Topics

1

Applications / ArcaOS v5.1 and VirtualBox OS/2 Version

« on: June 28, 2024, 05:58:43 pm »

Hi All!

Having a rather quiet emergency season at the moment, I've been able to get back around to my to do list, and finally have time to set-up various items using ArcaOS 5.1.

One item I've ran into a problem with is setting up the VirtualBox OS/2 version to run on ArcaOS 5.1.

I'm still using VBox 5.0.51, which has worked perfectly under ArcaOS v5.0.8, and still continues to do so.

Doing the installation under v5.1, paralleling my 5.0.8 installation, I've so far.

1) Installed all the necessary packages using ANPM.
2) Added the necessary statements in Config.sys:

SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2
VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072
DEVICE=D:\Programs\VirtualBox\Bin\VBoxDrv.sys
SET VBOX_USER_HOME=O:\VBOX\VMs

Running VirtualBox.exe, I'm getting the "Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient.COM Object" we've seen before, with the following detail statement:

Callee RC: NS_ERROR_FACTORY_NOT_REGISTERED
            (0x80040154)

Its a different detail than I've seen before (the last time the problem was traced to my SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 having a typo).

So I was just wondering the following today:

1) First, is anyone using the OS/2 version successfully under ArcaOS v5.1?

2) Has anyone run into NS_ERROR_FACTORY_NOT_REGISTERED and found a workaround.

I've attached the actual message to the post below.

Thanks in advance guys for any bright ideas and Best! as always.

Mark

2

Networking / ArcaMapper and Network Protocols

« on: January 16, 2024, 08:06:33 pm »

Good Morning Guys!

That is, good if you like waking up to -41 C with an overnight low of -46 C. We had 3 months of balmy winter here in Alberta and are now paying for it - I see some of our colleagues in the states are having winter storms, so I guess we're all in it together.

However, the cold is allowing me to turn my thoughts once again to technical problem solving, after approximately one year and two months of constant emergencies, both personal and for protecting the greater public good, (you can see what that entailed in another general post of mine from December).

But I thought I'd solicit some opinions from the brain trust here, related to a problem I'm having with ArcaMapper. I already had a look at a couple of the other more Samba specific topics, but I decided to start a new one, as this problem seemed more specific to using and connecting, as opposed to the technical intricacies of the client or server itself.

I finally installed ArcaOS v5.1, and was attempting to get the current version of ArcaMapper to mount items in two ways - one with my NetGear ReadyNAS server and the other with some of my towers running dual operating systems (ArcaOS and Windows 7).

The Network Browser does see both the ReadyNAS and Windows 7 systems as separate machines and displays the partitions in the window on the right, however when I attempt to create the proper credentials and apply those to mount the item I select (ie. the credentials I successfully use accessing the resources in Windows) the credentials are not accepted.

Reading the ArcaMapper documentation (yes, some people still do that), and some general documentation related to Samba and SMB - I suspect the problem is actually related to Samba and SMB.conf - I think the NetGear ReadyNAS uses Unix based network protocols (whatever they were around 2010) while Windows 7, I think uses SMB2.1.

Reading up both on Samba and SMB.conf, generally and the help documentation provided with ArcaMapper, it looks like I may need to specify these other network protocols directly in SMB.conf - however, not knowing much about the specific workings of Samba, especially our current version(s), I'm on the normal steep technical learning curve at the moment.

I will say as background, I've never been able to successfully connect to these resources using ArcaMapper, or its previous incarnations under ArcaOS in the past - so I decided a cold winter day was the time to try to solve this problem once and for all.

I already reviewed the limited troubleshooting options in the ArcaMapper docs without success (client minimum protocol=NT1 is already present in SMB.conf). Are there any other specific statements that I should add or modify, or am I looking in the wrong direction?

Any have thoughts that will lead me to the correct path, as opposed to going over the cliff?

Best and a fine Week to all!

Mark

3

General Discussion / A Ghost of Christmas Past is Still Present

« on: December 23, 2023, 05:52:14 am »

Hello Everyone!

Well, I'm not haunting a miser by the name of Scrooge, but just wanted to let all of you know a Ghost of OS2World past is still present.

Its been a strange odyssey for me since November 11, 2022.

A major death in the family then, and another death two months later (luckily not mine nor my wife's, but still major in the family). Then a couple of surgeries in between (this time involving my wife). And finally a constant stream of crisis related work - Pandemic Planning in British Columbia first, then a horrendous forest fire season in Western Canada starting in May and heading into October, had me busy in Alberta, BC and the Northwest Territories. Then a rush job creating an Emergency Response Plan for a client in two weeks, finished only last week.

So no time to post or even lurk, but in my limited off time I did spend some time learning the intricacies of 3D printing.

But since I by chance talked with Dave Yeo a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd stop in, to say that, no, I have not dropped off the planet or been transported into an alternate reality (although some days I wonder if that would be preferable, given the state of global affairs)

I hope to be less ghost like and more visible here sometime in the New Year, but we will see. In the meantime, a fine Holiday Season to all - may all your Christmas Seasons be blessed, and may all our 2024's be a lot less chaotic than this year, and much more grounded in the name of Peace.

Best!

Mark

Mark B. Szkolnicki

4

Hardware / Problems Recovering a JFS Drive

« on: March 19, 2022, 07:32:41 pm »

Heh Guys!

Ran into a weird one here out of the blue, last weekend, related to one of my JFS formatted drives.

Doing a soft reboot, JFS started running CHKDSK on my Drive Q: on the system and reported the following:

CHKDSK* Phase 0 - Replay Journal Log
Internal Error devices.c(532):Read error 23 (CRC)
CHKDSK logredo failed (RC= -271) CHKDSK continuing
CHKDSK Phases 1 to 8 are shown (I won't type out all the standard messages shown for each phase, for the sake of brevity, as nothing unusual was reported as each phase completed)

then get the following:

JFS 0148 Unrecoverable error reading M from Q: CHKDSK CANNOT CONTINUE.

The drive is shown upon completing reboot, but is not accessible.

DRIVE Q: is a spanned JFS drive (2 partitions) on the same disk, of roughly 780 Gb total size. Another JFS partition (Drive O:) is on the same drive but is fine and functioning normally.

Was wondering if anyone has ran into this in the past, and whether there is any other fix that I may try? I've used DFSee extensively in the past and was wondering if there my be some fix I may try there, in Jan's bag of tricks.

Not too worried about losing anything as I have the same Archive partition on each of my main systems, but have a couple of things put on there in the last couple of weeks that I may want to retrieve if possible.

Best as always to the brain trust out there and a fine weekend!

M

5

Multimedia / Anyone Got ClipGrab v3.9.7 working?

« on: March 11, 2022, 10:55:01 pm »

Hi All!

I have used ClipGrab in the past, including the versions that worked under OS/2 / eCS / ArcaOS but not for awhile. So when I noted a new version available through the ANPM accessible respositories, I thought I'd download again and try it.

Through ANPM I installed ClipGrab v3.9.7-1 with all the dependencies it required under QT5 as well as other libraries which were not on one of my test systems previously. The installs seemed to go flawlessly, as I noted no errors.

Running Clipgrab, it took about 10 seconds to load. It then presented a dialog about downloading YouTube-dlp where the "Continue" button needs to be pressed in order to proceed. Pressing the button, the download did not start for about a minute, but finally the download bars appeared and when finished. the dialog disappeared.

However, going to the search tab and typing any subject at all brings up the animated search dots, but always ends with an empty screen with the default watermark "No Results Found".

Has anyone been able to use the latest version of our ClipGrab successfully and if so, were there any tricks or added dependencies required to get it working?

One thing I did note, was that every time I've started Clipgrab 3.9.7, it again attempts to download YouTube-dlp. If someone has got it working, is this normal behaviour or not?

Best of the day and weekend to all, as always!

Mark

6

Hardware / Using a LaserJet 2100m on a Print Server

« on: November 22, 2021, 10:50:22 pm »

Hi All yet again!

Clearing up the backlog on my to do list quite nicely at the moment, thanks to the help here. I'm on to yet another item where some advice would be helpful to possibly point me in the right direction.

I've had for years a LaserJet 2100m which I want to set up on a D-Link DPR-1260 Print Server. I already have an HP Color LaserJet 3500 attached and printing nicely, using CUPS but am having trouble setting up and printing to the LaserJet 2100.

Just because I was familiar with it I've set up my printers in the past using the LPD protocol. One day I plan to play around with IPP, but that's for another day, unless the solution may lie there.

The printer was originally used connected directly to one of my towers, and has an external parallel port built in. I've got a Parallel Port to USB adapter attaching the printer to the Print Server. With the printer turned on and addressing the IP address for the Print Server (192.168.1.55 on my network) I reach the print server and get the output which I attached below (Dlink Screen.JPG).

As the USB Port (#4) reports an unknown printer, I'm not sure if thats related to the age of the printer, or whether the printer is just not communicating. I was thinking of trying to ping the printer on my network, but its been quite a while since I did that - if someone can jog my memory as to what I need to enter to undertake that it would be appreciated (I assume Print Server IP address, but also need to know what syntax to use to add the Port address).

The problem may also be in putting in a correct queue name as that was originally a problem with the 3500 - once I got that correct under CUPS everything else worked perfectly.

In summary, has anyone got a LJ2100 running at the moment, or historically, especially on a print server, and what does you set-up information look like, LPD, IPP, CUPS, or otherwise.

Thanks Guys and Gals and a fine day to everyone.

Mark

7

Games / Anyone running The Battle for Wesnoth?

« on: November 15, 2021, 11:12:18 pm »

Hi All!

Hope everyone is having a good start to the week - expecting 20 cm of snow and possibly freezing rain up here in Alberta over the next day, so staying in to avoid the icy roads.

I'm on to another of my "to do" list items - setting up a number of games to run on ArcaOS.

I've currently got running Dos Games (under DOSBOX), some old Windows games, SDL Games, and Java based games, in addition to native OS/2 ones, however one game I'm having trouble setting up is The Battle for Wesnoth.

I especially want to get that running, as it is a game with tremendous play value..

I have:

1} Installed the folder Wesnoth provided in Martin's games compilation (v1.4.5 ported by Paul Smedley) in the Root directory (D:).

2) The necessary SDL files, I believe, at v1.2.15 level (These were installed to run older SDL games already)

3) The latest version of libc installed by ANPM (the instructions call for libc 0.6.6 csd3 so don't know if that may be the problem)

Running the game I get the screen which I have attached here. Trying on one of my other systems the same crash occurs.

So, was wondering if anyone has the Battle for Wesnoth running on ArcaOS v5.0.6 at the moment, and if so, how did you set it up to run successfully?

Best and a fine day to you!

Mark

8

Applications / VirtualBox and Failure to Create VirtualBoxClient COM Object

« on: November 03, 2021, 10:21:29 pm »

Good day all!

As mentioned in a previous post on another subject, I finally had some down time to address a number of hardware and software issues related to my systems, after 21 months of responding to both Covid and Forest Fire related emergency issues.

One of the items has me stumped at the moment, so I thought I'd go out to the community to see if any bright ideas present themselves that I missed. (as always the simplest problems may be totally overlooked without a second set of eyes)

I use Virtualbox v5.0.51 regularly with a number of versions of Windows installed to do a number of tasks that I can't do under ArcaOS.

My main system has had both Virtual PC 5.1 and has run Virtualbox v5.0.6 and then v5.0.51 successfully for years, and still continues to do so.

Building a new system (but with a comparable era motherboard) from the ground up about a year ago, I attempted to install VirtualBox v5.0.51 on that system in exactly the same configuration as worked successfully on my other system, only to run into the following error window on starting up VirtualBox.exe

______________

Failed to Create the VirtualBoxClient COM Object

The Application will now terminate

Callee RC: NS_ERROR_ABORT
(0x80004004}

____________

Actual window capture attached

As part of the new installation I have already:

Added the required YUM packages using ANPM
(The installation is ArcaOS v5.0.6)

yum install libc libgcc1 libcx libstdc++6 libstdc++
yum install libsupc++6 libsupc++ libgcc-fwd
yum install gettext libxml2 libxslt openssl libcurl zlib
yum install libidl libvncserver libaio SDL glib2
yum install libqt4 pthread libvpx libpng libjpeg
yum install urpo yum install expat curl mmap

Added the following to CONFIG.SYS
(in the appropriate locations based on the working Config.sys in the other system)

- A dot (.) in the LIBPATH statement in CONFIG.SYS, at the beginning.
- DEVICE=D:\Programs\VirtualBox\Bin\VBoxDrv.sys
- SET LIBCX_HIMEM=2
- VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=1536

I believe that was all that was needed previously, after disccusions at the time in this forum - I have updated all the packages on the working system regularly, so I don't think it is a problem with incompatible DLL's

Similar problems have been reported with this error message on Windows based systems, which usually involved clearing Windows registries (not applicable on ArcaOS systems) or reinstalling the VirtualBox installation, which I have already tried.

I thought it was time to see if anyone has run into this specific problem installing v5.0.51 specifically on ArcaOS in the past, as comparing my working system VBox installation and the one I installed on the new system, I'm not finding any differences.

Being a troubleshooter by nature and profession, I like solving problems - but currently I'm stumped, Guys and Gals. Any bright ideas to contribute accepted gratefully and Best as always!

Mark

9

Hardware / Using a Corsair K70 Keyboard on a KVM under ArcaOS

« on: October 19, 2021, 11:34:20 pm »

Hi All!

Its been quite a few months (21 in fact) since I had any time to stop in to the OS2world forums, to participate, as between pandemic and forest fire response its been a busy time. Hope everyone remains well in what has become a rather extraordinary time in history.

Just thought I'd drop off a tip I learned today, related to getting a Corsair K70 keyboard on a Belkin KVM working with ArcaOS.

As background, I had worn out my keyboard late last year after years of typing, and was in the market for a new one - I wanted it for both use in a professional manner (purely for typing) and for gaming (in the odd time I have for such).

As a result I came across the Corsair K70 Mk. 2, which had very high marks - it is a very well made (aluminum frame) keyboard with a rugged Gold Contact Cherry MX mechanical movement. I've always preferred mechanical keyboards to membrane, but as with all things it runs to personal preference.

It also is an extremely attractive bright back lighted keyboard, in multiple colours in a variety of patterns, which looks good whether in daylight or at night.

Purchasing the keyboard last December I attempted to hook it up to first one computer directly, and then through my KVM switches, to my ArcaOS set-ups, only to be disappointed with the fact that the keyboard did not to seem to be recognized by either the KVMs or the system, under ArcaOS, although it functioned correctly in the Windows set-up (Windows 7 Pro) when directly connected on the computer I was using for test purposes.

I had little time to troubleshoot the problem, so I was forced to use another keyboard I then purchased for use with my KVM switchs, which worked, but was certainly not the same in either style nor quality.

Returning to the problem two days ago, I finally found a solution on a couple of forums where people had reported the same problems with Corsair keyboards and KVM switches, and a link to a blog by a Simon Fredsted:

https:/simonfredsted.com/1775

It seems that Simon found that some Corsair keyboards won't work in some computer's BIOS due to gaming optimizations -- any keys you press before booting an OS will not be recognized. The same is true for access through KVM switches.

The K70 has an option which is called "BIOS mode" which may be enabled by pressing the "WinLock" key (on the K70 this is located at the top left of the keyboard as a specialty key with a Lock symbol on it) for five seconds, when the keyboard is powered, and then holding down the F1 key (so both keys are pressed) for an additional 5 seconds.

After that release the WINLOCK key - the keyboard LED's go off then back on, and the Scroll Lock LED on the keyboard should blink continuously. After a second, release the F1 key.

Using that procedure the K70 keyboard is now recognized when I boot up ArcaOS, including the colour keyboard display which I had enabled.

From Simons blog, using BIOS mode limits some of the gaming optimizations inherent to the keyboard. To turn off BIOS mode when using them under Windows, he indicates that you simply perform the procedure again - the blinking Scroll Lock LED should turn off.

I've tested exiting and re enabling BIOS mode, as well as turning the KVM off and then on (the K70 seems to retain BIOS mode until it is disabled as above, possibly because of the keyboard onboard memory)

I have not as yet tried using the keyboard directly connected to one computer, or using it for gaming purposes under windows, but thought this tip might be useful for others here who were using this model or others in the Corsair line and trying to access ArcaOS.

Best to all and a fine day to you!

Mark

10

Applications / Can't connect to Google after Update using ANPM

« on: November 27, 2019, 11:18:45 pm »

Hi All!

Its been a busy year and one half for me, especially with Forest Fire response, so haven't had much time to hang about. But I ran into a problem this morning after doing an update to ArcaOS 5.0.4 using ANPM, and thought I'd stop by.

After the update, opening SeaMonkey v2.35, I tried to connect to Google. Seamonkey looked up the site, said it had connected, then ended off with Done in the status bar and an empty window.

Was wondering if anyone else has run into this at all, after the latest updates?

I suspect if there is a problem the most likely culprits would be the update to NSPR or NSS although that's only a guess. Prior to the update I had 4.12.0-4 of NSPR installed, updated now to 4.23.0-1 and NSS at 3.23.0-4 upgraded to 3.47.0-1. Prior to the update, everything was working fine for months, no connection problems whatsoever. It may affect connecting to other websites as well, but Google was the most prominent issue I ran into today

I was trying to backout both those updates using ANPM , to see if it would solve the problem, but ran into the ANPM multiple dependencies errors, where all the files needed to be back leveled  at the same time. So I was also wondering if someone knows some trick to doing that with ANPM. You seem to be able to upgrade installing all necessary dependencies - you don't seem to have an obvious way to back out those same dependencies all at once.

Any bright ideas welcome as always. And a fine Thanksgivng tomorrow to those of you in the US or any others celebrating a holiday tomorrow!

Best!

Mark

Mark B. Szkolnicki

11

Applications / Phantom Optical Drive

« on: April 17, 2018, 08:52:24 pm »

Hi All!

Since I've had some time to hang around the forums, instead of constantly being on the road, I thought I'd bring a rather strange little problem here, that I encountered when installing ArcaOS v5.0.1, to see if anyone has encountered it and has a workaround.

ArcaOS is installed on a system with two Optical Drives - one (Drive S:) DVD and one (Drive T:) a Blu-Ray.

Since installation, the Drives folder has three Optical Drive icons - the aforementioned ones .......... and a phantom "Drive U:".

Clicking on that drive, with discs in the others, it doesn't seem to be aliasing the others, and without being able to put a disk in to a drive, I can't access the Properties menu.

The set for RESERVEDRIVELETTER=R. I suspect this is an artifact from the installation, but I've not encountered it before, installing eCS or OS/2 in the past.

Anyone ran into this one before, and found a workaround? Its a rather minor issue, but I would be interested in seeing if there's a way to do something about it.

Best!

M

12

Applications / VirtualBox v5.0.51 Testing

« on: April 09, 2018, 07:52:29 pm »

Hi All!

Thought I'd start a new topic related to testing the new VirtualBox development drop, both successes and failures.

I did some more testing on the weekend.

I have two physical optical drives in this machine (Drives S: and T:, DVD and BluRay), and was able to mount either one or the other when the Windows XP VM is active, using Drives | Optical Drives | Host Drive S: or Host Drive T:. I was able to download files, and install programs successfully using either mounted drive.

One thing I did note. After shutting down the VM, I removed the CD from one of the drives and attempted to start  up the VM again. It initially started with
the opening window, but after about 5-10 seconds later it aborted with an error window opening:

"PIIX3 cannot attach drive to Secondary Master VER_IO_NOT_READY".

I've attached a JPG of the error below.

It seems that a disk (any disk) must be in the mounted drive to restart the VM again.

I tried the ejection signal from Windows XP on the disk, while the VM was running, which was successful and then, shutting down and restarting the VM, got the same startup error.

If you are not planning to keep the disk in the drive, I found the correct sequence seems to be Drives | Optical Drives | Remove Disk From Virtual Drive, prior to closing, which clears any of the drives and ISO's that are mounted.

Don't know if that's a feature common to all versions of VirtualBox on all platforms but haven't run into that with VPC, which I'm very familiar with.

Also. as a test, created a VDI based Windows 2000 VM as I happened to have one lying around. The virtualization was extremely slow (took about 3 hours to install the OS, while I was doing other things. Again don't know if that is typical of installation on VBox or not, but worth noting.

Best to all!

Mark

13

Applications / Java program works in one partition but not the other on same machine

« on: January 15, 2017, 11:58:51 pm »

Hi all!

I was testing some of the Java programs that Joop has been linking on his site (http://joopn.home.xs4all.nl/os2ecs/indexe.htm). He has done some excellent work there, and should be congratulated, for testing and getting a lot of Java programs to run successfully on OS/2 / eCS at the moment and hopefully ArcaOS in future.

I posted here, because I've ran into an interesting issue related to two of the Java games that run successfully on eCS - BioGenesis and the Free Colonization (FreeCol) game.

I have two  standalone eCS v2.1 partitions on the machine where I've installed both games. The games are on a separate partition from either of the OS's as is the Java installation (160GA5).  I've created a CMD file for each of the games, and placed it in the directory with the respective game, and then run it from a program object on the desktop.

When I run the OS from one of the partitions, both games open and run successfully, no problem - running the OS from the other partition however, neither game opens at all, although it looks like Java has run, executing the command file, and watching the results.

As the command file is essentially running the same Java 6 installation on the same partition, I don't think the problem is with Java. Looking at the CONFIG.SYS files on both OS partitions I don't see any difference, Java wise, that would have a bearing on the issue, so was wondering if anything else within the OS may have a bearing on this. All the other Java programs I am testing work successfully using the same command files from either eCS OS partition.

The partition that is not working with those particular two Java programs was reinstalled recently, so there maybe something different there.

As I've not spent a lot of time playing with Java programs, I'm not familiar with how the current Java 6 accesses the OS, so no idea as to what may be needed or may be missing. Was just curious whether anyone else has run into this (including Joop, if your looking in)

Anyway, if anyone has any bright ideas, I'd be interested and Best!

Mark

14

Multimedia / SMTube 16.3.0 - "Unable to Retrieve the YouTube Page"

« on: August 30, 2016, 11:51:05 pm »

Hi Al!!

I finally had some additional time to test various items in the last two months, including getting SMPlayer 16.4.0 to run.

As that was highly successful I installed SMTube 16.3.0, to test access to the SMPlayer YouTube browser, and ran into a snag there.

Opening, it shows a TonVid.com window, with various avaiable Popular videos - you can also search for others.

However, clicking on any of the videos, it looks like they attempt to connect in SMPlayer and I get a "Unable to retrieve the YouTube Page"

Reading on the SMPlayer site, this seems to have been an on again off again problem with SMTube through various versions - some people have had success solving the problem supposedly installing some OpenSSL libraries while others have suggested installing Microsoft Visual Studio runtime DLL's. In one case installing a new unstable developmental version solved the problem.

With that in mind, has anyone else run into this problem  on SMTube on OS2/eCS, especially this version? Does it look as if I'm missing some additional DLL's that may need to be installed? I didn't see anything mentioned in Silvan's Read Me that came with the package.

Thanks Ladies and Gentlemen in advance and Best!

Mark

15

Applications / Yum Problems?

« on: October 20, 2014, 07:22:10 pm »

Hi All!

I was setting up a new eCS 2.2 partition on a new system late last week, and as part of the install process normally use Yum to install various additional libraries, especially for use by QT4.

This time I used the latest Bootstrap, then went on-line and typed "Yum Install Yum", and install proceeded. However, running the bootstrap console subsequently gives the following message:

Repository setup
        package os2-release-00-2.oc00.noarch is already installed
        package netlabs-rel-0.0.0-2.oc00.i386 is already installed
Testing internet connection: "yum repolist"...
Fatal Python error: Interpreter not initialized (version mismatch?)

Killed by SIGABRT
pid=0x006e ppid=0x006d tid=0x0001 slot=0x00d8 pri=0x0200 mc=0x0001
D:\USR\BIN\PYTHON.EXE
Process dumping was disabled, use DUMPPROC / PROCDUMP to enable it.

Has anyone else noticed this problem recently? Out of curiosity I also ran this on a test system, with Yum already installed previously, and noted that a number of updated files were downloaded - attempting to download any other libraries after the updated Yum install gives a similar "Killed by SIGABRT" message.

Best!

Mark