[CharlotteTheHarlot]

jaclaz, on Dec 20 2009, 02:24 PM, said:

Apart the 2009 Award you just got for the most gratuitious use of the word "sycophantic" on a technical board ...

I've had some time the last few days to dabble on Win9x and here I am in Opera 10 trying to figure out what they did to cause these interminable freezes. Most recent un-successful fix was killing the built-in spellcheck. So after you replied as above I had to go find out if I spelled it wrong! Its ok! And thanks for the award! But my real award-winning comments are reserved for emails to Opera developers. They would get auto-censored here and banned over there.

jaclaz, on Dec 20 2009, 02:24 PM, said:

...[i]This way, you will also have more time to focus on important things like supporting Opera on portable devices with a 0.01" inch screen, or no screen at all and of course to better Opera Unite, so that every moron around will be able to share easily (and illegally) everything he has on his/her PC, and this will greatly help to find a way to shut down your business for legal reasons...

Exactly right. And I can't wait til someone gets freezes/pauses on one of these (a picture from Opera website showing some cellphones and other toys they support):

jaclaz, on Dec 20 2009, 02:24 PM, said:

Heck, as soon as they managed to have a good platform, they are killing it's base for new features. :(

I just had to quote that statement. It is clear and concise and conveys exactly what I am thinking (minus the boiling anger that occurs every few minutes). Well said.

jaclaz, on Dec 20 2009, 02:24 PM, said:

... I am not a market guru like the ones that suggested that Coke and Pepsi should have a new formula and taste:
http://www.walletpop.com/specials/top-25-b...ops-of-all-time

You know one of the weird things about that is the fact that when Coke was about to change (remember that the consumers had plenty of fore-warning), people went out and hoarded the old stuff for personal consumption and because it may become a collector item, it pretty much sold out. Then, the new stuff came and most people had to try it, some again thinking it would be a collector item and probably sold out. Then the Classic comes out in replacement and sells more. It leaves you wondering if the whole thing wasn't a giant success anyway

For a while there I thought Microsoft would employ the same trick with WinXP. They certainly succeeded in getting people to buy it before the cut-off deadline. Their mistake was not re-introducing the cash-cow WinXP (probably as MCE) and offering it for sale in perpetuity. That was a real marketing blunder! Instead, they appear to have bet it all on Windows Mojave, umm I mean 7.

P.S. Reminder to all: no spell check on this post! Be kind to me.

[jaclaz]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on Dec 20 2009, 11:22 PM, said:

You know one of the weird things about that is the fact that when Coke was about to change (remember that the consumers had plenty of fore-warning), people went out and hoarded the old stuff for personal consumption and because it may become a collector item, it pretty much sold out. Then, the new stuff came and most people had to try it, some again thinking it would be a collector item and probably sold out. Then the Classic comes out in replacement and sells more. It leaves you wondering if the whole thing wasn't a giant success anyway

Real programmers....: http://uranus.chrysocome.net/coke.htm



jaclaz

[Mijzelf]

Slightly off-topic: On my EEE laptop running Xandros, the Opera drive cache also caused a problem. After some use (several weeks) Opera didn't work well anymore, strange errors, couldn't download anything due to 'disk full' while the was enough free. I solved it by reformatting the rw layer of the unionfs root.

Two weeks ago the same problems reoccurred. This time I decided to delete the diskcache (rm -rf ~/.opera/cache), and that took about 10 minutes. (On a SSD!). After that everything went fine again.

Perhaps Opera does strange things in the cache, which unionfs doesn't like, and maybe FAT/vfat doesn't like it either.

[bristols]

Opera 10.5 pre-Alpha is out. Here is the download link for the Classic installer (as opposed to the MSI one given at Opera Labs):

Opera 10.5 build 3172 Classic Installer

As a pre-Alpha, expect crashes and instability (assuming that it installs and runs at all - there have been a lot of changes under the hood since version 10.10).

Edit: oops, corrected the download link. Now it really is for Opera 10.5. Apologies - I shouldn't post here when tired.

This post has been edited by bristols: 23 December 2009 - 09:41 AM

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

to Mijzelf, triger49, fortcollins ...

What app were you using to see the 100% CPU usage? If it is SYSMON, is the Win98se or the WinME version?

to Everyone ...

Noticing on Opera 10.10.1893 that for every download I start, a new tab 'Downloads' opens. I could swear that this is new behaviour and that previously all downloads would get thrown into the already existing 'Downloads' tab. The preference setting, if any, eludes me.

EDIT: It is found in: Downloads Tab > View > Never Show When Starting Download. Thank you Dave-H. I missed that setting and that thread with the answer. Using my better judgement I shall keep my opinion of this to myself.

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 23 December 2009 - 01:14 PM

[Dave-H]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on Dec 23 2009, 04:40 PM, said:

to Mijzelf, triger49, fortcollins ...

What app were you using to see the 100% CPU usage? If it is SYSMON, is the Win98se or the WinME version?

to Everyone ...

Noticing on Opera 10.10.1893 that for every download I start, a new tab 'Downloads' opens. I could swear that this is new behaviour and that previously all downloads would get thrown into the already existing 'Downloads' tab. The preference setting, if any, eludes me.

Hope this will fix it Charlotte!
http://my.opera.com/...c.dml?id=298527
BTW Opera 10.10 seems to be working fine under Windows 98SE on my machine.
Opera's line now appears to be that they haven't consciously broken compatibility with any legacy operating systems, but they don't now guarantee that new versions will work properly under them.
I assume that means that they don't now test new versions under Windows 98 (or 95).
Cheers, Dave.

[Andrew T.]

Dave-H, on Dec 23 2009, 01:46 PM, said:

Opera's line now appears to be that they haven't consciously broken compatibility with any legacy operating systems, but they don't now guarantee that new versions will work properly under them.
I assume that means that they don't now test new versions under Windows 98 (or 95).
Cheers, Dave.

It sounds like they may be going the way of Mozilla, then. (Firefox 1.x was never officially supported with Windows 95, but ran on it anyway.)

[Prozactive]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on Dec 23 2009, 11:40 AM, said:

to Mijzelf, triger49, fortcollins ...

What app were you using to see the 100% CPU usage? If it is SYSMON, is the Win98se or the WinME version?

Well I don't know about everyone else, but when it happened to me it was very obvious b/c my laptop's CPU fan instantly came on and stayed on with Opera locked up and nonresponsive. I later verified the 100% CPU usage with System Monitor in Win98SE.

HTH

This post has been edited by Prozactive: 23 December 2009 - 02:32 PM

[Mijzelf]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on Dec 23 2009, 05:40 PM, said:

to Mijzelf, triger49, fortcollins ...

What app were you using to see the 100% CPU usage? If it is SYSMON, is the Win98se or the WinME version?

Process Explorer. What else?

[chromatic47]

Opera 10.10 Build 1893 is working fine and snappy here on 98-lited Win98se.

In case it matters, all bonus functions -- Unite, Opera Link, Widgets, Voice Navigation -- are disabled, since I don't use them. The context spell checker works fine. Also, Cache Directory4 is pointed to a custom folder in RAM (via VRAMDIR), and the cache is emptied each time Opera closes.

to CharlotteTheHarlot ... What are the differences between Sysmon ME and w98 versions? I use the w98 version basically from habit.

This post has been edited by chromatic47: 27 December 2009 - 09:17 AM

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

chromatic47, on Dec 27 2009, 10:06 AM, said:

What are the differences between Sysmon ME and w98 versions? I use the w98 version basically from habit.

I dunno. Always wondered about the tweaks to the tools between 98se->ME. They were not simply version string updates like some of the earlier versions (when you look in ExamDIFF there are many differences). I always had this gut feeling that some improvements had been integrated seeing how WinME does have better memory usage and management, but I certainly could be wrong. However, consensus seems to be that things like Defrag contain actual fixes.

Anyway I was just wondering so that I could be on the same page so to speak, and try to see the exact same thing as everyone else here.

[Dave-H]

Did you fix your multiple download tabs problem Charlotte?

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Dave-H, on Dec 27 2009, 07:00 PM, said:

Did you fix your multiple download tabs problem Charlotte?

Yup, and I thank you again Dave (see original post for an edit). Sorry 'bout that, should have replied directly. Instead I used a time machine to respond in advance to your dead-on accurate reply!

@Everyone ...

It seems they may have got one thing fixed in Opera 10 after all. There was this nasty tendency in Opera 9.xx for some random downloaded files to be defective even when the transfer tab/window pronounced the file as DONE. In the Opera 9.xx in Windows 98 thread see Posts #55 and #62 where I noted it.

Having run a few hundred files through Opera 10.10 now, I have yet to find one that wasn't completed properly. Has anyone else seen the download problem at all in Opera 10.xx?

All things considered though, I would take the once-in-a-while defective download over these random pauses/freezes!

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

This Opera freeze problem is getting downright interesting. Unless I'm mistaken, the freeze seems to be almost on a clock of multiples of six minutes (sometimes 6, sometimes 12 etc). Here is what I have manually noted in the past couple of hours (rough times eyeballed from the tray clock):

 
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:02
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:08
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:14
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:26
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:33
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:39
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:46
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:52
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 00:58
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 01:04
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 01:10
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 01:16
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 01:28
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 01:39
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 01:52
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:04
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:11
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:16
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:28
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:34
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:40
;###### VERIFIED OPERA FREEZE: 02:52 

BTW: If anyone has some knowledge of Win9x compatible Process Monitors please see this thread. With a logging utility as described in that thread, I could produce a much better list.

My current theory is that there is some scheduled housekeeping going on, this housekeeping for some strange reason places the browser into sleep. As I am poorly versed in Java/JRE programming I wonder if any members here who happen to know this topic might recognize sleep and/or scheduled housekeeping as common boilerplate practices (perhaps related to the so-called Javascript garbage collection?).

I found an old discussion that mirrors my experience (see here). That thread is from 2008-04-01 and the version was Opera 9.26 (which I remember as being perfect). Nevertheless the description matches so IMHO we are probably blaming the 10.xx branch wrongly.

EDIT: to everyone experiencing the freezes/pauses, you must read through this thread at opera. It is right on point and vividly describes the frustration. I only found that page through Google and it never turned up in all the local searches I have done over there at Opera during the past few weeks.

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 03 January 2010 - 03:02 AM

[triger49]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on Dec 23 2009, 11:40 AM, said:

to Mijzelf, triger49, fortcollins ...

What app were you using to see the 100% CPU usage? If it is SYSMON, is the Win98se or the WinME version?

Hi Charlotte;

Sorry I took so long here, holidays and sooo much good food ...fridge is just never big enough ..

Anyway, when I was testing, I first tryed Win98se sysmon (is it a memory issue)? Spotted the heavily taxed
CPU....
Next stop was Process explorer...thinking maybe I could catch the offending process ...but the system
would just become unresponsive ...so as a last ditch effort, Checked my router logs to see where the last
request came from...I think it was like 4 out 5 from someplace like adsense or some such non-sense.

To make a long story short, in the meantime....somebody was throwing away this DFI motherboard (still in the box) which was a perfect fit for this Pentium III 933 procesor I had on the shelf. (98se loves it, btw). But it allowed me
to dual boot Windows 7 RC1 ....Which also surprised me how well it ran on this machine.

But in light of all that, I never got back to testing Opera 10 yet ...and the board I did test it with is on the shelf
right now.

Jake

[BenoitRen]

I'd like to remind everyone that Java is not JavaScript, and vice versa.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

BenoitRen, on Jan 3 2010, 11:17 AM, said:

I'd like to remind everyone that Java is not JavaScript, and vice versa.

Understood.

(EDIT: strike entire paragraph, Opera currently has no dependencies on 3rd party Java/JRE whatsoever for normal operation, see next my post).

Where Javascript comes in is in the browser functionality required to process all the webpages coded by script kiddies (but don't get me started on this). Having cut my teeth on C, I am ok with Javascript.

I am seeing references to houskeeping particularly garbage collection which I assume is a practice common to Java coded apps that employs Javascript. Perhaps it is comparable to C++ destructors. Since the Garbage Collection is hardwired into the Java Console (*) I'm betting that this maintenance is tied to one or both Java/Javascript (which are joined at the hip in this example). EDIT * that is the Tools > Advanced > Java Console. If you open it you can then press the letter 'h' and a menu appears:

Commands:
----------------------------------------
c - clear console
f - run finalization
g - run garbage collection
h - help
l - list cached classloaders
m - memory usage
t - dump threads
x - clear classloader cache

(EDIT: that menu is dependent on 3rd party JRE, not seen when JRE is removed, see next post)

This is where Opera and Java and Javascript all collide. I am finding many references to this Garbage Collection along side Javascript all over the place. It looks like a memory management technique/method. In fact it is even mentioned around 2006 in MSKB 919237 You may experience slow performance when you view a Web page that uses JScript in Internet Explorer 6. This accounts for at least one update to Jscript.dll.

I'm really just casting a wide net here hoping that someone with expertise can shed some light on this.

@triger49 ... I'm now convinced that Opera (at least for me) is not pegging the CPU at all, it appears to be 0% CPU utilization. If you ever get a chance to look at this again in ProcExp, please note the CPU useage for Opera.exe and let me know if it flatlines. My testing shows that Opera is suspended, which explains why all keyboard/mouse events are cached (by the OS no doubt), all download packets bounce, and any popped up menus are frozen on-screen during the 'freeze'.

Most Process Monitors fail to segregate the individual process so that the Opera problem can be seen in isolation. See this thread.

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 04 January 2010 - 07:28 PM

[BenoitRen]

Both Java and JavaScript are languages that use their own garbage collection. But they are not related.

By the way, I didn't know Opera required the Java run-time. Does it really require it, or does it just ship with it?

[Dave-H]

BenoitRen, on Jan 4 2010, 03:06 PM, said:

Both Java and JavaScript are languages that use their own garbage collection. But they are not related.

By the way, I didn't know Opera required the Java run-time. Does it really require it, or does it just ship with it?

Opera has never needed the Sun Java Runtime to be installed, it has its own Java support built in.
I think that has always been the case, at least back to version 7.
They say that you should always remove any references to Java plugins in the plugins list (Tools>Advanced>Plug-ins), as they can cause conflicts.
You can do that by adding them to plugin-ignore.ini.

[lightning slinger]

Dave-H, on Jan 4 2010, 05:34 PM, said:

Opera has never needed the Sun Java Runtime to be installed, it has its own Java support built in.
I think that has always been the case, at least back to version 7.

Reference to the Knowledge Base in Opera support gives a different view at
http://www.opera.com...ort/kb/view/375

I have, so far as I can remember, always had Enable Java unchecked in all my years of using Opera and have never come across the need to enable it.
There again I don't have problems with Opera.
HTH