on 4/11/01 "Jeffrey K. Bounds" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> From just up the Charles river, Mass Ave. or Memorial drive..., an MIT geek >> needs a Harvard guy to sort you out, eh? ;-) > > If that's what I need, why do I think I'm in real trouble? ;-) That's 'cuz you guys focus on trees and we see the forests! Hehehe... > >> This advice can be followed in a quick and dirty way (similar to my reply >> elsewhere to Tom K) or via new CLEAN installs. The more your system or >> application crashes the more it will crash. This is a clear case of >> System/Finder and/or iCab corruption . . . Even better, clean >> reinstall your >> complete system. BE SURE all these crashes have already damaged your system. > > Not so fast, Ho!!! ;-) > > Your Puritan Harvard roots are showing. "Clear case of corruption", "CLEAN > install", trash the impurities, etc, etc. Couldn't I just save a lot of > effort by accusing the Duo of being a witch and throwing it into the Mystic > River? ;-) (believe me, I've come close) Hehe--give it to someone in Salem and upgrade by buying a PPC based 2400 (they're running under $500 on eBay these days). Then you can use a later OS along with a later iCab or run Opera (very promising and fast but not without some irritating quirks). > > On a more serious note, my system itself isn't crashing; it's iCab, and > *only* iCab, which is quitting with Type (1,2,3) errors. Of course, once > that happens, you pretty much have to restart. Other programs don't seem > to be affected. And I've got similar behavior on two 68040's running two > different Systems (one with 7.6.1, one with 8.1). So I'm pretty skeptical > that it's a Finder or System corruption problem that's to blame. Trying to apply the KISS principle here, the problems arising (gradually and insidiously) when an application crashes, freezes, quits, etc. create (usually to inevitably) a cumulative deleterious effect on the gradual corruption of the System, Directory and/or Finder and certain related extensions during the time caches may be written to or (system) files under call. A normal shutdown allows a full updating/revision of the directory. Bombs of whatever type truncate system operations suddenly, erode system/directory integrity, thereby leading to other problems (i.e. idiosyncracies/instabilities), usually increasing in both incidence and aggravation. These may be manifested only in certain applications or extend system wide. If it is solely and always only constrained to the offending application then you are very very very lucky. (So lucky I'd bet on you winning the lottery). For example, in order to keep MSIE 5.0 reasonably stable (and able to peacefully coexist with Office'98), I've downgraded from MRJ 224 to 223, pulled many MS extensions, induced Internet First Run, reinstalled Office'98's First Run, then repeated Internet First Run. I routinely increase application ram allocation, empty or trash my disk cache (also bumped from 5mb default to 20-25mb), history and download files/preferences plus toss my System, Finder, S-Resources (and related preferences) whenever I suspect integrity is degrading. I then run Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory for good measure (I like my computers and cars to run well :-). Stability and speed are both markedly improved. I might add that I keep a fully configured (nearly) mirrored operating system on a 2nd partition and a cleanly installed OS on a backup/installer partition. Sometimes, if I'm really in a hurry online, I'll run MSIE 5, OE 502, Netscape 4.76, and Opera 5 or iCab 2.4 all simultaneously (all with memory enlarged), sometimes even to the same web page. Certain pages don't load/render properly in certain browsers and MSIE chokes on Java and some pop up windows (even with Java off). Whenever I get a freeze, I try a "force quit", open a different browser (or even another app) to occupy the (momentarily corrupted) ram space, reopen my preferred browser and then continue the session unimpeded (until it eventually collapses under aggressive surfing). The idea is to keep the space occupied in ram by each application from overflowing and bumping into another application--which can result in another bomb, freeze, quit etc. etc. That is why OSX had to come along. IMO, OS 8-9 are catastrophic for power users running a lot of extensions. I have to admit Windows surfs much better than Mac, especially when running the myriads of add-ons available that Mac users can only dream of. Nevertheless I stick (and occasionally suffer with my 2400). So, you might want to reconsider your scepticism, although System/Finder may be only (a small) part of the total problem. That's why iCab remains in perpetual beta. > > I was hoping to hear whether others have had similar problems, or whether > I'm just having some extension conflict that I've missed somehow. So far > I've heard from one lister (off-list) who suggested that I'm not alone. > > I did hear from iCab technical support (very fast!), who suggested trashing > the "iCab Preferences" file (only that file) in the iCab prefs folder, and > that seems to have improved things on the machine running 8.1. I now think > the problem on the other machine is related to using multiple monitors. > I'll post if I find any good solutions. I forgot to mention trashing browser prefs in my last post. In MSIE I toss the entire 25mb disk cache every 3-4 days, usually at the first onset of instability. > > Meanwhile, can I just send the thing to you, Sydney, for a proper > cleansing? ;-) I'll chant some voodoo witchcraft hex--that'll go a long way towards "cleansing" it--meanwhile you might try sticking some pins into it or lighting a few candles--might be a little more scientific. ;-) Seriously, I "cleanse" by rigorously executing the other posted suggestions. YMMV but try it or its equivalents (depending on the browser). You might also try: --increasing application memory allocation in ram --bumping cache memory allocation --dumping iCab browser prefs at every startup HTH --- Sidney Ho ---------- Duo/2400 List, The friendliest place on the Net! A listserv for users and fans of Mac subportables. 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