IBrowse 2.3 crashes on Amiga.org!

[Argus]

Anyone have an idea what could be the problem.  I have a GVP Combo 680EC30/40MHz board (no mmu) in an A2000 with 12MB fast, 1 Chip, OS3.1 rom and a pretty basic install (MagicWB, FastExec, FBlit, MUI3..  Using an 8 color Workbench I can use IBrowse on many sites (turning of images and javascript for many of course) but no matter what I do, Amiga.org bombs the machine out.  I'm at a loss because a similar setup using a GVP Combo 68040 board works fine and almost never crashes.

[mr_a500]

Have you tried it without the FastExec and Fblit and/or without images? (you say you tried everything, so you probably have, but just asking)

I'm using IBrowse 2.3 on A500 with 68EC020 and have never had a crash on Amiga.org. I get the occasional crash when running out of memory after browsing huge pages with millions of images and javascript, but I it seems that's not your problem. Do you have the latest MUI libs?

What guru do you get?

[Argus]

Yes, it crashes even w/o Fastexec and FBlit.  I've tried w/ Javascript and images disabled and same thing.  Sometimes it shows the page then I click a link and 'boom' crash.  I'll have the check the guru number.  Funny thing is, I went on amigaworld.net, figuring the same thing would happen and was able to browse for an hour w/o crashing at all.  Must be something on amiga.org that is causing the glitch.  My motherboard is a fully modified Rev4.5 w/ 1MB Agnus hack and the GVP fastrom is version 4.1. I have the 68030 caches turned on w/ the cpu command; maybe that's the problem.

[Framiga]

try to delete the IB disk-cached files and cookies as well and try again.

[mr_a500]

Yes, that's a good idea - delete the cache (and check to make sure everything was deleted). After the first crash, a cached file may have become corrupted and may be causing crashes when IBrowse attempts to load it.

[Hyperspeed]

Today I tried IBrowse 2.3 demo version and it's telling me that it can't read it's own navigation buttons. This is despite no changes being made in the last few days and all buttons and image decoders present.

Also, when I installed the update patch the Quit IBrowse popup goes berserk if you try to press CANCEL, filling the screen with an infinite number of boxes.

When is IBrowse 2.4 out anyway, I don't think 2.3 is good enough to shell out 50 GBP for, especially since it can't properly handle HTML1.1 and other things like button images with no clickable links behind them. It's a damn good browser but it has problems (and I don't like it saving passwords to file, history lists etc.)

It's about time we got Firefox, or at least a team effort from all the Amiga browser coders...

[Argus]

Well, I think I have the answer to my problem.  I installed a little program called GVPPatch which patches calls to serial connections, in my case duart.device for the MultifaceIII card.  That, and turning off Javascript and image loading and no more crashes on Amiga.org!  I'm posting this right now on the ole girl!  I think IBrowse just pushes the old ECS chipset a bit too hard on a Rev.4 A2000, which is a bit of a hardware kludge in any case with the Agnus/Denise upgrades and 1MB chipram hack.

[xaccrocheur]

mr_a500 wrote:
(...)
I'm using IBrowse 2.3 on A500 with 68EC020
(...)

So there are such things as heroes  :elvis:

[mr_a500]

Hey, an "Elvis smilie". Thanks. (I think :inquisitive: :afro:)

Argus: I'm glad to hear you solved the problem.

[Argus]

*Update* Well, as I said, the crashing when loading images with IBrowse never went away (Guru 8000 0000D, iirc).  I suspected the lousy 68EC030 chip on the GVPCombo board.  Luckily I found a Mac reseller who sold me a couple Mac LC upgrade boards w/ 50MHz full ceramic pga 68030s on them, including heat sinks.  I swapped the 50MHz chip onto the GVP board and presto, no more crashing w/ Ibrowse!!!!

Just a tip for anyone with a similar problem, ditch that crappy plastic pack 68EC030.

[TjLaZer]

Cool!

[Hyperspeed]

Glad you gave us an update as I owe IBrowse an appology!

It couldn't find it's own icons because I had told it to look in the Ram Disk: which was of course empty (I thought it meant where to store temporary images!). Also the problems of links not working is just a limitation of the demo version (it won't open a 2nd window) as were the other probs.

I'd give IBrowse 2.3 a hearty 93% score. It really is a breath of fresh air for Amiga web surfers!

:-)

[mr_a500]

Well an update from me: after having hardly any crashes, now IBrowse is crashing almost every single day! I installed no new software and made no configuration changes. Maybe my Amiga is finally dying. :-(

When I view webpages with images now, I can only view a few pages before I run out of memory and I get loads of different crashes. I've had 80000003, 80000004, 80000005, 8000000B gurus and crashes where the screen just flashes random corrupt graphics. After using IBrowse (on the occasions I don't have a crash), huge amounts of memory are not freed, causing me to have to reboot to run anything else. I have no idea why this would start happening when it didn't happen before unless I've got some kind of hardware error. (I did virus checks too)

Damn! My Amiga was running perfectly and now I have to constantly worry about crashes.

[Argus]

@mr_500

Sounds like my problem, I was getting a lot of 8000 000D gurus even with Installer.  Nothing was very consistent however, until I finally gambled on the cpu...and hopefully have cured it...so far so good.

You probably tried this but....
Try deleting your cache, cookies and delete your global history.  If you have the preferences set to a limited amount of space, say 2MB, you probably filled the cache and that I believe can cause a program crash.  You could try tinkering around with preferences with the amount of memory you afford graphics, cache size, chip ram limits, etc.

Then again, maybe it's a problem with the 68EC020.  I noticed that the 68EC030 doesn't have all of the pins that the full version 68030 has.  I don't know if Ibrowse was tested on EC chip versions, though I suspect it should run on a bog standard A1200 with fast ram.  In any case, since the EC chip versions of the 020 and 030 are el cheapo plastic packs, shelf life is probably limited....well, ten years of fairly heavy use is asking a lot of such a cheap chip.  I've heard of them going on A1200s.  I hope this isn't your problem; maybe there is a way you can run a diagnostic on the 68EC020.  If it is bad, you could have a surface mount replacement done on that board, maybe even put a plcc socket for future replacement.  There is an A.org member (hppacito?) who bought a whole mess of these chips to make a new accelerator.  Maybe he'd sell one to you???

[mr_a500]

I delete my cache & history regularly (I follow my own advice, you see ;-) ) so that's not the problem. And I already tinkered around with Chip RAM limits and graphics memory usage. It doesn't seem to make a difference.

I think my problem is memory related. For some reason, memory is not freed and becomes horribly fragmented. After running a large program (IBrowse, YAM), the largest free block goes down to 70-80K (or worse). It never used to be this bad. I've tried programs that claim to prevent fragmentation, but they only slow down my Amiga drastically and occasionally cause crashes themselves.

I think my 68EC020 is fine. I did 3 days constant rendering this week and had no problems. (of course, after I stopped rendering, the next program I opened crashed my Amiga)

To quote a song from "The Naked Gun 2 1/2":
"...well I guess I'm just... screwed."