OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Internet => Topic started by: Ben on March 25, 2018, 09:58:54 pm

Title: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 25, 2018, 09:58:54 pm
I recently developed a problem with Firefox, (any version).

It has something to do with DIVE.DLL, but I have no idea what is happening here.

If I start the program the profile manager will popup but when any profile is selected, (or when trying to create a new one), Firefox exits leveling a Trap file.

Here is a snippet from it;

Code: [Select]
______________________________________________________________________

 Exception Report - created 2018/03/25 16:17:04
______________________________________________________________________

 OS2/eCS Version:  2.45
 # of Processors:  4
 Physical Memory:  3582 mb
 Virt Addr Limit:  3072 mb
 Exceptq Version:  7.10 (Mar  1 2011)

______________________________________________________________________

 Exception C0000005 - Access Violation
______________________________________________________________________

 Process:  E:\FIREFOX\FIREFOX.EXE
 PID:      12D (301)
 TID:      01 (1)
 Priority: 200

 Filename: C:\MMOS2\DLL\DIVE.DLL
 Address:  005B:134CC58B (0001:0000C58B)
 Cause:    Attempted to read from 185E2BD0
           (uncommitted memory allocated by PMMERGE)


I have looked for *.dll conflicts, but I have found nothing.

I have attached the full Trap log if anyone is interested.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 25, 2018, 10:38:15 pm
Try setting MOZ_ACCELERATED=0. Simplest is to test with a cmd prompt, set MOZ_ACCELERATED=0 and then from the same session, run firefox.exe (or the run! equivalent).
If it helps, you need to go into the firefox settings and disable video acceleration.
ps, these trp files are more informative if you install the debug packages.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: David Graser on March 26, 2018, 01:09:13 am
I noticed my

d:\home\mozilla\firefox\profiles\pmhqn8zi.default\cache2\entries

has 25,502 files.  Are all these files necessary or can I delete them? 

PMseek and other search engines bog down when they hit this directory.

David
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 26, 2018, 01:58:25 am
Try setting MOZ_ACCELERATED=0. Simplest is to test with a cmd prompt, set MOZ_ACCELERATED=0 and then from the same session, run firefox.exe (or the run! equivalent).
If it helps, you need to go into the firefox settings and disable video acceleration.
ps, these trp files are more informative if you install the debug packages.

I tried that Dave and it did make a difference; it went on to the Check Addons screen, but no further.
Also, it no longer made my mouse pointer disappear; before it did every second time I tried to run Firefox.

I attached the Trap log.

Two questions:

-Is "run!" still required?

- Which "debug packages" would I need?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 26, 2018, 02:32:30 am
I noticed my

d:\home\mozilla\firefox\profiles\pmhqn8zi.default\cache2\entries

has 25,502 files.  Are all these files necessary or can I delete them? 

PMseek and other search engines bog down when they hit this directory.

David

Go to Tools-->Options-->Advanced-->Cached Web Content and clear your cache there and also change the size to a smaller value.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 26, 2018, 02:38:18 am
Try setting MOZ_ACCELERATED=0. Simplest is to test with a cmd prompt, set MOZ_ACCELERATED=0 and then from the same session, run firefox.exe (or the run! equivalent).
If it helps, you need to go into the firefox settings and disable video acceleration.
ps, these trp files are more informative if you install the debug packages.

I tried that Dave and it did make a difference; it went on to the Check Addons screen, but no further.
That doesn't sound good.
Quote

Also, it no longer made my mouse pointer disappear; before it did every second time I tried to run Firefox.

I attached the Trap log.

Two questions:

-Is "run!" still required?
It depends on whether you're running the latest and whether you're running more then one Mozilla app. The latest isn't widely available yet. Your crash isn't related to run!
Quote

- Which "debug packages" would I need?
[/color]

Depends on where you got your Firefox. Generally it is available at the same place, probably Github. For libc and nspr, they're available with ANPM.

Did you change/update anything? You could also test by trying SeaMonkey.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on March 26, 2018, 02:58:05 am
What happens when you run: 'firefox.exe -safe-mode'?

This will attempt to disable all add-ons (in case there is a problem there) and just brings up the default FF config.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: David Graser on March 26, 2018, 03:38:12 am
Ben

Have you checked out this web page.  They do a pretty good job of explaining and telling one everything they need to be successful.

http://ecsoft2.org/firefox

I remember you said you use eCS 2.2 beta.

This is the site if you want to download and use Arca Noae Package Manager:

http://ecsoft2.org/anpm-arca-noae-package-manager

Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 26, 2018, 12:56:55 pm
Right now I am playing with Firefox 45.9.0 GA, (2017-10-04). But it does this with all versions of Firefox which leads me to believe that something I did or changed two weeks ago is interferring with it loading. But I'll be damned if I can find whatever that is.

It took me a while to do it, but I did manage to get the base install of YUM/RPM to actually work beyond the initial install and update; like most people using OS/2 or some variant, I had my own way of handling *.dlls; I really had no choice but to conform to the YUM/RPM method of doing things to get some programs working and cooperating.

Right now, Arca Noae YUM install works fine, (though it took quite a bit of effort to get there), and indicates all is loving and caring in the world... of OS/2 hehe, (certainly not on the global scene where Empire-buidling is rampant and roaring under the obvious guise of "spreading democracy" & "peacekeeping"). So, it seems likely that all DLL requirements are met for the version that I referenced above. I did follow the RPM_REQUIREMENTS file included with the package and until just recently, it wouldn't even attempt to load but only produced a XUL.DLL error popup window; but fixing YUM fixed that.

Arca Noae's YUM package checks for duplicates and olders versions when installing a dll(s) so that should not be an issue here... though I am not sure that I can rule that out entirely. I think that the important clue is that it affects all variants of Firefox. However, I had no idea that there was anything that could do that yet, not affect anything else on my system; it's a real puzzler, it has even stopped the ancient and early version of Firefox from running, even from 2011. Clearly something is in conflict with something else or somehow, something has been inadvertantly deleted. But how would I even begin to check if some obscure base OS file/dll has been deleted? Right now, I do not have another working version of OS/2 on this machine to compare it with. If all else fails, that will be my next goal and I will work from there... but right now that's a  lot of work when time is tight. I actually had to lower my standards and use Windoze to type this post; my, how times have changed.

I will check out that site David. Maybe I can find a clue there.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 27, 2018, 05:58:37 am
It seems strange. Be nice to see a proper trp file.
Possibilities include a corrupted DLL, shouldn't be to many possibilities as it affects so many versions of Firefox. You could try reinstalling all the Firefox requirements. I guess perhaps something wrong with networking might do the same, not sure what you can do about that.
Failing hardware might show up in Firefox crashing first as well. Can you run other large programs such as OpenOffice?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 27, 2018, 01:36:21 pm
I am not sure what you mean by "a proper trap file", Dave.

Do you mean for me to install the debug files that you mentioned above and post the results?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 27, 2018, 04:57:38 pm
I am not sure what you mean by "a proper trap file", Dave.

Do you mean for me to install the debug files that you mentioned above and post the results?

Yes.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 27, 2018, 07:56:08 pm
OK, Dave, I installed both recommended debug packages and I ran Firefox 45.9.0 GA by double clicking on the exe in the folder.

It started to bring up the profilemanager, (outline only), exited and took my mouse pointer with it. I looked at the new trap file in that folder, (attached), but it appears as all the others. Nothing in the popuplog.os2.

I take it that there is another trap log somewhere that I need to attach as well?

Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 27, 2018, 08:12:18 pm
Something went wrong. Did you install the dbg files besides the dlls, especially the xul one?
Also looks like we're back to the crash in DIVE, could you do the MOZ_ACCELERATED=0 again?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 27, 2018, 08:21:37 pm
I installed all packages using ANPackage Manager which works smoothly and indicates no trouble.
I installed the debug packages the same way.

I redid the test using Moz_acc... etc and this time it went a bit further. The trap log is attached.

Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 27, 2018, 08:30:29 pm
Still missing the Firefox stuff. Go to https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/releases (https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/releases) where I presume you downloaded Firefox, and if not download it and download https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/releases/download/FIREFOX_45_9_0esr_RELEASE_OS2_GA/firefox-debuginfo-45.9.0-2.oc00.pentium4.7z (https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/releases/download/FIREFOX_45_9_0esr_RELEASE_OS2_GA/firefox-debuginfo-45.9.0-2.oc00.pentium4.7z) and unzip it and install the files in your Firefox program directory. The trp file should have pointers to code besides the XUL entries much like you have with NSPR4 and LIBC066.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 27, 2018, 09:00:36 pm
I should have been clear; I have no idea where I downloaded my installed copy of Firefox that I am using for these tests.

All the YUM/RPM packages I have was installed via ANPackage installer.

Also, I set up the ANP installer to use i686. Will that make a difference with respect to your suggested downloads?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 27, 2018, 09:08:50 pm
I should have been clear; I have no idea where I downloaded my installed copy of Firefox that I am using for these tests.

All the YUM/RPM packages I have was installed via ANPackage installer.

Also, I set up the ANP installer to use i686. Will that make a difference with respect to your suggested downloads?

The P4 files will work fine unless you have a really old CPU (pre-pentium 4), perhaps a bit slower. You can always install in a different directory for testing purposes.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 27, 2018, 09:35:18 pm
Done and done!

I extracted the zip to a separate folder, used the moz_ac... setting and executed the program from within cmd.

Attached is the resultant trap file.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 28, 2018, 09:43:51 pm
I just checked that trap file; somehow the wrong one was uploaded.

Attached is the correct one.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 29, 2018, 02:32:24 am
OK, thanks, that's more informative.
What plugins do you have installed? At a cmd prompt enter
Code: [Select]
set MOZ_PLUGIN_PATHto see where they're installed.
You could also try running Firefox from a prompt after entering
Code: [Select]
set MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=to see if it is a plugin problem.
Note the first set command has no equals sign and the second one does.

You probably should also install the FFmpeg libs with ANPM.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 29, 2018, 01:19:22 pm
My Profile and plugin folders are in the same directory tree which I temporarily renamed. I then ran Firefox by dble clicking on the .exe icon in the folder. As expected, the profile manager window was bypassed and firefox attempted to load the main window directly, tabs and all and there for a brief moment I had illusions of success!... hehe...  but the window was never completely filled out; it just sat there partially formed and exposed until I CAD'd and killed the process... which generated a trap.

Then, even though I had renamed the Profile/Plugin folder(s), I cmd'd to the firefox.exe folder, ran "set MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=" and executed firefox.exe. Firefox attempted to load in the same manner as in the previous trial, exited by itself taking my mouse pointer with it. The process also generated a trap file.

I then used ANPM to install FFmpeg, (even though I do not have MMPM installed - I do not use audio/video on this machine - it just runs servers). I unlocked and renamed SDL12.dll in the \ecs\dll\ folder to get the install to complete and rebooted, (SDL12.dll was in use).

I excuted firefox.exe from a cmd after returning the profile/plugin folder name to previous and running "set MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH="again. Nothing of note happened; firefox did not run, but a trap file was generated.

All trap files are attached.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 30, 2018, 06:16:08 am
Its weird, with video acceleration your crashing in nswindow, which kind of makes sense, without, your crashing in the plugin code. I have no idea what would do that other then a corrupt DLL somewhere. You could try going through the requirements and reinstalling all of them, otherwise perhaps open an issue at github. Sorry I can't be more help.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: David Graser on March 31, 2018, 03:57:52 pm
Maybe Ben should try the latest SeaMonkey to see if it crashes.  If it does, it could verify that he has possibly a corrupted dll of one of the other required packages.

Dave, did you ever finish recompiling SeaMonkey to the latest updates?  You mentioned it would take around 10 hours to do so a while back?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on March 31, 2018, 07:22:31 pm
OK. Thanks Dave Y. for your input. I appreciated your efforts.

It has to be an old *.dll as it affects all versions of Firefox, young and old. I suspect that something happened while amalgamating all of my old dll folders to get YUM/RPM to work so that is where I'll look next.

And David G., with respect to trying Seamonkey, I will give it a try, but since all versions of Firefox is affected I cannot see how Seamonkey would be any different, but one never knows. Maybe there's a different dll requirement.

I think that I will just rename my remaining dll folders temporarily, copy across the dll folders from another machine, (that doesn't have this problem), and see what happens from there. I have no doubt that this will have serious consequences for my servers/services, but I will suffer that until I can narrow down what is causing this specific problem... it is very strange though, that nothing else is affected only Firefox.

Other than this this one issue I have everything working very smoothly now with many services updated/upgraded and this setup is very stable. Firefox is the last issue.

Then it will be time for backups... but I am not there yet.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 31, 2018, 08:08:07 pm
Hi Ben, another idea is to move @UNIXROOT\etc out of the way, rerun ANPM and reinstall everything. Before doing this, use ANPM to get a list of what you have installed by starting ANPM, then going to Manage-->Yum Tools-->Export Package List...

Hi David, I happened to rebuild SM the other day, actually built it twice. First with GCC 4.9.2 and the Youtube video playing problem returned, so I rebuilt it again with GCC 5.10 and videos once again played. Weird bug triggered with 4.9.2
Unluckily there hasn't really been any changes since my last upload that seem to have made a difference but if you want I can upload another test version.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: David Graser on April 01, 2018, 12:16:27 am
Hi Dave

No need if there are no changes.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Andi B. on April 01, 2018, 07:36:56 pm
Quote
I think that I will just rename my remaining dll folders temporarily, copy across the dll folders from another machine
Install all required dlls with ANPM or yum and make sure that your LIBPATH in config.sys starts with the %UNIXROOT% folders. MOVE THE .; ENTRY after the x:\USR\LOCAL\LIB;x:\USR\LIB; entries. Unfortunately ANPM do not do this for you.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 02, 2018, 03:52:53 pm
The version of ANPM that I used, (1.02), moved those to the front of the Libpath statement automatically.

I will try and drive a stake through the heart of this beast today or if time does not allow, before the end of this week.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 10, 2018, 05:57:23 pm
Just an update on where I presently stand with this.

I uninstalled and completely removed ANPM/YUM and re-installed, (though I do not believe that the problem lies with either); no difference.

I also tried using the @unix@ etc/usr/var directories from another install of OS/2 from which the latest Firefox works fine as does ANPM.

I tried using the latest build of Seamonkey, (3), with the exact same problem, (I attached the TRAP file).

I also replaced the MMOS2 and OS2\DLL directories with working versions from another install.

Not much left to try... I'll have a go at ecs\dll next and see what that yields.

ANPM/YUM runs fine and the necessary RPM requirements are met.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 11, 2018, 02:28:37 am
It's weird. What video driver and video card and video settings are you using?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 11, 2018, 03:21:41 am
Hi Ben

Possibly a silly question: Have you tried dropping dive.dll onto PMdll to see if all files dive.dll uses load OK?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 11, 2018, 08:08:07 am
Ben, also you should use safe mode for testing. Firefox.exe -safe-mode and let it disable everything that it offers to do.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 02:20:59 pm
It's weird. What video driver and video card and video settings are you using?

I am using an ATI Radeon X300 series video card with the version of SNAP that came with eCS, (build 505).

Keep in mind that everything worked fine up until a month ago. I was experiencing serious hard disk trouble that I eventually diagnosed as serial bus timing issues, (due to the age of the MB).

A likely candidate as any is a corrupt file somewhere, but finding it, (should that actually be the problem), is another thing. When everything else on this OS install works well, (now), it's very hard to find exactly what is going on and I have a long list of running processes, (being my server machine); Apache/2, Hybrid IRCd, SQUID, mySQL, Privoxy, FTPd, IJFW, Changi NNTPd, Syslogd, Named and lesser servers.

Of course, I did close out everything on my machine leaving only the bare desktop, and tried Firefox, (all versions of), with the same results as I listed previously. Very odd; in all my years running OS/2, this is the only time I have ever seen anything like this that crosses all versions of Mozilla, yet leaves everything else untouched.

If it makes a difference the QT browsers do work, but they have little functionality.


On a nonrelated point that may be of interest to you, I am typing this message using the latest version of SeaMonkey, (on a different machine), and it works flawlessly so far.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 02:23:44 pm
Hi Ben
Possibly a silly question: Have you tried dropping dive.dll onto PMdll to see if all files dive.dll uses load OK?

Hi, again Pete.

I did try that using PMDLL ver 2.11, (AFAIK that's the latest version though I did not check), and everything seems to be loading OK.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 02:27:26 pm
Ben, also you should use safe mode for testing. Firefox.exe -safe-mode and let it disable everything that it offers to do.

I tried that and it loads and runs in safe mode through preliminary testing; I allowed it to disable all as requested.

Interesting given that I renamed the profile directory, (more than once), and doing so changed nothing ergo; it cannot be my profile(s).

So, the obvious question is; what now?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Andi B. on April 11, 2018, 02:52:11 pm
I think you did not show your LIBPATH in this thread nor said if you tried the .; after the unixroot directories. It does not matter if ANPM put it to the front. You can overwrite this or instruct ANPM to not change the correct setting (= after the unixroot dirs or at the end). IMHO putting .; in front of unixroot dirs was the wrong decision. The discussion about is in AN bugtracker. You never know if the 'right' dlls (for FF) are loaded if you do not set you LIBPATH correct (= unixroot dirs in front) in config.sys.

The other thing is if you want different Mozilla builds (FF, SM, Thunderbird, ...) running in parallel you HAVE to use LIBPATHSTRICT/BEGINLIBPATH. Simplest way is with RUN. Even if you close one application it's a good idea to check if it is really closed f.i. with TOP.

If I got it right you could not manage to run even one application (FF) immediately after boot. Most probably reason for such behavior is wrong or missing dlls. Newest SM/FF needs dlls from exp repositories I think.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 03:28:17 pm
The following are my path statements:

Code: [Select]
REM *-------------------------------|| LIBPATH, PATH & DPATH STATEMENTS ||--------------------------------------*
LIBPATH=.;G:\usr\local\lib;G:\usr\lib;G:\ETC\DLL;C:\OS2\DLL;C:\IBMLAN\NETLIB;C:\MUGLIB\DLL;C:\MPTN\DLL;F:\4OS2;F:\CLU\DLL;C:\ECS\SYSTEM\SESS\DLL;C:\IBMCOM\DLL;C:\OS2\DLL\USER;C:\MMOS2\DLL;C:\PROGRAMS\OPENJDK6\BIN;C:\IBMGSK50\LIB;C:\IBMGSK40\LIB;C:\IBMGSK\LIB;C:\TCPIP\DLL;G:\SERVERS\CHANGI;C:\OS2\MDOS;C:\;C:\OS2\APPS\DLL;C:\EMX\DLL;C:\ECS\SYSTEM\AMOUSE;C:\OBJDESK;F:\PC\DLL;G:\USR\X11R6\LIB;G:\PERL\LIB;G:\PERL\BIN;C:\PROGRAMS\OPENSSH;F:\DISK\NETDRIVE;
SET PATH=G:\usr\local\bin;G:\usr\sbin;G:\usr\bin;F:\4OS2;F:\CLU\BIN;G:\USR\SBIN;G:\USR\BIN;C:\MPTN\BIN;C:\ECS\SYSTEM\SESS\BIN;C:\IBMCOM;C:\IBMLAN\NETPROG;G:\SERVERS\CHANGI;C:\MUGLIB;C:\ECS\BIN;C:\IBMGSK50\BIN;C:\IBMGSK40\BIN;C:\IBMGSK\BIN;C:\TCPIP\BIN;C:\OS2;C:\MMOS2;C:\PROGRAMS\OPENJDK6\BIN;C:\OS2\DLL\USER;C:\OS2\SYSTEM;C:\OS2\MDOS\WINOS2;C:\OS2\INSTALL;C:\;C:\OS2\MDOS;C:\OS2\APPS;C:\EMX\BIN;F:\PC\BIN;F:\MANAGERS\FM2;F:\MANAGERS\FM2\UTILS;F:\DISK\DFSEE\BIN;C:\OBJDESK;C:\OBJDESK\EXTRAS\BIN;F:\EDITORS\TSE;G:\PERL\BIN;C:\PROGRAMS\OPENSSH;F:\DISK\NETDRIVE;
SET DPATH=G:\usr\share\os2\lang;C:\MPTN;C:\IBMCOM;C:\IBMLAN\NETPROG;C:\IBMLAN;C:\MUGLIB;C:\ECS\LANG;C:\OS2;C:\OS2\SYSTEM;G:\SERVERS\CHANGI;F:\4OS2;F:\CLU\DATA;C:\OS2\MDOS\WINOS2;C:\OS2\INSTALL;C:\;C:\OS2\BITMAP;C:\OS2\MDOS;C:\OS2\APPS;C:\MMOS2;C:\MMOS2\INSTALL;F:\PC\LANGUAGE;C:\OBJDESK;G:\PERL\BIN;

I will try moving the ".;" after the unixroot dirs and see what happens.

Time passes...

OK.
I did try it and it made some difference.

Now, the profile window comes up and I click on it but, nothing else happens. Firefox neither loads nor hangs and no trap file is generated. Also, my mouse pointer no longer disappears after the second attempt at running.


WRT running different copies of Firefox and using the "RUN!" utility, some of the copies of Firefox that I have tested have that as the default setup.
I only use one copy of Firefox under normal circumstances; that is the latest edition that I have installed.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Andi B. on April 11, 2018, 03:52:10 pm
....
OK.
I did try it and it made some difference.

Which proved you have old dlls on your system. Anyway no big problem for FF if you set the .; correct. Now the second obvious question - do you have all needed dlls for your FF version? To be more precise did you enable netlabs exp repository or do you use an older FF version which does not need the exp dlls?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 03:57:56 pm
For my guide on dlls, I used the RPM Requirements file that came with firefox-45.9.0-2.oc00.pentium4.7z.

If I have duplicate dlls on my system they are well hidden; is there a program that can search for duplicate DLLs? Whichdll only tells you which dll is loaded as the name declares.

Also, none of the older version of Firefox  will run... same as prior to the libpath adjustment, but without the trap occurring etc.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 11, 2018, 04:34:46 pm
@Ben, if you look at the end of one of your trp files, you'll see a list of all DLLs loaded by Firefox/SeaMonkey. To me it looks correct except I've noticed that you have at least 3 different copies of exceptq.dll with your latest trp created by the copy installed with weasel.
I guess you have weasel loading in your startup folder or such. Be aware that if a program uses BEGINLIBPATH tp load a DLL, it'll be accessible by all programs no matter what your LIBPATH says. Perhaps try to disable everything in your startup folder.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 11, 2018, 04:54:15 pm
Hi Ben

Yes, there is a tool to help spot duplicate files amongst other useful things: BS-Info available here http://www.wdsibyl.org/index.php?module=Downloads&func=display&lid=105&lang=en

It may take a few seconds to perform all of its checks when starting but when ready find the "Duplicate files" tab and give it a try. Note it can only check 1 drive at a time though.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 09:41:28 pm
@Ben, if you look at the end of one of your trp files, you'll see a list of all DLLs loaded by Firefox/SeaMonkey. To me it looks correct except I've noticed that you have at least 3 different copies of exceptq.dll with your latest trp created by the copy installed with weasel.
I guess you have weasel loading in your startup folder or such. Be aware that if a program uses BEGINLIBPATH tp load a DLL, it'll be accessible by all programs no matter what your LIBPATH says. Perhaps try to disable everything in your startup folder.

I do not have "BEGINLIBPATH" in the Weasel startup.cmd but I do use "'set path=G:\Servers\SMTP\Weasel;%PATH%'".

My guess is that that statement would do something similar though; is that correct?

I will stop all the servers again and give Firefox a try with todays adjustments in place.

Time passes...

OK. I did that, stopping all servers and it went back to the previous behaviour with the profile manager window disappearing after selecting a profile and taking my mouse pointer with it on the second attempt, but not generating a trap log.

Strange and confounding.

However,  it does appear as if something in one of my startup-server.cmds is having an affect on things for when I restarted them after the above test, the Firefox profile manager window once more exits cleanly and my mouse pointer no longer disappears. What a mess.

An interesting note, on my other machine when I moved the ".;" in my libpath to follow the unixroot paths, Firefox stopped working yielding a popup window that said XUL.DLL could not be loaded.
Firefox once again ran when I moved it back to the beginning of the statement. So, the debate on where that should go has not yet been solved.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 11, 2018, 09:46:35 pm
Hi Ben

Yes, there is a tool to help spot duplicate files amongst other useful things: BS-Info available here http://www.wdsibyl.org/index.php?module=Downloads&func=display&lid=105&lang=en

It may take a few seconds to perform all of its checks when starting but when ready find the "Duplicate files" tab and give it a try. Note it can only check 1 drive at a time though.


Thanks for the headsup, Pete. I had a really old version of BS-Info that would not longer run. Unfortunately, the newer version starts up but hangs after about 5 seconds while displaying the clock. It just sits there consuming one of the cores. It is easily killable, but not presently useable on the server machine.

It works great on my other machine and it has surely found quite a number of duplicate DLLs. Wow...
Too bad it only checks one drive at a time, but it does make the job easier.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 11, 2018, 11:11:52 pm

I do not have "BEGINLIBPATH" in the Weasel startup.cmd but I do use "'set path=G:\Servers\SMTP\Weasel;%PATH%'".

My guess is that that statement would do something similar though; is that correct?

Yes, the binary would use the dot in LIBPATH to load any of its DLLs and they would stay loaded.

Quote
I will stop all the servers again and give Firefox a try with todays adjustments in place.

Time passes...

OK. I did that, stopping all servers and it went back to the previous behaviour with the profile manager window disappearing after selecting a profile and taking my mouse pointer with it on the second attempt, but not generating a trap log.

Strange and confounding.

However,  it does appear as if something in one of my startup-server.cmds is having an affect on things for when I restarted them after the above test, the Firefox profile manager window once more exits cleanly and my mouse pointer no longer disappears. What a mess.

An interesting note, on my other machine when I moved the ".;" in my libpath to follow the unixroot paths, Firefox stopped working yielding a popup window that said XUL.DLL could not be loaded.
Firefox once again ran when I moved it back to the beginning of the statement. So, the debate on where that should go has not yet been solved. [/color]

One suggestion is to use cmd files to set up your environment for all your servers. Something like, and this is guess work about your programs,
set PATH=c:\weasel;%PATH%
set BEGINLIBPATH=c:\weasel;%BEGINLIBPATH%
set LIBPATHSTRICT=T
weasel.exe

Adjusting as needed for your various services. This should help with DLL hell
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 12, 2018, 01:26:43 am
OK, Dave.

I'll utilize that information and adjust all of my server startup cmds tomorrow. While I do not think that it will solve the Firefox(s) issue, it will be a step in the right direction.

Maybe by the time I get that done I will have come up with something else; *ponders* if I could get BS_info to behave I could track down any duplicate Dlls.

I wonder if the two problems are related... *shrugs*

Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 12, 2018, 03:32:00 am
Hi Ben

What problem(s) you are having with BS-Info? - and which version is involved?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Andi B. on April 12, 2018, 09:04:02 am
Quote
One suggestion is to use cmd files to set up your environment for all your servers. Something like, and this is guess work about your programs,
set PATH=c:\weasel;%PATH%
set BEGINLIBPATH=c:\weasel;%BEGINLIBPATH%
set LIBPATHSTRICT=T
weasel.exe

Adjusting as needed for your various services. This should help with DLL hell

This may help for some situations. But I fear in Bens case it will make things worse. LIBPATHSTRICT and BEGINLIBPATH opens another can of worms. Limited resources (for todays needs) our OS can provide and handle is one of them. The list of services Ben wants to run is much over the limit LIBPATHSTRICT can work reliable IMHO. My advice is using LIBPATHSTRICT only for a single or two applications if really needed (running SM and FF in parallel for testing purposes). Not in any case for more than a few programs.

Ben has duplicate/wrong dlls. Probably spread all over his drives. He need to clean up this mess. One thing he can do is use f.i. DataSeeker (or another search tool which searches all drives) and search for every single dll FF needs with 'Search all drives' selected. And rename/delete all duplicates on all drives. Tools which only check the LIBPATH for dublicates (XWP or 'which' f.i.) do not help in Bens case as he has the .; in the LIBPATH and fear he does not want to delete it from there.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Lars on April 12, 2018, 12:42:49 pm
Hm,

I am beginning to believe that Andi is right about the problems with LIBPATHSTRICT.

there exists a kernel data structure called "PTDA" (per task data area") that effectively exists for each process started.
Within that structure there are 2 pointer fields that can take a pointer to the BEGINLIBPATH and ENDLIBPATH strings respectively.
This effectively means that each process can define its own BEGINLIBPATH and ENDLIBPATH. However, I can see no such field for the LIBPATHSTRICT setting (which can take on 2 values: TRUE and FALSE).

That leads to the conclusion that there must be a GLOBAL list somewhere in the kernel that remembers which process asked for LIBPATHSTRICT in which case, when the process execution leads to loading of DLLs, the process will, if LIBPATHSTRICT is TRUE, preferrably load from its BEGINLIBPATH setting before it loads from any location defined in LIBPATH even if a DLL of the same name has already been loaded (and is still loaded) from a different directory.

A GLOBAL list will likely have a limit ...

Lars
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Andi B. on April 12, 2018, 01:19:31 pm
Additionally to Lars statement about kernel internals it's simply a waste of memory (= scare resource given todays applications) when 'same' dlls are loaded more then once via LIBPATHSTRICT.

Practical experiments showed me that you can easily bring down OS/2 when playing with LIBPATHSTRICT and BEGINLIBPATH.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 12, 2018, 08:27:21 pm
OK.

So, from all that I see clearly that this is a mega-mess with no solution... other than to comb through decades of DLLs keeping the latest copies and deleting the deprecated duplicates... hoping that all will be well when done.

YIKES!

While I have already spent more than a few hours doing that, at this point I must seriously consider other possibilities such as, is there another usable browser out there that works with OS/2 and doesn't have similar requirements to Firefox, (old or new), and Seamonkey etc?

But, is that even viable at all given the new trend in OS/2 with regards to installing new software?

With all the services that I am running as suggested, I do not have a lot of free, usable memory, (though I have 4 gigs of RAM it is a struggle to keep enough available for apps and tools), so I cannot afford to be loading double versions of DLLs.

In the meantime, I will continue to hunt for duplicates.

Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 12, 2018, 08:30:17 pm
Hi Ben

What problem(s) you are having with BS-Info? - and which version is involved?

Pete, on the server, it starts fine and displays the first tab with the clock, but after about five seconds it hangs, maxes out one core, (I have four), and has to be terminated.

It works fine on my other machine.

I downloaded the latest version from the link that you posted. 2.07?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 13, 2018, 01:09:00 am
Hi Ben

That sounds like the problem I saw with an earlier version when using os2ahci.add v2.x

Is there anything displayed on the status bar that may give us a clue?

You could also add the Parameter -debug to the BS-Info object Properties which should create a log called BS_Info.err in the BS-Info directory which may help identify the problem.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 13, 2018, 03:10:22 am
Pete, the status bar says "cups...".

I attached the debug file.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 13, 2018, 05:21:21 am
Hi Ben

The debug log is called BS_Info.err

Re-checking the version I have installed I see that I am using v2.1 beta which Rolf sent me by email. It has a reworked cups search which may resolve the problem you are seeing - but does take a second or several to appear onscreen.

The v2.1 beta does not yet seem to have made it to a release level so I hope Rolf does not mind me posting the beta location www.bausys.ch\files\bs_info_2_1_beta.wpi

I am sure Rolf would appreciate any feedback though.


Regards

Pete



Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 13, 2018, 11:42:34 am
OK, thx, Pete.

If such an error  file was generated it was not put into the BS Info folder.

I will give the new one a try.

Time passes...

I installed 2.1b and tried it with the same results; it hangs on cups detection.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 13, 2018, 02:12:56 pm
Hi Ben

Strange...

Do you have the Parameter set in the program object properties? It should be

   -debug


Here that setting definitely causes BS_Info.err to be generated in the BS_Info directory. I just ran BS_Info and generated a log so have no idea what could be going wrong on your system. I can only suggest contacting Rolf and reporting problems.


Regards

Pete




Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 13, 2018, 02:31:44 pm
Will do.

Thanks, Pete.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Rolf on April 13, 2018, 06:51:57 pm
Hello Ben
Hello Pete

I uploaded the latest beta version (April 2018) of BS_Info.

www.bausys.ch\files\bs_info_2_1_beta.wpi


Rolf
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 13, 2018, 07:43:07 pm
Thanks Rolf.

I downloaded it and gave it a try; same problem hanging as before on cups with no error code created.

 However... when I looked at the title/version it reported November of last year, (2017), not April of 2018.

Was there an error in the link?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: David Graser on April 13, 2018, 09:33:12 pm
Hello Ben
Hello Pete

I uploaded the latest beta version (April 2018) of BS_Info.

www.bausys.ch\files\bs_info_2_1_beta.wpi


Rolf

I was having problems with the program coming up.  I tested until I found the problem.  The program does not like XIT26.  When I close XIT26, it comes up fine.  This is the only program so far that has done this.  I now just terminate XIT until I am finished with your program.

David
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Rolf on April 14, 2018, 11:01:22 am
Hi Ben
can not find any problems.
The files are from April 13, 2018 and the title says "BS_Info v2.1 beta (13 Apr 2018)". In BS_Info.txt you will find information and email address. Start the program with the parameter -debug and send me BS_Info.err
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 14, 2018, 05:39:19 pm

I downloaded it again, Rolf and it still shows Nov. 2017.

I read the BS_info.txt and it says on the very first line; "BS_Info  v2.1 beta (04.Nov.2017)"; cut and pasted.


Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: ivan on April 15, 2018, 12:53:23 am
Hi Ben,

Are you downloading from the link Rolf gave?  I just downloaded it again from that link and the first line of the info text gives  BS_Info  v2.1 beta (13. April 2018)  The Info page of the program also gives that information.

On the other hand if you used the link Pete gave it will give you the older version.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 15, 2018, 01:29:56 am
The links are identical, Ivan.

Maybe my ISP is caching the file.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Pete on April 15, 2018, 06:06:28 am
Hi Ben

Have you tried clearing browser cache before a fresh download?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on April 15, 2018, 03:34:01 pm
I just downloaded it again on a different machine altogether using the link from Rolf, and it still gives me the November 2017 version when installed on different machine.

Can someone who has the correct version, (April 2018), change the name of it slightly and make it available to me in a message or whatever?

The only conclusion is that tmy ISP is caching the old file. Strange though, I haven't seen anything like that in years... with an ISP that is.

Just to be clear, I have downloaded that file on two different OS/2 machines and one Windows machine using different browsers, always with the same problem.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: ivan on April 15, 2018, 03:43:35 pm
Hi Ben, send me an e-mail to iv4an7jt at free dot fr  (remove numbers) and I will send it to you, it is too large to be an attachment here.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 15, 2018, 05:14:40 pm
Hi Ben,

...If I have duplicate dlls on my system they are well hidden; is there a program that can search for duplicate DLLs? Whichdll only tells you which dll is loaded as the name declares...

I see BS_Info has been brought up, an alternative is a really simple scan utility called 'dupfind.cmd', here is the link to Hobbes (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/system/dupfind-v1.1.zip (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/system/dupfind-v1.1.zip)).

You could do something like this @ CLI: 'dupfind drive: *.dll', this would look for duplicate DLLs only on your 'drive:', where of course 'drive:' is replaced by your boot drive, so c:, maybe d: or as in my case g:, I hope this is self-explanatory.

I used this handy util with great success to simplify my move from the home-grown DLL management environment to YUM/RPM driven one.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on April 15, 2018, 08:31:39 pm
an alternative is a really simple scan utility called 'dupfind.cmd', here is the link to Hobbes (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/system/dupfind-v1.1.zip (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/system/dupfind-v1.1.zip)).

Dariusz, note that David's utility Dupfinder (https://88watts.net/download/dupfinder-1.0.zip) is more recommendable.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Rene Hvidsoe on April 19, 2018, 07:49:29 pm
Hi all,

Just saw the refreshed version of Firefox 45.9.0 has just been released.

https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/releases/tag/FIREFOX_45_9_0esr_RELEASE_OS2_GA1_1 (https://github.com/bitwiseworks/mozilla-os2/releases/tag/FIREFOX_45_9_0esr_RELEASE_OS2_GA1_1)

Downloading right now.

Cheers
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 20, 2018, 01:12:24 am
Make sure to update libc and libcx if you haven't yet. They've both been moved from exp to the regular repository.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Rene Hvidsoe on April 20, 2018, 06:22:48 am
Hi David,

I have done that. As I always read the the info to install to make sure I have all prereq. It seems to handle things better and is more responsive.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on May 01, 2018, 05:37:20 pm
Hello again.

For those who have been following this thread I am writing this message from my server machine utilizing the latest version of Firefox; problem found!

It turns out some missing MMOS2 lines in my CONFIG.SYS was the culprit. Given that I do not use sound or have it installed on this system, that's interesting. I had the MMOS2 lines in the path statements, but apparently that is not enough. But whatever the case maybe, I'm just glad to have driven a stake through the heart of the last problem on this system.

Anyway, now if someone bumps into this problem they will have this to go on.

Thanks for everyone who contributed... and "yes" all versions of Firefox old and new now work.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on May 01, 2018, 07:40:58 pm
Hey Ben!

Hello again.

For those who have been following this thread I am writing this message from my server machine utilizing the latest version of Firefox; problem found!

It turns out some missing MMOS2 lines in my CONFIG.SYS was the culprit....


Alright...c'mon now, don't hold back on us like that... ;D

What was missing?
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on May 02, 2018, 02:36:45 am
I haven't actually narrowed it down yet, Dariusz. I fixed my maintenance partition, (on the same machine), reworked the Config.sys for it, mixing the main partition file with that one, but leaving in some differences. Then I booted it to see if any version of Firefox worked with it and they all did.

So, I started by just copying some of the MMOS2 entries across to the main partition Config.sys, got lucky first go, and left it at that for now. I will narrow it down when I get the time, but in the meantime here are the entries that I added;

Code: [Select]
DEVICE=C:\MMOS2\ssmdd.sys /S:64 /P:64 /H:256 /Q:1024 /E:1024
DEVICE=C:\MMOS2\r0stub.sys
DEVICE=C:\MMOS2\MMPLAYER\midi.sys
DEVICE=C:\MMOS2\vcshdd.sys
SET DMIPATH=C:\DMISL\BIN
SET MMBASE=C:\MMOS2;
SET MMSTREAM=/S:64 /P:64 /H:256 /Q:1024 /E:1024
SET MMYIELD=10
RUN=C:\MMOS2\mmfix.exe
RUN=C:\MMOS2\mididmon.exe
RUN=C:\MMOS2\mmhelpdd.exe
RUN=C:\MMOS2\qrymmcd.exe

I have yet to even determine if they are all relevant to my main install or which one made the difference. But I will post which one did the job when I do find out.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Lars on May 03, 2018, 12:45:24 pm
Firefox expects a working MMOS2 subsystem. That does not mean that a sound driver needs to be installed.
But I am pretty sure that at least:
DEVICE=C:\MMOS2\ssmdd.sys /S:64 /P:64 /H:256 /Q:1024 /E:1024
DEVICE=C:\MMOS2\r0stub.sys

are necessary. These are essential components of the MMOS2 subsystem, they are part of the stream manager interface to the sound drivers.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Ben on May 04, 2018, 12:10:57 am
That's a good place for me to start Lars, but I have no use for sound on the machine in question so I would otherwise leave it off my machine especially given how tight usable memory has become with our favourite OS. 8)

I will REM out the other lines first and see how that works.
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on May 04, 2018, 12:48:45 am
It might be possible to build a version of Firefox without the MMOS2 dependency
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Lars on May 04, 2018, 02:58:49 pm
It might be possible to build a version of Firefox without the MMOS2 dependency

Of course it would be desirable to have a Firefox version that dynamically queries the availability of MMOS2 and if not available, to skip all the Multimedia related stuff, like using libkai to allocate a sound instance for example ...
I fear that is work that nobody has time for ...

Needless to say there is no defined way to query the availability of MMOS2. Just looking for the presence/absence of an environment variable would be lousy. Attempting to open a driver (like ssmdd.sys or r0stub.sys) would be better ...
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Silvan Scherrer on May 04, 2018, 03:40:53 pm
It might be possible to build a version of Firefox without the MMOS2 dependency

Of course it would be desirable to have a Firefox version that dynamically queries the availability of MMOS2 and if not available, to skip all the Multimedia related stuff, like using libkai to allocate a sound instance for example ...
I fear that is work that nobody has time for ...
btw Firefox uses libkai since long
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: Dave Yeo on May 04, 2018, 04:23:34 pm
I was thinking of just using configure options such as --disable-wav
Title: Re: Firefox and Traps
Post by: roberto on May 04, 2018, 04:35:14 pm
And I wonder, it will not be easier to do it the other way around. In fact the other day while I was watching a video, I got an error ... you want to close the application does not respond ... but instead of closing it, apart from the error window, and the video continued to work perfect, but without the Go forward bar, without the stop - forward button, and without the next video button, the volume also disappeared. And when clicking on the video with the right button, I got a menu of the os2 multimedia. The only option that worked was to click on the video to stop or start. It's just a suggestion. Create a mini arcaos application that replaces the browser video bar.
saludos