Mailing List Archive

Neil Conway wrote:
>
> Linux account wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > > The other day I turned Java completely off in 4.08 and it has not
> > > crashed for nearly 3 days. This is with kernel 2.1.132.
> >
> > Indeed. On 2.0.36 and 2.1.anything, I've seen Netscape eat the processor
> > and freeze with lots of those SIGALRM calls scrolling away to infinity.
> > Turn off Java and, though it hogs and hogs memory, it doesn't get into
> > this loop.
> >
> > So, may I suspect the JVM? I hear a new JVM is coming in 5.
>
> Sorry to spoil the party but I never use Java (am I paranoid or isn't it
> about as secure as a paper bag) and I have regular hangs and crashes
> (like two-three per week) on 4.06 under 2.0.3x (2.0.35 at present).
>
> I do usually have Javascript turned on, but that's about it. I use it
> for web and mail.
>
> The symptoms are either of "Bus Error" (mostly) to just burning CPU and
> doing nothing (occasionally). Maybe I should strace() it next time it
> gets stuck in a loop, but I haven't yet.
>
The SIGALRM loop happens here as well, only thing I noticed it _seems_ to
happen when one of the windows attempts a TCP connection to a site which
[.don't kill me, I have no knowledge of a TCP connection handshaking phase]
isn't quite fast in responding and netstat -tn shows the state as SYN_SENT.
Other data comes in for other windows, Recv-Q's build up, but if that TCP
connection stays in SYN_SENT there is nothing to do except kill -SEGV the
Netscape PID. Kill -TERM can at times make all windows go away but the
process stays there, so a further SEGV is needed to complete the job :(
--alessandro <asuardi@uninetcom.it> <asuardi@it.oracle.com>
Linux 2.0.36/2.2.0-pre7 glibc-2.0.7-29 gcc-2.8.1 binutils-2.9.1.0.19a
"I hate bugs which disappear just as soon as you start trying to
narrow things down." -- Stephen Tweedie
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"Robert G. 'Doc' Savage" <dsavage@peaknet.net> writes:
> This is almost certainly NOT a Linux problem.
...
> This also happens under Solaris 2.5.1. Just two weeks ago I was called in
> on a Saturday to kill a zombie Netscape 4.5 process that had brought an
> Ultra 10 workstation to its virtual knees. In a month I'll have two dozen
> of these workstations running Netscape 4.5 on a three shift 24/7 basis.
> I'm not looking forward to getting calls in the middle of the night.
Maybe this is a bit off topic, but I have also seen this to happen on
Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 2.7 almost regularly. Even more on Solaris than
on Linux, but probably because on Solaris I run much longer sessions
(i.e., until something happens to netscape and I have to kill it).
Teemu
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On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Alessandro Suardi wrote:
> Neil Conway wrote:
> The SIGALRM loop happens here as well, only thing I noticed it _seems_ to
> happen when one of the windows attempts a TCP connection to a site which
> [.don't kill me, I have no knowledge of a TCP connection handshaking phase]
> isn't quite fast in responding and netstat -tn shows the state as SYN_SENT.
The same happens on Solaris (2.5 and 2.6). There are two kinds of hangs:
if you are lucky the bastard just sleeps forever and ignores X (i.e.
doesn't notice that session is closed). Otherwise it's damn busy (load+=1)
tries to connect to site. Again, ignores X completely. It sucks since
different users leave new and new copies of this turdlet until the system
chokes.
It's not Linux-specific. From my point of view the thing is buggy beyond
repair. Anyway, it is *banned* on my boxen. Period. Use lynx, opera,
whatever. As for the cron-based, erm, solutions - sorry, the only working
one will be to remove sucker's binary, send a nastygram to luser who
brought it in and terminate account on second offence. FWIC it is an
equivalent of IRC bots. Sad that same can't be done on Suns in Uni. Sure,
dean and other big bosses don't have to *go* *and* *fscking* *reboot* the
box since it's brought to the point where it doesn't accept telnet.
Sheesh...
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Ed Cogburn said ...
> doctor@fruitbat.org wrote:
> > Ely Wilson said ...
> > > Netscape 4.x has been 'spontaneously shutting down' since as far as I can recall, on
> > > both Debian and RedHat, under 2.0 and 2.1 kernels. This is nothing kernel related,
> > > maybe indirectly if at all. This is a problem that should be taken up with Netscape
> > > (or whoever it is that manages the browser source code) since this has been a long
> > > standing problem among a great many users of all kernel versions.
> > >
> > > Maybe it uses a bad memory management scheme under Linux/Unix and it surfaces itself
> > > under Linux/X Windows. This is a posibility, but I wouldn't stick my neck out so
> > > far (on he lkml) and say it's kernel related, because tehre are MANY X apps that
> > > don't spontaneously close themselves. If it were a less centralized problem...
> > > well..
> > I find it interesting that many people have this problem with Netscape.
> > I've been running 4.51 for around 4 months (under 2.0.x) and never had it
> > hang or die. With previous releases of Netscape there was some
> First, where did you get the 4.51 version? I couldn't find it on
> ftp.netscape.com for linux. 4.5 is the only binary available for
> linux boxes.
My mistake. It's 4.5, not 4.51 (sorry for the misinformation).
> Second, how do you use NS? 80% browsing, or 80%
> email/newsgroups? Do you use multiple browser windows, or just
> one? From other discussions on other mailing lists, its *how* you
> use NS that has a lot to do with its stability.
Lets see... I typically have two or three windows open, one or two for
browsing, one for news (though lately I've been going back to using Tin).
I don't read my mail through netscape. I use elm. I'm not impressed
with any of the graphic mail readers available, let alone Netscape mail
reader. The same argument applies to news readers, so I guess recently
it's only been browsing. But in the past it's been all three. As for
the types of pages, I visit, they vary from straight HTML (text only) to
sites heavy on the java. It's a pretty good mix. My disk and memory
caches are 5Mb each, and I know I exceed that limit at least once a day.
--
Peter A. Castro (doctor@fruitbat.org) or (pcastro@us.oracle.com)
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doctor@fruitbat.org wrote:
>
> Ed Cogburn said ...
> > doctor@fruitbat.org wrote:
> > > Ely Wilson said ...
> > > > Netscape 4.x has been 'spontaneously shutting down' since as far as I can recall, on
> > > > both Debian and RedHat, under 2.0 and 2.1 kernels. This is nothing kernel related,
> > > > maybe indirectly if at all. This is a problem that should be taken up with Netscape
> > > > (or whoever it is that manages the browser source code) since this has been a long
> > > > standing problem among a great many users of all kernel versions.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe it uses a bad memory management scheme under Linux/Unix and it surfaces itself
> > > > under Linux/X Windows. This is a posibility, but I wouldn't stick my neck out so
> > > > far (on he lkml) and say it's kernel related, because tehre are MANY X apps that
> > > > don't spontaneously close themselves. If it were a less centralized problem...
> > > > well..
> > > I find it interesting that many people have this problem with Netscape.
> > > I've been running 4.51 for around 4 months (under 2.0.x) and never had it
> > > hang or die. With previous releases of Netscape there was some
> > First, where did you get the 4.51 version? I couldn't find it on
> > ftp.netscape.com for linux. 4.5 is the only binary available for
> > linux boxes.
>
> My mistake. It's 4.5, not 4.51 (sorry for the misinformation).
>
> > Second, how do you use NS? 80% browsing, or 80%
> > email/newsgroups? Do you use multiple browser windows, or just
> > one? From other discussions on other mailing lists, its *how* you
> > use NS that has a lot to do with its stability.
>
> Lets see... I typically have two or three windows open, one or two for
> browsing, one for news (though lately I've been going back to using Tin).
> I don't read my mail through netscape. I use elm. I'm not impressed
> with any of the graphic mail readers available, let alone Netscape mail
> reader. The same argument applies to news readers, so I guess recently
> it's only been browsing. But in the past it's been all three. As for
> the types of pages, I visit, they vary from straight HTML (text only) to
> sites heavy on the java. It's a pretty good mix. My disk and memory
> caches are 5Mb each, and I know I exceed that limit at least once a day.
It depends a lot on what you do with it. I can't remember the
last time the browser component ever failed on me, but I had the
email/news component hang on me yesterday. I'm in the 80%
email/news and 20% browser category.
If it were stable, I'd actually like the email/news component of
NS, but alas, its far from stable, at least on my system. I know
of no substitute, either.
--
Ed C.
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