Conference 7.286::macintosh

    Maybe I've been writing too many notes in here lately...

    I read an editorial recently...MacWeek?...that I'm having
    a hard time not agreeing with.  It basically said that
    the ugly truth is that System 7.5 is not very reliable.

    I'm not sure what the problem is, but I find that a LOT of
    times when I run the DiskFirstAid test, it fails...
    my Hard Disk is corrupted.  A LOT of times.

    Its been crashing more recently, so I ran it tonight, and
    it reported an error that it cant fix.  I dont know what that
    means...

    So...I've spent the night compressing my entire HD (like about
    a GB) and partitioning the archive into stuffit segments and
    saving them on EZ230 cartridges (almost fit on 2).  And then
    initializing the drive...and now the segments are being merged
    back to the archive to unstuff them back to my original HD.

    If it all works.

    I was getting those 'type 11' errors.  Do other people get them?

    A lot of the software we all run is not Apple...right now i'm real
    suspicious of ReadAudio 3.0...that's what it was running when
    it crapped out (I think a few times).  I may not run that for a while
    and see how it goes.  the Editorial said something about other
    TCP/IP applications causing problems.

    this may push me harder to upgrade to 7.6.  Is it any better?
    I think I'll be glad to get to Rhapsody and dump OpenTransport.
    I hope Apple and all its ISVs can clean up their act.
    bob

I don't think it's 7.5, I think it's the apps.

My most frequent Type 11 errors come during interaction with Netscape
Navigator 3.0, but next to VTstar, that's my most active app.
I suspect Navigator has a pervasive memory leak.  Since I've been doing
a lot of webbing lately, I've been exercizing that leak and crashing (or 
just hanging).  I have occasional problems with MS Word 6.0 as well.

MacOS 8.0 (nee 7.7) is reputed to fix a lot of these -11 errors by
distinguishing mong errors more carefully, and also limiting the crash
to the running app, not the whole OS.

I have no experience with 7.6, I'm waiting for summer and 8.0.

- tom]

    re: Netscape memory leak
    
    Glad I'm not the only one who's come to that conclusion.
    
    Dave

    Netscape also has a memory leak on Digital UNIX - if used long enough,
    it will grow its stack into the user space.

    that's what it looks like to me also...since I write and fix
    code all day, its frustrating not to be able to work on this
    stuff that I actually use.

    I read that the enhancements listed back about .-2, better reporting
    and responding to Type 11 erros will occur in the 7.6.1 update
    (not in 8.0 as mentioned). Hope that's the case.  I may wait to upgrade
    to 7.6 until the update comes out (about 2 weeks).  It is referred
    to as 'Ides of Buster'.  Distributed free (over the web) on a floppy
    or you can order a CD that will do a clean install.
    bob

    Netscape Navigator has also taken down my NT system at work more than
    once...

    FWIW, I had 8MB of memory and Netscape crashed a lot, I went to 12MB
    and Netscape crashed less, I went to 20MB and Netscape crashed less and
    less and then I went to 36MB and Netscape has yet to crash.
    
    If I execute specific applications after using or while using Netscpae,
    I get a crash.
    
    I'd say Netscape has a memory leak, for sure.
    
    rtt

    
    Netscape memory leak (sure there's one on Mac & WNT; I've still to
    experience a crash on Digital UNIX where the 3.0 I'm using works like
    a champ for weeks uptime) is no reason for an O/S to crash.  MacOS
    memory mgt. is just poorly designed.  It had my Macs crash so often
    last months, or freeze without even leaving the ctrl-cmd-start key
    effective, that the many reboots killed one of my disks and did no
    good to the expensive 16" and 17" my parents and myself are using.
    
    I liked OpenDOC, OpenTransport and, in a lower extend, AppleScript
    (better are itcl or Perl, imo, considering the support those ones
    get from the internet community).
    
    Talking about software engineering, CORBA is really the way to go,
    imho.  OpenDOC was a major move, that could have provided Apple with
    a leading position in the long run.  Java is no LiveObjects alternative,
    merely a complementary development tool for situations where flexibility
    and performance may be sacrificed to portability.
    
    OpenDOC was also a very exciting concept for developpers.  I bet lots
    of them will be deceived with Apple's decision to pull out the plug on
    it, and go WNT, where the O/S, development tools and environmentals are
    reliable enough, although already plethoric and moving fast forward.
    
    	-- Olivier (who just gave away his PM 7200 to his parents,
                    sold out their Centris, and forgot to renew his
                    CodeWarrior subscription, in order to move to WNT:
                    enough is enough!)

My daughter was having loads of type 11 with Netscape v3.0.
Since she upgraded to 7.5.5 with the Interrupt extensions
her Performa 6290 is working fine... In addition, she is
running MS Office 4.2 with Word 6 and Excel with no problems.


Guess I will wait on further MAC OS upgrades. Sounds like the
old adage - if it ain't broken, don't fix applies in spades here.

Gim

    BTW, I haven't seen any of these 'type 11' errors.
    Mine are always 'Type 1', and Netscape (not the OS) crashes.
    
    (NB I always run with VM on, if that matters).
    
    There is a neat little utility I picked up from somewhere called
    'MemMapper' that gives a graphical display of memory usage. If I
    watch the display, I can see Netscape grow into it's partition, 
    (currently 14MB) and can usually tell when it's going to croak.
    
    Dave

>                     <<< Note 596.291 by KANATA::TOMKINS >>>
>
>    FWIW, I had 8MB of memory and Netscape crashed a lot, I went to 12MB
>    and Netscape crashed less, I went to 20MB and Netscape crashed less and
>    less and then I went to 36MB and Netscape has yet to crash.

Did you change the preferred/minimum memory partitions in the get-info 
box, or just depend on the availablility of extra memory to act as a buffer
(if indeed the Navigator stack was extending past its proper bounds).
Do you run other apps concurrently?
I have 56MB of RAM on my system here at work, but I run about 40+MB 
of concurrent apps and OS, leaving relatively little headroom to absorb
a memory leak.

- tom]

>        <<< Note 596.294 by ACISS2::LENNIG "Dave (N8JCX), MIG, @CYO" >>>
>
>    There is a neat little utility I picked up from somewhere called
>    'MemMapper' that gives a graphical display of memory usage. If I
>    watch the display, I can see Netscape grow into it's partition, 
>    (currently 14MB) and can usually tell when it's going to croak.

Looks like a cross between the "about this Macintosh" display and the 
Memory Viewer component of Now Utilities.
The About... view tells you allocated and used, but the Now viewer
tells you where in memory the app resides.  Having both lets you 
watch how memory is being used and where collisions might occur.

- tom]

    What I like about MemMapper is it will show you what portions 
    of VM are resident in memory, as well as the 'system' areas.
    
    Dave