Messages

346

Mail-News / Re: PMMail 3.22 and SMTP authentication...can it do that?

« on: October 12, 2017, 08:34:52 am »

Back to the topic at hand...

I'm running PMMail v1.96a, so mine is even older than yours - and of course, it doesn't do authenticated SMTP either. Instead, I use Bob Eager's SMTP package (http://www.tavi.co.uk/os2pages/mail.html) which provides an SMTP server and client. Basically, you have PMMail send mail to your local server which just puts it into a folder on your system. You then run the client program which fetches the email from that folder and does an authenticated send to your ISP's SMTP server. It's a bit roundabout but it works for me - plus it gives me a chance to reconsider whether I really want to send it out at all.

However, why bother? If your new ISP will accept mail that has a From address from a different domain, why not use them? Astonishingly few people check headers (or even know they exist), so virtually no one will notice that the sending domain doesn't match the From address.

347

Applications / Re: XWorkplace and missing folder contents...

« on: October 05, 2017, 10:21:26 am »

I'm sorry to see that this problem still persists. I waited to reply until I had a chance to look at that worker-thread code.

Like much of XWP, It uses a mutex semaphore to protect some data that other threads modify. While this is perfectly OK, it's willing to wait indefinitely for its sem to become available. While I don't think the problem lies on this thread, it's easy to see how these indefinite waits could lead to a deadlock. Both threads A and B need to own semaphores X and Y to proceed. A holds one while B holds the other, so both wait forever for a semaphore the other will never release. If one of those threads handles populating folders, the WPS will grind to a halt. Where this is happening - if that's actually what's happening - remains a mystery.

BTW1... Have you ever tried disabling XWP to confirm that it really is the problem? It's easy: unlock 'xfldr.dll', rename it, then restart the Desktop. Don't rely on XWP to disable itself - this is the only method short of uninstalling that is guaranteed to do so.

BTW2... I'd still like to know what filesystems you load...

348

Applications / Re: XWorkplace and missing folder contents...

« on: October 02, 2017, 06:30:53 am »

Bull. I gave up complaining about this issue, years ago, because I "am the only one with the problem".

Thanks for advising. My apologies if I didn't recall that you bitched and moaned about this years ago - one rant tends to blend into another.

Happily, an unusual confluence of events today has opened a whole new avenue to explore - one that has nothing to do with XWP or the WPS. As you know, I got to see part of your config.sys today and the many, many filesystems you load. Perhaps that's where the problem lies. As I understand it, all filesystem requests go through the kernel's filesystem router, then out to the appropriate one. If something were to get messed up there, it's easy to see how some or all filesystem activity would grind to a halt.

Based on the excerpt of config.sys you posted, I see that you load:

• JFS
• HPFS
• CDFS
• FAT32
• UDF
• STUBFSD / AEFS
• STUBFSD / ISOFS
• NDFS
• TONIGY

Dariusz, do you use any of the less common ones on this list?

The best that I can hope for, is that one of the main developers will see the problem, figure it out, and fix it.

That's pretty amusing...

349

Applications / Re: XWorkplace and missing folder contents...

« on: October 01, 2017, 11:26:38 pm »

First, Dariusz, let me apologize for not responding to your email from Thursday. To answer your question, yes I have looked into this problem but I can't find anything.

Here's how I see it: a lot of people use XWP but you're the only one I recall having this particular issue. Perhaps that's because you may be the only person who has a particular, possibly unique, collection of add-ons that cause or at least contribute to the onset of this problem. Rather than attributing the cause to the lowest common denominator, XWP, why don't you look at the other stuff you have installed - particularly stuff that few people use.

For instance, the first thing I noticed when I looked at that very odd screen shot were those doo-dads on the titlebar. I've never seen them before - what puts them there? What other WPS "enhancements" are you using? One of them may be causing the problem or simply triggering a seldom-seen bug in XWP but we'll never know until you do the legwork to identify the proximate cause. Anything that registers a WPS class should be high on your list of suspects.

Start by uninstalling a few of the the least common or least useful add-ons, then wait a while (a week?). If the problem still happens, you know what isn't to blame, so you can reinstall them and try removing other stuff. Once it looks like the problem has been banished, start adding things back until it reappears. Yes, it may take a while (a month or more), and you may find yourself inconvenienced by the lack of this or that - but after a day or two of disorientation you may also find that a lot of this stuff isn't as must-have as it once seemed.

350

Applications / Re: Windowed win 16 session

« on: September 26, 2017, 05:46:21 pm »

Has anyone got a windowed win 16 session to run on ArcaOS with the panorama driver?

Modify existing vsvga.sys line config.sys:
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\VSVGA.SYS /int10textgrfxsafe

Add this to autoexec.bat:
MODE CO80

351

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 12, 2017, 10:03:27 pm »

And then there is an updated USBMSD.ADD. It's not only updated to support "large floppy".
I also spent considerable time in making it work more reliably with USB mass storage devices.

I'm well aware of your efforts to get "problematic" USB devices to mount reliably since we've discussed this privately. Others may not be aware of this, so it's good that you have provided a more thorough description of your driver's benefits. However, I don't have any problematic devices so I place more value on the stock driver's 3-second mount time vs the 10+ seconds it takes your driver.

It can be used with the AN stack without any problem or restrictions.

That's good to know. I was under the mistaken impression that USBMSD was subject to the same restrictions as the other USB components. I'll certainly give it another try to see if I can get it to recognize a big-floppy - try as I might, I couldn't using one of your betas from several months ago (operator error, perhaps).

the reason why nobody has yet written a utility for writing the DLAT sector is twofold: there are people who would jump into your face if say USBMSD.ADD would write something to their media without them knowing (large floppy support creates a fake  DLAT in memory therefore this is not a prob in this case).

And with good reason! However, that's not what I was whining about. I was bemoaning the lack of a simple utility to handle this common-enough problem without having to jump through hoops. I can't help but suspect that Jan could significantly enhance his revenue stream if he were to offer a $5 app whose sole purpose was to "condition" flash drives to work with OS/2.

352

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 12, 2017, 09:41:56 am »

I know it's not the cure for every problem but regarding USB you could try my driver set.
Go to Hobbes.nmsu.edu and search for "usbdrv".

I downloaded usbdrv217.zip.  Most of the files (except the ones in the os2\trace folder) are already in my C:\ drive so how do they differ?

Except in one particular circumstance, these drivers aren't going to resolve your issues (sorry, Lars).

If your USB media are partitioned, they are being rejected by OS/2 because they lack LVM info. This is data that OS/2's disk subsystem writes at the beginning of a partition that tells it (among other things) what drive letter you'd like to assign to the disk. You probably encountered this the first time you tried to install AOS on your hard disk: the installer's Disk Utility came up and advised LVM info was missing. It offered to add it and you said OK - end of problem.

The stock answer for fixing this is to use the program "DFSee" to add it (www.dfsee.com). DFSee is a great program and can fix disk problems that nothing else can. But, it can be extremely daunting to use, and frankly, it's just overkill for what should be a fairly simple operation. Why no one has ever seen fit to write an easy-to-use utility to address this fairly common issue is beyond me.

The one situation where Lars' driver can be helpful is if your media is formatted as a "large floppy", i.e. it doesn't have a partition table and is layed-out the way a diskette would be. This is the way Windows traditionally handled USB storage media and most USB sticks were formatted that way (though the last few I bought were, in fact, partitioned). IIUC, Lars' mass-storage driver detects that the system is looking for LVM info and generates it on-the-fly to keep the system happy. Be aware that you can't do a mix-and-match combining some of his drivers with AN's: it's all or nothing.

The one exception to the all-or-nothing rule (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) are the files you mentioned in MMOS2. These provide USB audio support and have enhancements that the AN version lacks. If you're having problems with Uniaud and you have a USB audio adapter, you may want to try installing them. I'll have to leave it to someone more knowledgeable than I to fill in the details.

353

Applications / Re: Problems with Windowed DOS sessions

« on: June 12, 2017, 03:38:40 am »

I just wanted to add a further confirmation that '/int10textgrfxsafe' combined with 'mode co80' as described above (and in the readme) does work (at least for my low-end Intel integrated graphics). And, not only for DOS (which I never, ever use) but for windowed WinOS/2 sessions as well (which I use when in need of a hexadecimal-capable calculator). My thanks to Dave and Kevin!

354

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 10, 2017, 06:20:02 pm »

One issue: not that I am particularly interested in Games but none of the apps (Klondike, Solitaire, Mahjongg) will open after I double click their icons. So far this seems the only problem.

TeLLie's suggestion that you run the app from the command line is a good one since you might get an error message that some needed dll couldn't be loaded. However, there's something else you should look at: what file is each program object pointing at.

Clearly, "Mahjongg" should be starting 'C:\OS2\APPS\MAHJONGG.EXE'. If you open the program object's Properties and it shows, say, 'C:\MPTN\ETC', you have a big problem because your file handles table is corrupt. This particular type of corruption is something that no ini cleaner (whether "IFX", "checkini", or whatever) could possibly identify or resolve. In this case, LosePete's earlier suggestion to run "XFix" would be spot-on. However, you'd need a fair amount of assistance to resolve the issue. Let's hope it doesn't come to that...

I am using XWP "full" version (that is,not the lite version) 1.0.11 available on Hobbes. I would think that is about the version that AN delivers.

ANXWP is at version ..umm.. 1.0.11++. I've made about 10 changes since 1.0.11 and checked them in to the Netlabs repo but I haven't built a new generic version yet because all the NLS files need updating. I'll try to get that moving.

355

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 10, 2017, 10:08:17 am »

I have decided to reinstall ArcaOS.

On the whole, I think that's a very good idea. As I mentioned previously, I've never heard of XWP causing the kind of problems you've encountered, so something in the installation must be really messed up. Since I'm the one who would probably have to fix whatever might actually be wrong with XWP, I have a vested interest in you having a successful install 

Just two bits of advice if you haven't reinstalled already:

* if you choose the Advanced option which lets you choose what will be installed and where, avoid using the "Back" button. I installed AOS many times and the only failed installations I encountered were those where I paged back and forth. Indeed, I'd suggest going all the way through, paging back and forth as much as you want to get a good idea of your choices, then cancelling the whole thing on the last page. Do this a couple of times if need be. By the third time thru you'll know exactly what's available and which options you want and will be able make your choices without hesitation - and without going back. The install will almost certainly be successful.

* I have to strongly disagree with Greggory as to choice of video. Unless you have a fairly ancient video chipset that it supports, SNAP is semi-useless: it's far slower than Panorama and in many cases is unable to support resolutions that weren't common 10+ years ago.

Let us know how the new install works for you.

356

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 09, 2017, 04:50:47 am »

Remove the '-hide' from the xwps folder, then drill down to its plugins directory and rename 'C:\sys\apps\xwps\plugins\xcenter' to 'C:\sys\apps\xwps\plugins\xcenter-hide'.

Did this, rebooted and the system froze - no mouse movement, had to pull the power plug again.

That's not at all what I expected. Just to confirm: after un-hiding the 'xwps' directory, you did hide 'plugins\xcenter' before rebooting?

I can't recall anyone ever having this sort of problem with XWP exclusive of some of its questionable plugins. The kind of errors I saw in your 'popuplog.os2' strongly suggested that a device driver was the root cause - an app would be unable to trash the CPU's registers so badly. XWP itself generally doesn't try "talking" to them directly but some of the plugins do which is why I suspected them.

At this point I imagine you've hidden the XWP directory again to get your system back. You might as well reenable FAT32 if you haven't already. The only other thing I can think of right now is to disable the XWP components that support the XPager (virtual desktop) and hotkeys. To do so, you'd open 'C:\sys\apps\xwps\bin' and rename 'xwpdaemn.exe' and 'xwphook.dll'.

Ir would be a shame if you lost access to some of XWP's many conveniences. If you're interested, once your system is stable, I can walk you thru uninstalling the AN version and installing the full-featured version which gives you greater control over which of its many components are enabled.

Let us know how it goes.

357

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 08, 2017, 09:33:59 am »

The first things to go are: your Startup folder, FAT32, and all of XWP (my initial suspicion was that some widget on the XCenter was the culprit).

Did this and ArcaOS booted OK. All my apps (for which I have desktop folders) loaded. (One question - I thought I'd lose all these when I was going through the ARCHIVE procedure earlier so why are they still available?)

I'm glad to hear we're getting somewhere    I'd encourage you to move to the next step and reenable your Startup folder and all of XWP except the widget plugins as I described. Which reminds me... did you install any new XCenter plugins and/or did you enable the XWLan widget? If not, then finish up by reenabling the XCenter widgets since it's looking like FAT32 is the culprit (if so, there's an older version you can try).

I can't answer your archive question any too authoritatively because I've never restored one. However, I do know that any program objects or shadows that your installed apps created should be gone because they're stored in 'os2.ini' and that definitely gets replaced by the archived version. I'm not sure how physical files and folders that weren't in the archive are handled.

First open your Startup folder (in the desktop Computer folder). Dbl-click on each icon and see what happens. No problem?

Not sure - I double clicked on all the icons in the Startup folder. CAD-Popup opens after a couple of tries.
CUPS Daemon, TCP/IP Startup and USBPRT Automonitor double clicking apparently did nothing - certainly nothing visible appeared.

Most items in the Startup folder either terminate as soon as they've done whatever, or they launch background programs that you wouldn't see, so your results are to be expected.

BTW... Kudos to Doug Clark for mentioning SNAP - it should definitely be on any short-list of potential culprits. As it happens, Paul, you are running Panorama - it's the default (plus it's in the config.sys you posted).

358

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 07, 2017, 08:41:37 pm »

Your 'popuplog.os2' confirmed that the problem does lie in the WPS process but little else. The fact that the problem is now intermittent leaves me less certain than I was before as to its cause. Given that, I'd like to eliminate the most likely suspects first. Based on the results, we can either start reenabling stuff until it goes bad again or just eliminate more things and hope that dumb luck is on our side.

The first things to go are: your Startup folder, FAT32, and all of XWP (my initial suspicion was that some widget on the XCenter was the culprit).

For the first two, open config.sys. Locate "SET RESTARTOBJECTS=STARTUPFOLDERSONLY,REBOOTONLY" and 'rem' it out, then add "SET RESTARTOBJECTS=NO". Next, find "IFS=C:\OS2\BOOT\fat32.ifs" and "call=C:\OS2\cachef32.exe" and 'rem' them out. (Note that both lines have additional parameters that I've left out to make this easier to read.) Save and close config.sys.

For XWP, we'll use brute force: rename 'C:\sys\apps\xwps' to, say, 'C:\sys\apps\xwps-hide'.

Now reboot and see what happens. If we're lucky and the system is stable, play with it for a few minutes. Be aware that your internet connection may not work, and if you've set any folders to use Xview, they won't open by dbl-clicking - you'll have to use their "Open as" menu (I have to fix that...). Since these crashes are intermittent, you may want to shut down and restart to confirm the problem has been eliminated.

Lets be optimistic and assume this worked, so the next step is reenabling things. First open your Startup folder (in the desktop Computer folder). Dbl-click on each icon and see what happens. No problem? Next, we'll reenable XWP but leave the XCenter plugins disabled. Remove the '-hide' from the xwps folder, then drill down to its plugins directory and rename 'C:\sys\apps\xwps\plugins\xcenter' to 'C:\sys\apps\xwps\plugins\xcenter-hide'. Finally, open config.sys and restore the "SET RESTARTOBJECTS=" line (but not the FAT32 stuff), then reboot.

Still OK? If so, you should have XCenter at the bottom of the screen but it will be missing the window list and time widgets. Now for the big test! Right-click on XCenter and select "Close" from it menu. Next, remove the '-hide' from 'C:\sys\apps\xwps\plugins\xcenter-hide'. Finally, open 'Programs->Utilities'. Therein you'll find an XCenter icon - dbl-click on it and hope for the best. If the system blows up, the culprit is an XCenter widget. If not, it's FAT32. If it seems to be FAT32, feel free to reenable it in config.sys to confirm the diagnosis.

Of course, if you never get this far, we'll just have to keep trying. In that case, posting your config.sys will make it easier to identify what needs to be done next.

Good luck!

359

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS keeps rebooting

« on: June 06, 2017, 06:51:33 pm »

Now that you've tried all these random suggestions (some germane, some just W-A-G's), it's time to attack the problem systematically. Initially, the goal is to determine if the issue lies in the WPS, PM, some hardware driver(s), or the base OS.

If you haven't done so already, it would be a good idea to make a backup of your unmodified config.sys.  Post a copy here as well for future reference. Also, if you see a file named popuplog.os2 in the root directory of your boot drive, please post it - it may identify the cause.

The first step is the WPS: yea or nay. In config.sys, locate "SET RUNWORKPLACE=C:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE" and 'rem' it out. Now enter "SET RUNWORKPLACE=C:\OS2\CMD.EXE". Save the file then reboot.

The system will come up with a blue screen and an OS/2 command prompt window. Let it sit there a while. If the system does not reboot, then something in the WPS is triggering the problem. Confirm this by starting the WPS: at the command prompt, enter "PMSHELL". What happens next? If it reboots, we know the general location of the problem and I can help you zero-in on it in a subsequent post. (If it runs OK then it's going to be a lot harder to figure out what's wrong.)

Note: if the WPS simply crashes rather than causing the system to reboot, you should be returned to the command prompt. However, on my system that doesn't happen. Instead the window (labeled "Workplace Shell") remains minimized in the lower left corner of the screen. If so, dbl-click to restore it, then press Ctrl-C to kill the still-running WPS process. (You can ignore the various messages you may see in the window.) If you're lucky enough to get to this point, try running PMSHELL again to see what happens.

Next... if the system reboots while sitting at the initial command prompt, then we have to see if PM is the cause. In config.sys, locate "PROTSHELL=C:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE". Again, 'rem' it out and replace it with "PROTSHELL=C:\OS2\CMD.EXE". Save and reboot. The system will come up to a full screen command prompt. Hold your breath and see what happens    If it still restarts then we'll have to start disabling drivers (we may need to do so, regardless).

I'll leave it at that for now. Please try these relatively simple steps and report back when you can.

I am not using the cutdown version of xwp that ArcaOS installs so cannot test this myself but the full xwp has a Panic mode. Try pressing the Shift key during Desktop startup (press just as the screen changes from black to colour) and run xfix from the displayed menu. Hopefully that will resolve the problem.

Honestly, I think this is fairly misguided advice. What would a newbie know about editing the file-handles table? In any case, if IFX ran and reported no errors, it's highly unlikely this is the source of the problem.

360

Setup & Installation / Re: Arca OS boot from an external USB hard drive

« on: May 31, 2017, 06:46:24 am »

I believe in contributing positively to the community, and not just by giving them binaries for free, but by giving them the fruits of my knowledge and skills through source code they can download and extend / modify if need be.  It's people helping people, giving someone else a new raw material they can receive and alter as needed.  I think these things are very important.

This is all very noble, I suppose, but not something that addresses the genuine needs of "the community" as it is today. There are vanishingly few competent OS/2 developers any more, and those who remain are unlikely to need or want yet another toolkit or library. Repositories such as Hobbes and Netlabs are littered with this stuff - virtually all of which goes unused.

Rather, what the community at large really needs are well crafted applications targeted at the end-user (yes, "free binaries"). I'm talking about competently executed, fairly bug-free, attractive, easy to use software products - not just a mess of code you throw over the fence and hope someone can use and/or fix.

As an example: in another thread, someone suggested porting libmtp. That's all very nice, but why bother if there's nothing that can make use of it? OTOH, porting libmtp as part of a larger project to create an attractive filemanager-like GUI for accessing the contents of your Android phone would be hugely appreciated because there's nothing out there like that right now.

Please understand that I don't want to discourage you from sharing "the fruits of [your] knowledge and skills" - we need all the assistance we can get. It's just that your efforts will bring the greatest benefits to the community and the greatest psychic rewards to you if they're aligned with the real needs of said community.