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OS/2 - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.19, 21:59:32

Title: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.19, 21:59:32
I got many times freezing of the WPS when surfing the Internet with eCS RC1. It happened only with Firefox, Mozilla and Seamonkey

I had the same problem with the Italian version of eCS: 1.2R

Such big problem is making me reluctant of purchasing the Software Subscription again.

Here is my Hardware:

Amd Duron 800 Mhz
1 Gbyte DDR RAM
Motherboard Asus A7N8X-X with Nvidia Nforce 2 Chipset
GeForce 4 MX Video Card
Logitech USB optical mouse

Any help will be immensly appreciated!
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: DavidG on 2007.12.19, 22:02:43
What versions of the programs are you using?  How were they installed? with the installer or extracted from zip and installed manually?
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.19, 22:09:59
I am using Firefox 2.0.0.4 (the one installed by eCS 2.0 RC1). I removed the SCSI controller 2940 UW2, but it didn't help. I don't remember the versions of Seamonkey and Mozilla. Believe me, it is a very annoying problem!

Quote from: David Graser on 2007.12.19, 22:02:43
What versions of the programs are you using?  How were they installed? with the installer or extracted from zip and installed manually?
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2007.12.19, 22:34:58
Firefox (any recent build) will do that - especially on certain pages or certain conditions, such as (but not limited to):

The only thing that I've tried that alleviates it is using an SMP machine with SMP enabled in OS/2 - and even then, there is a slight wait before OS/2 will take control away. This will also work with non-SMP - but reacts much slower (if at all).

There was a utility floating around someplace that decreased the priority of Mozilla but I have not tried it to see if it alleviates the problem (and I am not sure if it works with new builds).

Sorry I cant be of more help on this...

-Robert
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.19, 22:55:29
Perhaps is related to Java, who knows. It happened with all web sites up to now. If you know the utility's name, it would be useful.

At the moment I don't want to upgrade my pc (mainboard, processor, ram). I want to install only a faster processor (AMD Athlon 1533 Mhz).

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.12.19, 22:34:58
Firefox (any recent build) will do that - especially on certain pages or certain conditions, such as (but not limited to):

  • Waiting for gMail to load it's scripts
  • Initializing Java (v1.4.2?)
  • Laoding pages with certain Flash content in them

The only thing that I've tried that alleviates it is using an SMP machine with SMP enabled in OS/2 - and even then, there is a slight wait before OS/2 will take control away. This will also work with non-SMP - but reacts much slower (if at all).

There was a utility floating around someplace that decreased the priority of Mozilla but I have not tried it to see if it alleviates the problem (and I am not sure if it works with new builds).

Sorry I cant be of more help on this...

-Robert
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: melf on 2007.12.19, 23:22:19
That sounds annoying. I don't have the problem myself. A few things comes to mind:

1. Certain flashcontent as Robert says sometimes freeze or just shut down FF. A cure is to use "flashblock" add on and just watch the flash:es you want to watch.

2. There has been a discussion on news.ecomstation.com regarding Innotek font engine. Seems like it has been downgraded to the 2.40 version in latest releases of eCS (I don't know if RC1 is concerned, but it could be). This version is said to be known to cause freeezings. A cure is to upgrade to 2.60 beta.

3. If you don't find a solution you ought to report it as a bug (first check out existing), its just to much to tolerate.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2007.12.20, 01:02:54
Java shouldnt cause this issue unless there is a Java Plugin/app on the page you are viewing. I did just remember something else that definitely caused this issue for me (and made Firefox pretty unusable and horrendously slow). That something is various themes for Firefox - most especially in my experience the Vista/Aero ones - but various others as well.

I think I had the most success with one of the Orbit themes and a couple others. The differences ranged from the browser being horrendously slow to do anything (load a page, display a page, switch tabs, etc) - to the browser's UI (and with some themes, OS/2's GUI) becoming unusable/unresponsive.

Another issue (with Flash) is often the version of the plugin you are using - or whether something else (or another instance of Flash) has the sound card locked when a sound playing flash file is loaded. I get temporary hangs in the GUI (when FF hangs), to "permanent" hangs in both).

I've found (just recently - after having previously restarted each time) that doing something to take focus away from FF usually works after a little bit of a delay (one that exceeds the setting in OS/) - most success with CTRL-ESC/ALT-ESC combinations.

My biggest issue was on some occassions, shutting down FF or PMw-Fx would hang it (any build since at least 2.0.01). I got tired of rebooting, so madly hit CTRL-ESC and/or ALT-ESC (first tries switching to the task switcher app - ie: "Window List" and the second tries switching to a different program). After waiting 5-20 seconds, OS/2 responds with an "unknown process #____" is not responding... (and invariably with JUST an "OK" button to kill it - no cancel button). Selecting OK kills the remnants of FF, frees its memory and all is good.

Anyway, if I remember the name of the utility (NICE maybe?), I'll let you know.

I'm hopeful for a Cairo based build of FF someday soon... I truly think a lot of the issues are with the screen rendering code...
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2007.12.20, 01:05:19
The phoenity modern theme only slows down Firefox a little, atleast in my testing.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2007.12.20, 01:05:25
Quote from: melf on 2007.12.19, 23:22:19
... A cure is to upgrade to 2.60 beta.


Any chance you know where that may be available? Innotek seems to have removed everything from their web pages and FTP server... :-(

Thanks,
-Rob
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Eugene Tucker on 2007.12.20, 01:41:17
Well I hope this information will help many I had these freezes and for the life of me I could not figure it out. Well it occurred to me that I was using a Firefox skin and that it locked up every time I used Firefox regardless of the version.Well it turns out that I went back to the default Firefox theme and dropped the skin I was using for Firefox. And I have not had one lockup since.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2007.12.20, 02:11:45
You can search for the Innotek Font Runtime in whatever search engine you use and find the pages with the Innotek OS/2 offerings. They are still up, just not a part of the pages anymore.

http://www.innotek.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=44&lang=en
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2007.12.20, 02:25:06
Much thanks Saijin_Naib! :)

Will give it a try.

-Rob
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: melf on 2007.12.20, 10:18:10
Quote from: Eugene Tucker on 2007.12.20, 01:41:17
Well I hope this information will help many I had these freezes and for the life of me I could not figure it out. Well it occurred to me that I was using a Firefox skin and that it locked up every time I used Firefox regardless of the version.Well it turns out that I went back to the default Firefox theme and dropped the skin I was using for Firefox. And I have not had one lockup since.
Had forgotten that. Haven't used skins for long now and the reason was just what you mention.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.21, 20:41:21
Thank you, I got the Innotek Font Engine 2.60. Shall I install it over the current version just by double clicking on it?

I have to look for Flashblock as well.


Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2007.12.20, 02:11:45
You can search for the Innotek Font Runtime in whatever search engine you use and find the pages with the Innotek OS/2 offerings. They are still up, just not a part of the pages anymore.

http://www.innotek.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=44&lang=en
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.21, 22:53:45
A few interesting things:

I installed Flashblock and I clicked on a Flash animation to watch it and I got a system freeze. That's why I thought the problem are Flash animations!

After the reboot, I got Chekdisk of the JFS volumes, but after having loaded the SNAP driver I got the mouse's cursor stuck on the screen.

Now it is impossible to have a working system.

Quote from: melf on 2007.12.19, 23:22:19
That sounds annoying. I don't have the problem myself. A few things comes to mind:

1. Certain flashcontent as Robert says sometimes freeze or just shut down FF. A cure is to use "flashblock" add on and just watch the flash:es you want to watch.

2. There has been a discussion on news.ecomstation.com regarding Innotek font engine. Seems like it has been downgraded to the 2.40 version in latest releases of eCS (I don't know if RC1 is concerned, but it could be). This version is said to be known to cause freeezings. A cure is to upgrade to 2.60 beta.

3. If you don't find a solution you ought to report it as a bug (first check out existing), its just to much to tolerate.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2007.12.25, 22:51:16
Perhaps I am on the right path with the sory!

A person suggested me the following points:


In my opinion, the biggest issues to the stability of
eComstation are

1. the pmmerge DLL (FP4 might be better than versions that
follow);

2. the mouse driver (Amouse might be better than IBM - I do use
IBM without MULTIP.EXE);

3. the kernel (103a might be better than 104x);

4. the ACPI driver (try 3.05 but others report better results
with different versions); and

5. the winos2 subsystem (there are workarounds but most people
use defaults)

I applied the fixes for Pmmerge.dll and for Orexx.dll. Let's see how it goes.



Quote from: melf on 2007.12.19, 23:22:19
That sounds annoying. I don't have the problem myself. A few things comes to mind:

1. Certain flashcontent as Robert says sometimes freeze or just shut down FF. A cure is to use "flashblock" add on and just watch the flash:es you want to watch.

2. There has been a discussion on news.ecomstation.com regarding Innotek font engine. Seems like it has been downgraded to the 2.40 version in latest releases of eCS (I don't know if RC1 is concerned, but it could be). This version is said to be known to cause freeezings. A cure is to upgrade to 2.60 beta.

3. If you don't find a solution you ought to report it as a bug (first check out existing), its just to much to tolerate.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.26, 16:01:19
I spoke to some users and they said that the freezings are related to the TCP/IP protocol. It should be true, because they happenned only with browsers.
A person suggested me to install a proxy. I found the "dproxy-nexgen" which is very lite and is a port of Paul Smedley.
Does anybody know how to install it? The documentation doesn't explain much.

Thanks in advance. 
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2008.01.27, 18:53:56
Quote from: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.26, 16:01:19
I spoke to some users and they said that the freezings are related to the TCP/IP protocol. It should be true, because they happenned only with browsers.
A person suggested me to install a proxy. I found the "dproxy-nexgen" which is very lite and is a port of Paul Smedley.
Does anybody know how to install it? The documentation doesn't explain much.

Thanks in advance. 

Hi...

The WPS doesn't freeze due to the TCP/IP stack (as far as I have seen)... I run servers that crank out gigs a day and the WPS is always responsive (till I launch Firefox - or OO -- killing/shutting them down resolves that issue). The way the rendering code is set up for Firefox is still an issue with OS/2, and bug tickets have been out for years, but no one has managed to track down the cause of the problem the last time I checked (which is why you can watch Firefox render, render, re-render pages in OS/2, while an XP machine will be blazingly faster at it).

Of course, the servers are DominoGo 4.6.2.8, MySQL, FTPDServer, and OS/2's DNS Server... which were written for OS/2... and only DominoGo has a GUI interface - and that interface seems to run in a separate thread/process.

I have a feeling that the separation between the GUI components, and the networking components in certain Windows ports aren't as well separated... but if that's the case, it's not the TCPIP stack - but the "poor" (ie: different) design of the Windows ports. OS/2 apps (if you check the programming tutorials that come with stuff like VAC++) are supposed to process GUI messages separate from other program tasks to prevent the GUI from experiencing delays due to unprocessed messages (or some such concept)... I dont think that design method applies in the same way to Windows apps... hence issues with Windows ports... hence something with a TCPIP component could theoretically "hang" the GUI due to the app not processing it's messages in a timely fashion while waiting on some sort of TCPIP traffic.

One other thing I noticed is that with VIO apps, the GUI (well, everything) will slow down if it is displaying it's activities to the VIO window... but that is most noticable (in my experience) on the machines I have built using nVidia video cards and SNAP (as the nVidia cards dont seem to be supported very well). I've got no such issue with the ATI's I have... I have ancient ATI cards that run circles around brand new nVidia cards (on OS/2), and doing anything VIO display intensive (a directory listing like DIR /S) in a VIO window will peg the CPU (until the window is minimized or rolled into it's titlebar or covered).


-Rob
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.01.27, 19:01:25
^ Is that why pages take forever to draw? I always wondered, the more content the longer it takes. My ebay page is a KILLER in this regard. I thought that the WPS freezes were due mostly to the IFE 2.4 thats included in eCS. I just upgraded to 2.60 beta and I've been hang free in the WPS and firefox!
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.27, 21:47:04
Does eCS 2.0 RC 1 have the IFE 2.40? The last one is 2.60, isn't it?
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.01.27, 21:51:37
Yes, but they will not include 2.60 because its a beta, and until its a final release, it will not be included :\
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.27, 22:30:05
Ok, I try IFE 2.60 and I let you know!
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.28, 19:27:01
Is is possible to know which version of IFE runs on eCS 2.0 RC 1? If I wish to install version 2.60 beta, shall I remove version 2.40 before?
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.01.28, 23:58:54
All the eCS only use 2.40. You should remove 2.40 before you install 2.60
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.29, 19:27:11
Yes, you are right, it is IFE 2.40. There is the FT2_240.exe file in the folder \CID\SERVER\ECSPKG.
How can I remove IFE 2.40? Sorry for the "easy" question.

Thanks in advance!
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.01.29, 22:34:17
The way I did it was to not install it when I set up my eComStation, then simply get the 2.60 beta release from the Innotek Website.

http://www.innotek.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=44&lang=en
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.30, 23:35:55
I installed version Innotek Font Engine 2.60 beta. I am now writing from PW Firefox under eCS 2.0 RC 1. Let's see how it works!
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:06:25
So... it seems I had v2.60beta installed... but tried installing it again... machine wont boot to GUI with the file installed. Removed everything, including INI entries, reboot, runs fine (sans font support). Re-installed, hangs on GUI...

Ugh!!! Shouldn't play with a working system... and I never learn... :(

Any suggestions on how to get font support re-enabled would be greatly appreciated.

-Robert
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.01.31, 03:09:04
Have you removed all the reg keys from the regeditor as well? Other than that, I can only suggest maybe using checkini or something, maybe some entry is left over somewhere.
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:24:03
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.01.31, 03:09:04
Have you removed all the reg keys from the regeditor as well? Other than that, I can only suggest maybe using checkini or something, maybe some entry is left over somewhere.

Hi Saijin,

Yup... removed all registry keys, the ft2lib.dll and libc06b4.dll, reinstalled, hang b4 desktop loads...

It seems I may have had 2.40 running before (and archived copies of the newer DLL)... which would indicate I tried this before with no success. Anyway... I reinstalled 2.40 and that is up and running fine... so I am at a loss. I might try re-installing 2.60b and then moving the libc dll someplace that is first in the path list - maybe it is conflicting with all the other versions of libc6 installed for other stuff. It is the only copy of libc06b4.dll installed... but maybe it is conflicting with one of these?

libc06.dll
libc061.dll
libc062.dll
libc0621.dll
libc063.dll
libc0631.dll
libc0632.dll
libc0633.dll
libc06b2.dll
libc06r1.dll

Specifically maybe r1 or b2? or 6.1+? Got me... but for now I have font support again, so I will mess with it some more after I get some work done...

Thanks,
-Robert
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: djcaetano on 2008.01.31, 03:34:50
Quote from: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:24:03
Yup... removed all registry keys, the ft2lib.dll and libc06b4.dll, reinstalled, hang b4 desktop loads...

  Correct it the ugly way: boot to command line and rename ft2lib.dll. I had to do this before, but not with Innotek font engine (I am using 2.60 for a lot of time and never had any problems with it - Warp 4.52 refresh 2)... the problem was when I tried to install FreeType/2.

Quote from: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:24:03
It seems I may have had 2.40 running before (and archived copies of the newer DLL)... which would indicate I tried this before with no success. Anyway... I reinstalled 2.40 and that is up and running fine... so I am at a loss. I might try re-installing 2.60b and then moving the libc dll someplace that is first in the path list - maybe it is conflicting with all the other versions of libc6 installed for other stuff. It is the only copy of libc06b4.dll installed... but maybe it is conflicting with one of these?
libc06.dll
libc061.dll
libc062.dll
libc0621.dll
libc063.dll
libc0631.dll
libc0632.dll
libc0633.dll
libc06b2.dll
libc06r1.dll
Specifically maybe r1 or b2? or 6.1+? Got me... but for now I have font support again, so I will mess with it some more after I get some work done...

  Difficult to say. POPUPLOG.OS2 hasn't any clues?
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:43:34
Quote from: djcaetano on 2008.01.31, 03:34:50
Quote from: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:24:03
Yup... removed all registry keys, the ft2lib.dll and libc06b4.dll, reinstalled, hang b4 desktop loads...

  Correct it the ugly way: boot to command line and rename ft2lib.dll. I had to do this before, but not with Innotek font engine (I am using 2.60 for a lot of time and never had any problems with it - Warp 4.52 refresh 2)... the problem was when I tried to install FreeType/2.
That's exactly how I corrected it... then booted OK, then loaded regedit2 and removed all entries, then restarted, then tried a fresh install, then rebooted, then watched it hang at the desktop.


Quote from: djcaetano on 2008.01.31, 03:34:50
Quote from: RobertM on 2008.01.31, 03:24:03
It seems I may have had 2.40 running before (and archived copies of the newer DLL)... which would indicate I tried this before with no success. Anyway... I reinstalled 2.40 and that is up and running fine... so I am at a loss. I might try re-installing 2.60b and then moving the libc dll someplace that is first in the path list - maybe it is conflicting with all the other versions of libc6 installed for other stuff. It is the only copy of libc06b4.dll installed... but maybe it is conflicting with one of these?
libc06r.dll... (many libc06's)

Specifically maybe r1 or b2? or 6.1+? Got me... but for now I have font support again, so I will mess with it some more after I get some work done...

  Difficult to say. POPUPLOG.OS2 hasn't any clues?

Nada. The key reason I suspect one of the other ones at this point is that removing the libc06b4.dll did not resolve the WPS hang (tried that first time of multiple attempts)... leading me to believe that it still tried loading ft2lib.dll (using another version of libc06). May not be the BEST of reasons, but I'd suspect that ft2lib.dll just wouldnt load if a dll it needed was missing - hence I think/thought it may be trying another libc06* instead and hanging... the other ones are earlier in the path structure, so maybe that is the case.

-Rob
Title: Re: Freezing of the WPS
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.31, 19:29:59
After having installed Innotek Font Engine 2.60. I got 1 freezing! I would like to install a DNS proxy.
Does anybody know how to install Paul Smedley's proxy (Dproxy Nexgen). The documentation doesn't seem to be very helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Quote from: Carlo_Warp on 2008.01.30, 23:35:55
I installed version Innotek Font Engine 2.60 beta. I am now writing from PW Firefox under eCS 2.0 RC 1. Let's see how it works!

Title: Good news
Post by: Carlo_Warp on 2008.02.06, 22:01:02
After having uninstalled the Flash Player 5 the situation improved! I didn't have freezings since Saturday and this is a very great result.