Hi-
Thanks again to the people who responded to my first UPDATE post.
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that netscape no longer
segfaults on NCD X-terms or under eXceed, and java runs to remote displays
(thanks to Bob Vickers <bobv_at_dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk> whose solution is posted below).
The bad news is that now when netscape is launched to ANY remote display (even
another Alpha workstation) it locks up during the run of a java applet, taking
99% of a cpu and only responding to SIGKILL. Example sites which trigger
this problem are
http://linux.davecentral.com/ and
http://www.premier.org/.
Each has a applet that repeatedly displays a sequence of text strings.
Netscape does NOT lock up at the same point each time. Sometimes it locks up
after the applet has been running a while (several repeats of the text). Other
times it locks up as soon as the applet begins to run. Still *other* times
it locks up when a menu item is selected. What is true in all cases is that
there is no way to exit the page. Even if the java applet appears to be
running fine, the second a user presses the mouse button or any key, netscape
locks up.
The behavior is the same whether the remote display is another Alpha workstation,
an NCD Xterm, a PC running eXceed, or even an SGI workstation. I've tried running
the Java Console, but it doesn't indicate that there are any errors in the
java applets (that is, when Netscape survives the *LOADING* of the applet).
Since the point of failure is inconsistent, it appears to be a bug rather than
a config problem.
If anybody has any more ideas on how to fix this, please let me know. I've included
the latest suggestions I received below, incase they help someone else.
Thanks again.
Toni Harbaugh-Blackford
harbaugh_at_ncifcrf.gov
================================ RESPONSES WITH SUGGESTIONS ===========================
X-Authentication-Warning: rlsaxp3.bnsc.rl.ac.uk: hiten owned process doing -bs
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 13:00:31 +0100 (BST)
From: Hitendra Patel <hiten_at_star.rl.ac.uk>
X-Sender: hiten_at_rlsaxp3.bnsc.rl.ac.uk
To: Toni Harbaugh-Blackford <harbaugh_at_ncifcrf.gov>
Subject: Re: UPDATE: java locks up netscape 4.51 and 4.6
Toni
I just installed netscape 4.08 on our Dec alpha system and has the same
problem with java locking. However what I found was running netscape from
a local disk worked fine, whereby if netscape was run via nfs mounts it
crashed or it just locks. This problem still remains outstanding and I've
advised our users to disable Java from preferences.
The other problem was that Netscape kept crashing with Java enable even
though it wasn't using any Java. I increased the stacksize to 8192 and all
seems to be working well (touch wood!!).
Hope this helps....
Hitendra Patel
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 13:24:03 +0100 (BST)
From: Bob Vickers <bobv_at_dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk>
X-Sender: bobv_at_sartre.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk
Reply-To: R.Vickers_at_dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk
To: Toni Harbaugh-Blackford <harbaugh_at_ncifcrf.gov>
Subject: Re: UPDATE: java locks up netscape 4.51 and 4.6
Toni,
I haven't seen the infinite loop you describe, but I have seen
segmentation errors when visiting Java or Javascript pages. These are
caused by two Netscape gotchas:
(1) the file $MOZILLA_HOME/java/classes/font.properties which Netscape
distribute is highly Sun-specific
(2) Netscape fails very ungracefully if it tries to use a non-existent
font from this file
If you have Digital's Java installed on your machine then replace this
file with /usr/lib/font.properties.truepointsize . This appears to work
for a wide variety of X servers.
Bob
==============================================================
Bob Vickers R.Vickers_at_dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk
Dept of Computer Science, Royal Holloway, University of London
WWW:
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/home/bobv
Phone: +44 1784 443691
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 09:27:27 -0600 (MDT)
From: Stephen Dowdy <dowdy_at_cs.colorado.edu>
To: harbaugh_at_ncifcrf.gov
Subject: Re: UPDATE: java locks up netscape 4.51 and 4.6
Toni,
> When I noticed that Netscape died 'differently' depending on whether it
> was displayed from the 8400 to an SGI workstation verses an NCD X-term,
...
> In order to eliminate the possibility of some difference between the
> two alphas, I launched Netscape from the AS1000 to an SGI workstation.
> Netscape locked up in typical fashion, taking 99% of the AS1000's CPU
> indefinitely. I tried the same thing on an NCD X-term (running CDE
> from the AS1000). Netscape segfaulted, which is the same thing that
> happened when it was launched from the AS8400.
AH! You didn't say you were running the DISPLAY on a non-alpha host..
Here's your answer!
SGI X Server is quite braindead. I have NEVER gotten netscape 4.51/ns4.6
to run from another host onto an SGI display successfully.
As for the NCD, you MUST have the CDE fonts accessible to the NCD. I have
setup a fontserver with the fonts from the Solaris distribution using the
F3bitmaps directory, which has the mappings wanted by the lame-o java,
things like:
"dt-interface*"
(w/o the "DT" fonts, you will get bus-error/segv on the NCD's w/o ANY
indication of the problem. DARN Java, it's not just netscape, running a
java applet directly gets you this same behaviour, argh)
The NCD will magically and mystically begin to work for java out of netscrape.
I believe if you setup a font server on a default Solaris box, and point your
NCD to that, that should be sufficient (i have hacked in the xfsft code to
do TrueType font service as well into my setup)
--stephen
--
Stephen Dowdy - Systems Administrator - CS Dept - Univ of Colorado, Boulder
dowdy_at_cs.colorado.edu - 303-492-6196 - http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~dowdy/
{ NO Cold Sales Calls !!! }
Received on Fri May 28 1999 - 16:21:54 NZST