An update to the reoccuring stalling mystery of SM 2.0 that I posted in detail
earlier. After many hours of close observation of the CPU load on the individual
CPU cores on the multi-core CPU I am running on, using both the AMD Power
Monitor (which displayed individual core load and dynamic core clock speed), as
well as the Windows-XP Task Manager PERFORMANCE tab CPU activity graphs. I have
noted that whenever the SM 2.0 stalling occurs every few minutes, the CPU load /
utilization on one of the 3 cores on the processor reaches nearly full load 100%
for a number of seconds (often 10 to 20 seconds), during which time the entire
SM 2.0 suite and all its windows will freeze / stall temporarily. This
observation has been consistent all this time.
To further verify that this symptom and CPU load is contributed ENTIRELY by SM
2.0, I also ran the SYSTINTERALS PROCESS EXPLORER, which I use as a system
diagnostic tool from time to time:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
This utility confirms that the CPU load surge is contributed ENTIRELY by the
process listed as seamonkey.exe in the process list of the Process Explorer
utility, and not from any other process at all. My system is completely clean of
any virus or spyware and is closely monitored at all times. There is also no
other utility running in the background and the set up is identical to when I
was running all previous SM 1.1.1X releases.
When the CPU load surges, Process Explorer's CPU consumption reading for
seamonkey.exe surges up to 33.33% (of the entire system's available CPU power),
this basically concurs with my observation on the AMD Power Monitor utility
which indicates that one of the three cores on this CPU receives a load very
close to or at 100% load during the stalling period.
SM 2.0 TWEAKS
At this point, I am at a loss as to what possible internal function or process
inside SM 2.0 could possibly cause what appears to be a massive CPU consumption
surge at semi-regular time intervals that could possibly contribute to this.
Some internal configuration parameters within ABOUT:CONFIG have been tweaked /
tested with no significant improvement. Some of the parameters / actions I have
tweaked included:
* Disabling browser session restoration function (browser.sessionstore.enabled)
* Drastically increasing the browser session save interval
(browser.sessionstore.interval) from the default 10 seconds to 300 seconds (5
minutes)
* Editing the CRASH REPORTER initialization file CRASHREPORTER.INI so that the
Crash Reporter is disabled on start up.
* Tweaking the browser cache memory value (browser.cache.memory.capacity), a
value which was removed from the PREFERENCES window settings quite some time ago
in the Mozilla suite, before Seamonkey.
OTHER STRANGE OBSERVATIONS - SM Windows task bar button disappearance
One symptom I noticed during the stalling period is when I am scrolling through
a displayed e-mail (not in mail composition window). If stalling is occuring and
I turn my mouse wheel, the e-mail scrolling does not immediately occur during
the stalling period, and the Windows "busy" mouse pointer icon appears if I try
to scroll or simply click inside the e-mail. After the stalling period is over,
the e-mail will scroll, BUT - then the TASKBAR BUTTON for the MAIL WINDOW will
DISAPPEAR from the Windows taskbar completely.
Usually, I will have the browser window and mail window open at the same time,
so after this disappearance, I will be left ONLY with the browser window's
taskbar button on the taskbar EVEN THOUGH the mail window is still open. In
order to "restore" the mail window taskbar button, I have to flip the focus to
the browser window by hitting Ctrl-1, then flip the focus back to the mail
window by hitting Ctrl-2. At that point, the Windows taskbar button for the mail
window will reappear on the Windows taskbar.
I have observed that with SM 1.X or 1.1.XX versions, occasionally I may also
lose one of the Windows taskbar buttons for an open SM window. Most often this
happens to the mail composition window under SM 1.X because I flip back and
forth between browser, mail window and mail composition windows a lot when I use
SM, often using the Windows Alt-Tab keyboard shortcut. But with SM 2.0, this is
the first time I can consistently trigger the Windows task bar button
disappearance by simply doing something while the stalling period is occuring.
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