OS/2 Crash Proof?!!!
TH
Since time immemmorial, OS/2 has been touted as crash proof. But the
experience I had for the last few days seems to prove otherwise. I'm
not talking about ver 3.0 or even 2.1. I'm using ver 4.0 at this
moment.
Whenever OS/2 hangs on me, I just can't get out of it. Ctrl-Esc does
not help and also not after waiting for a few minutes. A saving grace
for ver 3.0 is that I just have to be a little more patient. I hate to
say it but Win 95 (what wih Win 3.1 baggage) is so much better in this
regard, Ctrl-Alt-Del will get me out of the offending application and I
can continue working with other programs. For OS/2, I can only reboot
(OS/2 is very responsive with Ctrl-Alt-Del though, sigh...) and I have
been doing that so many times that I'm getting sick.
Most of the time, Netscape (for OS/2) is the culprit and some other
programs that try to be funny sometimes. I did not install other
programs, OS/2 nor Win 3.1. So the OS/2 I have on my PC is virtually
plain vanilla from IBM.
Did I do anything wrong? Is there any way to easily and quickly ending
a wayward task?
Any advice appreciated.
TH
A
Neil Zampella
In message <33B7BD...@singnet.com.sg> - TH
<teck...@singnet.com.sg>Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:06:04 +0800 writes:
:> Whenever OS/2 hangs on me, I just can't get out of it. Ctrl-Esc does
:>not help and also not after waiting for a few minutes. A saving grace
:>for ver 3.0 is that I just have to be a little more patient. I hate to
:>say it but Win 95 (what wih Win 3.1 baggage) is so much better in this
:>regard, Ctrl-Alt-Del will get me out of the offending application and I
:>can continue working with other programs. For OS/2, I can only reboot
:>(OS/2 is very responsive with Ctrl-Alt-Del though, sigh...) and I have
:>been doing that so many times that I'm getting sick.
:> Did I do anything wrong? Is there any way to easily and quickly ending
:>a wayward task?
:>
:> Any advice appreciated.
:>
:>TH
Two things ... first add this line to your CONFIG.SYS
SET KILLFEATUREENABLED=ON
If you're using the WARPCENTER,this will enable the KILL feature.
You need to press and hold the <CTRL> key, then Left Click on the
'Window List' icon on the WARPCENTER. This should get you a list
of the running processes, you can then select the application to
kill.
Then in the SYSTEM object (located in the System Setup folder), find
the 'USER INTERFACE' tab, and check the "Asynchronous Focus Change"
button. Adjust the time to 15 tenths of a second or so, then
when you press <ALT-ESC> the system will sense the fact that the
program is not releasing 'focus' and should present you with a
window to kill the application.
There are some other 'User Interface' selections there that will
customize your system, the HELP button on that notebook page can
give you more info.
Lastly, there is Stardock's Process Commander which gives you a very
good way to control your system.
As far as crash proof, nothing is as long as an errant program
decides to grab 'focus' and not release it ... you didn't say what
the program was causing your problem, perhaps you could give us more
info on it.
Neil Zampella
Why do I use OS/2 ... because I like choice !!
Stefan A. Deutscher
On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:06:04 +0800, TH <teck...@singnet.com.sg> wrote:
>Since time immemmorial, OS/2 has been touted as crash proof. But the
>experience I had for the last few days seems to prove otherwise. I'm
>not talking about ver 3.0 or even 2.1. I'm using ver 4.0 at this
>moment.
Well, the term they use is 'Crash Protection', not 'Crash Proof'.
Anyway, mine crashes once in a while, too. My Warp 3 Connect (no FP) box
is up now for 65+ days though. Stefan
--
============================================================================
Stefan A. Deutscher | (+1-423-) voice fax
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville | UTK : 974-7838 974-7843
Department of Physics and Astronomy | ORNL : 574-5897 574-1118
401, A. H. Nielsen Building | home : 522-7845 522-7845
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============================================================================
Dictated with OS/2 Warp 4 VoiceType dictation. Using slrn 0.9.3.2 offline.
Greg F Walz Chojnacki
Stefan A. Deutscher (ste...@ibm.net) brightened our day by writing:
: On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:06:04 +0800, TH <teck...@singnet.com.sg> wrote:
: >Since time immemmorial, OS/2 has been touted as crash proof. But the
: >experience I had for the last few days seems to prove otherwise. I'm
: >not talking about ver 3.0 or even 2.1. I'm using ver 4.0 at this
: >moment.
A point of clarification. OS/2 is much more crash proof than you think,
despite the problems. It's often the Work Place Shell that's hung: While the
WPS preventing you from closing tasks or opening new ones, you'll find that
many are running merrily along.
As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
system is "crashed," proving that the system itself has, in fact, _not_
crashed. Another example would be an ftp download; that would probably
complete after the hang, if you gave it enough time.
I know this is small comfort when you're trying to actually _do_ things, but
bear it in mind if you have an important process running when the WPS hangs:
You may actually find, when you reboot, that some critical work got done.
I don't have enough problems to bother, but some people get relief by using
a different shell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying that you're experiencing a mighty
annoying phenomenon. but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
--
g...@csd.uwm.edu UW-Milwaukee News Services & Publications 414/229-4454
http://www.uwm.edu/News FAX:414/229-6443
TH
Thanks for the tip, I'll certainly try it.
The programs that cause the hang for my case are:
1. Netscape/2
While OS/2 still responds to Ctrl-Esc it is as good as nothing as I
can't do anything in the Window List. Trying to close a program will
return the system to the hang state and cycle repeats when I press
Ctrl-Esc again.
2. OS/2 or DOS Full screen
The programs that cause the hangs are eccentric ie sometimes run okay
and sometimes hang. I think there is a combination of factors.
Nevertheless, rebooting everytime a program misbehaves is unforgivable
for a modern OS like OS/2. It's really disappointing. Kind of sad that
a third party program is needed for such a basic feature which should
have been built into OS/2 in the first place. At least the tip that you
mentioned should be the default setting when OS/2 was shipped.
Zark
T> Most of the time, Netscape (for OS/2) is the culprit and some other
T> programs that try to be funny sometimes. I did not install other
T> programs, OS/2 nor Win 3.1. So the OS/2 I have on my PC is
virtually
T> plain vanilla from IBM.
There's your problem. Netscape. Warp is far from the culprit. Netscape
locks
up on just about every Warp System I've seen. Damnit, Netsacape, fix
it!
Robert McCharles
> 2. OS/2 or DOS Full screen
> The programs that cause the hangs are eccentric ie sometimes run okay
> and sometimes hang. I think there is a combination of factors.
That sounds like a video driver or hardware problem
to me...
...McBob
David Quinton
In message <5pb5av$f...@uwm.edu> - g...@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Greg F Walz
Chojnacki)1 Jul 1997 14:47:59 GMT writes:
:>
:>Stefan A. Deutscher (ste...@ibm.net) brightened our day by writing:
I echo your sentiments. We run OS/2 v2.10 on a PC which spends 24hrs a day,
for 3 yrs so far, answering Phone Lines. The App. is *always* running.
Whatever problems I had in other Sessions or with the Desktop, over the years
- the main App. has always stayed running 100%.
So OS/2 *is* "Crash Proof" in as much as the Sessions are totally protected
from each other!
David Quinton (<dav...@post.almac.co.uk>
<http://www.almac.co.uk/dating/dating.htm>
<http://www.BizOrg.co.uk>
Tel. +44(0)1754 871800
Fax. +44(0)1754 871799
PO Box 425 - Skegness - Lincs. - UK - PE25 2RQ
Peter Drumm
:->As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
:->You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
:->system is "crashed," proving that the system itself has, in fact, _not_
:->crashed.
This is totally meaningless. As another experiment, boot DOS and play
a music CD, then hit C-A-D to reboot. The CD will keep playing until
the drivers are reloaded. Once a CD drive is in music/play mode it
will keep playing until something tells it to stop. This is a function
of the hardware, not the OS.
pdr...@dwave.net <http://www.dwave.net/~pdrumm>
Using OS/2 Warp 4!
Wausau, WI. 44d 58m 00s N x 89d 36m 45s W
All opinions are mine alone, you go get your own!
Greg F Walz Chojnacki
Peter Drumm (pdr...@dwave.net) brightened our day by writing:
: In message <5pb5av$f...@uwm.edu> - g...@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Greg F Walz
: Chojnacki) writes:
: :->As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
: :->You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
: :->system is "crashed," proving that the system itself has, in fact, _not_
: :->crashed.
:
: This is totally meaningless. As another experiment, boot DOS and play
: a music CD, then hit C-A-D to reboot. The CD will keep playing until
: the drivers are reloaded. Once a CD drive is in music/play mode it
: will keep playing until something tells it to stop. This is a function
: of the hardware, not the OS.
Fine, try the ftp transfer, then.
Tarquelne
:>So OS/2 *is* "Crash Proof" in as much as the Sessions are totally :>protected from each other!
In the same vein, here's something to try:
I was having occasional problems (traced to the motherboard). The program
crashes were somewhat annoying. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I added
"suppresspopups=1" to my config.sys. The line suppresses the pop-up error
logs (but errors are still written up in the log file.) We'll I haven't
noticed more than a couple of program crashes since then. Everything else
hums along so nicely I don't even think about just opening up another window
and getting on with things.
Tarquelne
<os...@apk.net>
I know how God can make a rock so big He can't move it.
************************
Use the address above to reply - not the anti-spam "Reply-to" address
James Himmelman
On Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:24:42, dav...@post.almac.co.uk (David Quinton)
wrote:
> In message <5pb5av$f...@uwm.edu> - g...@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Greg F Walz
> Chojnacki)1 Jul 1997 14:47:59 GMT writes:
> :>
> :>Stefan A. Deutscher (ste...@ibm.net) brightened our day by writing:
> :>: On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:06:04 +0800, TH <teck...@singnet.com.sg> wrote:
> :>: >Since time immemmorial, OS/2 has been touted as crash proof.
Since when has OS/2 been touted as crash proof? There is no such thing
as a crash proof OS, and no one ever claimed such. OS/2 has been
touted as having crash PROTECTION, which it certainly does, although
not as robust as we sometime would hope.
Simon Thompson
In message <5pdb8h$kli$1...@darla.visi.com> - pdr...@dwave.net (Peter Drumm)2 Jul
1997 10:41:21 GMT writes:
:>
:>In message <5pb5av$f...@uwm.edu> - g...@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Greg F Walz
:>Chojnacki) writes:
:>:->As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
:>:->You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
:>:->system is "crashed," proving that the system itself has, in fact, _not_
:>:->crashed.
:>
:>This is totally meaningless. As another experiment, boot DOS and play
:>a music CD, then hit C-A-D to reboot. The CD will keep playing until
:>the drivers are reloaded. Once a CD drive is in music/play mode it
:>will keep playing until something tells it to stop. This is a function
:>of the hardware, not the OS.
I think that depends on whether you are using the direct CD to audio card
conenction, or going via the OS drivers.
+---------------------------
| Simon Thompson
| Christchurch
| New Zealand
Matt McLeod
:
:The programs that cause the hang for my case are:
:1. Netscape/2
:While OS/2 still responds to Ctrl-Esc it is as good as nothing as I
:can't do anything in the Window List. Trying to close a program will
:return the system to the hang state and cycle repeats when I press
:Ctrl-Esc again.
:2. OS/2 or DOS Full screen
:The programs that cause the hangs are eccentric ie sometimes run okay
:and sometimes hang. I think there is a combination of factors.
Ah. This one I know well. Do you have an ET4000/W32 based video
card, by any chance?
With 3.0, the W32 driver would regularly freeze the system when
returning full-screen. Not all the time, and not really predictably,
but quite regularly all the same. It got so bad that I had to use the
unaccelerated ET4000 drivers instead.
I don't know if this problem remains in the drivers shipped with Warp
4, as I got rid of that video card at the earliest opportunity.
However, I would not be suprised if the W32 drivers in 4.0 are
basically just the same as the drivers from 3.0, maybe with DIVE
support added.
:Nevertheless, rebooting everytime a program misbehaves is unforgivable
:for a modern OS like OS/2. It's really disappointing. Kind of sad that
:a third party program is needed for such a basic feature which should
:have been built into OS/2 in the first place. At least the tip that you
:mentioned should be the default setting when OS/2 was shipped.
For an OS which bundles so much stuff in the package, it's amazing how
many basic things have to be filled in by third-party apps.
Matt
Adam James Fitzpatrick
>>As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
>>You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
>>system is "crashed," proving that the system itself has, in fact, _not_
>>crashed.
>This is totally meaningless. As another experiment, boot DOS and play
>a music CD, then hit C-A-D to reboot. The CD will keep playing until
>the drivers are reloaded. Once a CD drive is in music/play mode it
>will keep playing until something tells it to stop. This is a function
>of the hardware, not the OS.
A better example: I was playing Quake (OS/2 version) today and when I tried to
switch back to the Desktop, something went wrong (the screen was black except
for the mouse pointer). Quake's music kept going, with the occasional groan
as usual. That doesn't happen when you C+A+D.
--
Adam Fitzpatrick
The nice thing about standards is that there's so many of them.
jke...@mail.nomad.net
>:>: >Since time immemmorial, OS/2 has been touted as crash proof. But the
First, Crash Proof is not possible, nor promised.
>:>A point of clarification. OS/2 is much more crash proof than you think,
>:>despite the problems. It's often the Work Place Shell that's hung: While the
Well, my experience is that if you are patient OS/2 can recover in many situations.
For example, I had a WPS crash while I was using a Windows Newsgroup mass
download program. I waited and the shell reset and the downloading windows app
was still merrily downloading. Enhancing your process kill capability with OS/2
or other utilities is a real plus.
>:>As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
>:>You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
Poor example
>
>So OS/2 *is* "Crash Proof" in as much as the Sessions are totally protected
>from each other!
This is true, but they could improve on your ability to regain control in the extreme
situations that we have all seen from one time to another.
TH
intermittent hangs, I decided enough is enough. At my suspicion and
advice of others who emailed (thanks, guys), I decided to change the
video driver. I downloaded an IBM-tested video driver for Mach-64.
Note that this is a downgrade as the one I'm using before is Enhanced
v3.1 and the downloaded version is Enhanced v3.0.
I did a little test: At ver 3.1, I run the Superprobe of Xfree-os/2.
The system freezes with a tight grip. At ver 3.0, Superprobe runs
flawlessly and was able to detect my video card.
As Superprobe is the only program that consistenly freezes with ver 3.1,
I'm not entirely sure my box has become more stable with ver 3.0. It
may take days or even weeks to find out.
John M. Kahane
On Tue, 01 Jul 1997 23:46:49 +0800, TH wrote:
:>The programs that cause the hang for my case are:
:>1. Netscape/2
:>While OS/2 still responds to Ctrl-Esc it is as good as nothing as I
:>can't do anything in the Window List. Trying to close a program will
:>return the system to the hang state and cycle repeats when I press
:>Ctrl-Esc again.
This sounds to me like it's a memory problem. Try going to
the Options, Network Preferences page, and set the memory parameters
a bit different in there. That might do the trick.
:>2. OS/2 or DOS Full screen
:>The programs that cause the hangs are eccentric ie sometimes run okay
:>and sometimes hang. I think there is a combination of factors.
This one has got me baffled. I think it may have something to
do with the settings for the OS/2 DOS commands in the config.sys
file. You might want to check that out. It could also be a problem
with your window vs. full screen side of things, or is there no
difference between the functioning of the two?
John M. Kahane
Member of Team OS/2; OS/2 user since 1991
E-mail: jka...@comnet.ca
www.comnet.ca/~jkahane
ch...@scotgate.redestb.es
On 2 Jul 1997 10:41:21 GMT, Peter Drumm <pdr...@dwave.net> wrote:
>In message <5pb5av$f...@uwm.edu> - g...@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Greg F Walz
>Chojnacki) writes:
>:->As an experiment, play a music CD while running one of the offending apps.
>:->You'll probably find that it continues to play merrily along, even while the
>:->system is "crashed," proving that the system itself has, in fact, _not_
>:->crashed.
>This is totally meaningless. As another experiment, boot DOS and play
>a music CD, then hit C-A-D to reboot. The CD will keep playing until
>the drivers are reloaded. Once a CD drive is in music/play mode it
>will keep playing until something tells it to stop. This is a function
>of the hardware, not the OS.
I'm nor sure that is 100% correct (don't get offended!!!)
1, C-A-D on _most_ modern mother boards does a hard reset. (this is a bit pedantic, but.....
2, If you use a software CD player, it will keep on playing, UNTIL the OS resets!
(pressing the play button on the physical CD Drive will keep on playing until
the big red button is pr4essed!
However my main reason for posting is my story of An unstable OS.
Since installing fp26, and (overclocking my Chip from p60 to p66!!) I've had mainy crashes
one a day, Howver recently I've dobe two things, 1, added 2x16mb chips AND removing 2x4mb chips.
Since then I've had two crashes (in 1 month!) Both when I was having seriously large file copying
AND trying to Play quake/2 <grin>
Probably it's either that more memory stresses the system less, or the old memory was abit dodgy!
At the same time I also installed fp29!
Now OS/2 is back to the pleasure (reliable!) that it was when I first opened
that big box with uggins of discs!!
Cheers
Chris
--
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Chris H. Lindley
Madrid, Espa¤a
E-mail: lindley''''''''''******'''''''''redestb.es
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