Mozilla browser slowly degrading
notbob
I'm running mozilla 1.7.5 on Slackware 10.1. I use three separate
user accounts, this one, notbob, being the primary and most used for
just about everything. I've been running 10.1 since it came out in
early 2005. It's pretty much a vanilla system, mostly stock with a
few added packages, nothing exotic. The problem is mozilla is slowly
going away.
What I mean is, the mozilla browser is slowly degrading into
uselessness. It is becoming increasingly more unstable and slowly
losing functions over time. For example, it has recently started
crashing for no apparent reason. It either freezes up and I must kill
it just it just kills itself. In the last couple days, it's begun
failing to display images on some websites. Others will not
completely load. Ebay loads less than half the homepage content then
says "done". At the rate it's going I figure it will be useless in a
couple weeks. But, that's only half the weirdness.
Most of these problems are only occuring on the one primary account.
On my other two accounts, mozilla still works just fine and is as
stable as ever. But, that's not all. This phenomena is not just this
release of slackware and this version of mozilla. This has been
happening with the identical symptoms since slackware release 8.1.
That's five different installs, 8.1, 9.0, 9.1, 10 and 10.1 and the
related releases of mozilla. Same progression, same symptoms, same
loss of functionality. The only diff is in the past I would update
sooner, just about the time mozzy started getting flakey. This is the
longest I've held out upgrading both Slack and mozzy and is also
showing the worst advance of degradation.
I'm dumbfounded. I haven't a clue what could cause this problem. It's
only mozilla browser. Konqueror works just fine as does the rest of
the mozilla suite (email, news, etc). The fact it's happened
repeatedly over 5 installs would tend to indicate hardware, but
nothing else is a problem. My system has hummed along reliably, with
this sole exception, for years. Has anyone run across a similar issue
with mozilla browser or have any advice on how to turn it around
before my mozzy is completely gone?
OH! ....433 celery on a 440BX m/b with 512M pc133 memory, 20G HDD
with 40% free, not being run as a server.
nb
Peter Potamus the Purple Hippo
future of Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
--
Peter Potamus & His Magic Flying Balloon:
http://www.toonopedia.com/potamus.htm
http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/46347-Peter_Potamus_Show.html
http://www.toonarific.com/show.php?s_search=Potamus&Button_Update=Search&show_id=2778
Please do not email me for help. Reply to the newsgroup only. Thanks
Ralph Fox
notbob wrote:
> Newsgroups: netscape.public.mozilla.unix,netscape.public.mozilla.general,netscape.public.mozilla.browser
> I posted a question on this once before with no help.
These groups are officially abandoned.
See
• http://groups.google.com/group/netscape.public.mozilla.unix/msg/f468c2994cbc8a58
• http://groups.google.com/group/netscape.public.mozilla.general/msg/23ebff7c67cb2d99
• http://groups.google.com/group/netscape.public.mozilla.browser/msg/33678c39134833f2
• http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1137840803.8769.mozilla-general%40mozilla.org
> I'll try again.
>
> I'm running mozilla 1.7.5 on Slackware 10.1.
Try news://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.support.mozilla-suite
on the news.mozilla.org news server.
J.O. Aho
> I posted a question on this once before with no help. I'll try again.
>
> I'm running mozilla 1.7.5 on Slackware 10.1.
That is a quite old version of Mozilla you have there, the latest is 1.7.13
and people should switch over to SeaMonkey 1.1. A bit off topic here, you done
security updates on that system?
> Most of these problems are only occuring on the one primary account.
> On my other two accounts, mozilla still works just fine and is as
> stable as ever.
I'm assuming you mean different users on your Slackware install and not
different profiles. This does indicate on a profile setting or user installed
plug-ins. Changes can be caused by user change of settings or "smartly crafted
sites" that takes advantage of bugs in earlier version of Mozilla.
> But, that's not all. This phenomena is not just this
> release of slackware and this version of mozilla. This has been
> happening with the identical symptoms since slackware release 8.1.
> That's five different installs, 8.1, 9.0, 9.1, 10 and 10.1 and the
> related releases of mozilla. Same progression, same symptoms, same
> loss of functionality.
This could be a fault in the Slackware, have you asked this in any slack
newsgroups or forum? I have been using Mozilla since version 0.92 on a couple
of different GNU/Linux distributions, even used nightly builds, without
experience your troubles.
> I'm dumbfounded. I haven't a clue what could cause this problem. It's
> only mozilla browser.
You can compare the settings between the different users
.mozilla/default/<random_string>/prefs.js and see if you see some really big
difference between those.
> Konqueror works just fine as does the rest of
> the mozilla suite (email, news, etc). The fact it's happened
> repeatedly over 5 installs would tend to indicate hardware, but
> nothing else is a problem.
Ii you want to check hardware problems, install memtest86++ and cpuburn, even
if those test the memory and cpu, you usually get errors if there is something
wrong on the main part of the mainboard. Smarttools are good for checking your
hard drives for faults, of course you need smart-capable HDs. Your hard drive
ain't a new one, so the years may have taken it's toll on it and it has loads
of bad sectors, which can cause corruption on files, prefs.js is saved when
you quit Mozilla.
Compiling glibc is another nice test, if you get random sigfaults, then you
know you have troubles with CPU cooling.
Hardware problems usually shows up a lot more than just on one application,
and x86 based computers have a lot more bad effects if they are under cooled,
it's not like my PowerPC which got under cooled and I could only notice that
when the CPU was under extreme load, while a x86 machine had crashed due the heat.
> My system has hummed along reliably, with
> this sole exception, for years. Has anyone run across a similar issue
> with mozilla browser or have any advice on how to turn it around
> before my mozzy is completely gone?
I would suggest you take a backup of your prefs.js once in a while and if you
notices ill effects, then replace the current version with the backup (this
you need to do while there isn't any running Mozilla).
I know it's no direct help for you, but I hope it will be somewhere to start
looking.
--
//Aho
notbob
> These groups are officially abandoned.
> See
> • http://groups.google.com/group/netscape.public.mozilla.unix/msg/f468c2994cbc8a58
> • http://groups.google.com/group/netscape.public.mozilla.general/msg/23ebff7c67cb2d99
> • http://groups.google.com/group/netscape.public.mozilla.browser/msg/33678c39134833f2
>
> • http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1137840803.8769.mozilla-general%40mozilla.org
>
Thanks for the info.
nb
Neil
>Most of these problems are only occuring on the one primary account. On my other two accounts, mozilla still works just fine and is as stable as ever.
>
There is probably corruption in your user profile - you could try
creating a new profile and migrating data across to it. Or you could
back up your profile and try removing cache, history.dat and/or
localstore.rdf to see if they're the source of the corruption.
--
Warning: May contain traces of nuts.
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
Have you done something as simple as clearing cache and increased the
number of history days retention?
--
Jay Garcia Netscape/Mozilla Champion
UFAQ - http://www.UFAQ.org
Andy Luddy
Since bit rot* is only a notional problem with older software, I'd guess
corruption in cache and/or history. Have you tried clearing one and/or
the other?
* "bit rot /n./ Also bit decay. Hypothetical disease the existence of
which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or
features will often stop working after sufficient time has passed, even
if `nothing has changed'. The theory explains that bits decay as if they
were radioactive. As time passes, the contents of a file or the code in
a program will become increasingly garbled."
from <http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/b/bitrot.html>
--
Andy Luddy
Perform appendectomy to reply
aluddy....@adelphia.net
notbob
> Have you done something as simple as clearing cache and increased the
> number of history days retention?
Yes. No help.
nb
notbob
>>
>
> Since bit rot* is only a notional problem with older software, I'd guess
> corruption in cache and/or history. Have you tried clearing one and/or
> the other?
No, but I'm going to, today. I'm going to back up and then remove the
whole .mozzila dir and then let mozzy generate a new one and see if
that helps. I suspected something similar, some form of corruption.
The thing that really blows my mind is how this has been happening
through the last several incarnations of the same OS and software.
I'm also preparing to upgrade to Slack 11 and Seamonkey. I'm overdue
anyway and have already bought 11.
nb
Darren Salt
[snip]
> These groups are officially abandoned.
[snip]
> Try news://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.support.mozilla-suite
> on the news.mozilla.org news server.
netscape.public.mozilla.* are available from my ISP's news server.
mozilla.* aren't.
Unless they become more widely available, guess where I'm staying...
--
| Darren Salt | d @ youmustbejoking,demon,co,uk | nr. Ashington, | Toon
| RISC OS, Linux | s zap,tartarus,org | Northumberland | Army
| <URL:http://www.youmustbejoking.demon.co.uk/> (PGP 2.6, GPG keys)
Don't force it; use a bigger hammer.
Ralph Fox
Darren Salt wrote:
> I demand that Ralph Fox may or may not have written...
>
> [snip]
> > These groups are officially abandoned.
> [snip]
> > Try news://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.support.mozilla-suite
> > on the news.mozilla.org news server.
>
> netscape.public.mozilla.* are available from my ISP's news server.
And there is virtually no traffic on them.
> mozilla.* aren't.
The mozilla.* hierarchy and the news server "news.mozilla.org" have
been set up like a company news server. I.e. you go to that news
server to find the mozilla.* newsgroups. The mozilla.* newsgroups
are not peered with other news servers and reproduced across thousands
of usenet news servers.
FYI it has always been similar for user support groups such as netscape.mozilla.user.unix.
TO read netscape.mozilla.user.unix you had to go to the SSL news server
secnews.netscape.com (use SSL, port 563).
> Unless they become more widely available, guess where I'm staying...
Just set up another news server "news.mozilla.org", fetch the list of
newsgroups, and subscribe.
It is your loss if you don't.
--
Cheers,
Ralph