IBrowse 2.3 crashes on Amiga.org!

[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."

[Hyperspeed]

I've had a couple of instances where IBrowse2.3 has started draining all the RAM, don't know if that's rogue HTML or what.

I keep my cache in Ram Disk: as I never need to go back and look through it and what's the point of slowing yourself down and putting wear on your drive?

A strange problem occured with me before when I first got a 64MB SIMM. If you filled the last 4MB it would crash the machine. When I took the SIMM out, cleaned the contacts and put it back in - it worked ever since!

Tarnished contacts are the hidden evil, maybe surface mounted technology is more reliable than it's replaceable cousin!

[mr_a500]

I keep my cache in Ram Disk: as I never need to go back and look through it and what's the point of slowing yourself down and putting wear on your drive?

Well if I put my cache in Ram Disk:, I'd probably be able to view 2 pages before a crash. I've only got 8Mb!  I wish I could put more RAM in my Amiga, but 8Mb is the limit on the Viper.

I'd consider selling my left testicle to get 64Mb in my A500! (not the right one - that one is worth 128Mb ;-) )

[Argus]

Keep your body parts!  No seriously, find a CSA Derringer accelerator and you can put a 32MB simm on it.  There seem to be more of these out there than the Viper.  There are 25 and 50MHz 68030/68882 versions of this card.  Sadly, there's no harddisk interface on the card like the Viper, but you can use it with an A590, GVP or other sidecard scsi expansion, which is probably better than the Viper's ide anyway.

Speaking of your memory, is there any kind of memory test you can run on the Viper?

[Hyperspeed]

Here's a memory tester:
ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/util/misc/Amnesia12.lzh

Benchmarking:
ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/util/moni/sspeed26.lha

Any good?

I just bought a 128MB FPM and you know what the guy initially told me from OEMPCWorld?

He said "I'm going to cancel your order, Amiga is very old computer 1990 and has maximum memory of 9MB".

:-D

[mr_a500]

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!! It's getting worse! Now it's about a 100% guarantee that if I have images on, it will crash. I used to browse all the time with images on with no problem.
Recently I've been browsing with images off for speed, but now with images I'm screwed.

Another hint to this bizarre problem: I now usually get software failure popups for IBrowseNetwork. I have IBrowse configured for 4 connections and I just got 4 software failure popups for IBrowseNetwork - 2 were 80000003 and 2 were 80000004. While I was looking at those, I got a final software failure popup for IBrowse. Then my Amiga froze.

Thanks Hyperspeed for the memory test link. I've had a hard time finding one. The only program I have is Bustest and it just checks memory speed (which is fine).

He said "I'm going to cancel your order, Amiga is very old computer 1990 and has maximum memory of 9MB".

Yeah, I laughed when I saw you post that in another thread. At least the guy knew what an Amiga was. When I tried to buy a 2.5"HD for my Amiga, the guy asked me what notebook I had. When I said it wasn't for a notebook, he got all confused and became even more confused when I said it was for an Amiga. When I explained it was an '80's computer, he refused to sell me the harddrive.

[Hyperspeed]

Well it doesn't sound like a hardware fault if there's 4 failures with 4 connections.

Do you have Javascript enabled as this can really slow things down, and maybe try deselecting MiamiSSL if you have AmiSSL ticked.

If it's only just started happening could you have changed something in the TCP/IP stack or selected external datatypes for image decoding?

[mr_a500]

Javascript is not enabled and MiamiSSL is not checked. I changed nothing in the TCP/IP or IBrowse config (...or datatypes, or installed software or anything).

After my last post, I viewed a few more pages and got another crash - this time with no popups - only graphical corruption then blackout (no guru either).

I ran the Amnesia program and it says my memory is OK. I downloaded IBrowse again to reinstall the image codecs (this time the non-FPU ones), but it still crashed. I have no idea what the problem is. I can usually debug and fix Amiga problems, but with this one I just don't get it. :-(

Hopefully IBrowse 2.4 will come soon and I can start over with that.

[Hyperspeed]

Are you running it on an A500/030?

I'm wondering if this is a piggy-back style expansion as it may not be in close contact, causing errors.

Have you run SnoopDos to see if it's looking for a particular file? There's another program called Enforcer which helps in diagnosing problems but I've never used it and don't really know what use it would be.

Try removing expansions and putting them back in to see if disturbing the connections will wear off any tarnish or make a better contact.

[mr_a500]

No, I already removed and put back the Viper and made sure it was well seated.

I don't think SnoopDOS will help in this situation. It's not looking for a missing file. Otherwise no images would be displayed at all instead of displaying until memory ran out then crashing.

I think Enforcer needs an MMU (which I don't have). In fact, I think all similar diagnostic programs require an MMU (I remember searching for these a couple years ago). This is a pity because I think a program like Enforcer would help show if memory is being trashed by a buggy program. I'll check Aminet anyway. :-)

[Argus]

oops *double post*

[Argus]

Your problem sounds a lot like mine with my GVP board.  I really think that 68EC020 has a bad pin contact or is fried inside.  The sudden onset of random crashes without new software sounds like a hardware problem to me.  Mine was a little tougher to diagnose because I built the system and had the crashes from the get-go but your system was working fine until recently.