my above comment has half of the message struck out?

Strange it is, thought you did it afterwards, good to know its not.

Adding memory isn't going to fix the low shared memory issue and 1 GB should be enough with only occasional swapping if really using it.

My thoughts, almost never use swapping, stays on 2Mb, but with my message database TB comes close to the roof and sometimes when an other program is still active its going swapping and that take lots of time.

Joops problem sounds like running out of low shared memory, something I've experienced a few times with early builds.

Correct, see reply nr 4 (September 14, 2015, 09:32:39 pm) in this topic.

[Joop]

I started today TB after I used FF24, PMView Pro, Embellish and Webwriter/2. At the time of running TB it was the only visible active program. The strange thing is that you see the build up of used memory, but normally this go on up to almost 1Gb in my case (that's why I run it alone). But with installation of the new libs for running FF31 it shows sometimes the behavior that the used memory just builds up to 650Mb and then TB comes with it screen in full, no malfunctions or so. Free shared memory over 200Mb. Can't get the why.

[Dave Yeo]

1 GB for TB seems excessive, so does 650MB. Here using TB 31.8.0, I use just over 300 MB and 2 MBs of low shared memory. Have you tested with safe-mode (Help-->Restart with Add-ons Disabled) or looked at the activity monitor?
Libc066 is somewhat better at allocating high memory but shouldn't really make any difference to total ram usage though I guess if you're suffering from memory fragmentation, allocating more high may help. Do you get the same usage on a newly booted system?

[Joop]

1 GB for TB seems excessive, so does 650MB.

Inbox over 129Mb, Sent over 55Mb, only two of the many boxes I have.

looked at the activity monitor?

What program?

Do you get the same usage on a newly booted system?

More or less, yes, today up to about 907Mb, before FF31 and libs up to about 985Mb or so.

[Dave Yeo]

My mail totals about 1.2 GBs. The activity manager is under the Tools menu.

[Joop]

My mail totals about 1.2 GBs. The activity manager is under the Tools menu.

Activity manager: empty screen.