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Date:	Sun, 7 Oct 2001 13:30:12 PDT
From:	"J. R. Fox" <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Re: Netscape (& other) problems

Content Type: text/plain

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Wayne Cypress wrote:

> Here are 3 manifestations of the problem: =

(My system is not tremendously different from yours, at least not in important
ways, except that my FP level is only 9. I have a recent NS 4.61, possibly
the same release.)

> 1. One obvious symptom is that Netscape takes 90+ seconds at 100% process
> or utilization to come down after clicking "exit" or the exit symbol

Haven't seen this. Sometimes NS will hang on Exit. Often, this is a Java
Console that failed to disengage. Ctrl-Alt-Del Cmdr. (my process killer,
which I used to replace the no longer supported Process Cmdr. a while back)
has always been able to kill this recalcitrant item.

> 2. I also see problems with some selected websites in that some pages do
> not seem to ever end (don't show up on the display) but rather use 70% or
> so of the processor forever (sometimes several reloads will finally get the
> page to show up).

My CPU use doesn't peg nearly that high, but I sometimes run into pages that
take forever to load, load hardly at all or only partially, and require
several re-tries to bring up. Assuming it is not a page that requires
JavaScript turned ON or cookies (my defaults for these are OFF, enabling them
only as needed, but that is the first thing I test), this is usually due to
slow net traffic or a congested site.

> 3. It is very seldom that the Netscape "stop" button is NOT enabled between
> web pages (even though "done" appears in the bar at the bottom of Netsca
> pe window).

I've had the Stop button become greyed out unexpectedly, but this is very
rare. Much more common is having the "Get Message" button become greyed out,
in the NS Email client, after a couple of failed attempts to retrieve
messages when I'm experiencing Mail Server problems.

> 4. Perhaps a side issue, not a performance issue, but sometimes get Java
> error returned from some web pages I try to access.

Must be a page built with MS Frontpage or whatever, for the MS Internet
Exploiter browser. NS 4.61 is either not up on the latest Java coding, or
very vulnerable to the non-standard tricks MS has introduced into website
design. Of course, they'd like all products other than their own *current*
ones to be incompatible.

A bit later on, you wrote:

> Wow, just had a shocker... in addition to the info I listed in my prior
> note (see below), I just found a website that is supposed to check internet
> speed: Http://www.speedus.com

> Using Netscape under Warp 4, my speed was "clocked" as from 41 to 51 kbps in
4 runs.

> Using Netscape under Windows 95, my speed was "clocked" from 95 to 104 kbps.

> Neither of those clockings were anywhere near what DSL should be

> Anyone have any ideas... is my experience normal or abnormal?

I have DSL service, and a fistfull of these speed-test sites bookmarked. They
mostly tend to disagree wildly with each other, depending on where the test
server is located (distance from you and the routing between), net traffic
conditions and time of day, etc. Which suggests to me that their reliability
is open to question. You can do a more meaningful test with large file
downloads, esp. if you maintain a dial-up connection for backup purposes, as
some of us do. Reaching and downloading from the same site both ways should
tell you a lot. I've had periods (too many and too often) where the dialup
was obviously much faster. Ergo, Pac Bell's DSL service was in the toilet
right then. What really annoys me is that I'd call their network status
recorded message, which is supposedly updated frequently, and it would never
acknowledge a problem, although if I managed to reach the correct Tech Center
and asked them to check their "virtual white board," they would finally admit
that a key router or somesuch in their network had crapped out, leaving any
users near it temporarily on a slow boat to nowhere.

Jordan

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