On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 23:20:41 -0700 From: Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 12:56:31PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:Who is responsible for Iceape and Iceweasel? I am running Debian 4.0, which came with these two applications rather than the Mozilla applications, and the two applications appear to be quite buggy and unstable.they are renamed versions of the firefox and seamonkey(?). Otherwise there is essentially no difference between them. ...Both Iceape and Iceweasel, open up "untitled windows" when trying to open web pages at all kinds of locations, and, trying to close one of these "untitled windows" when it is initially displayed, crashes the application, including all of the browser windows that it has open; a procedure has to be used, of some time later, finding the duplicate copy of the "untitled window" that the application has opened, and, closing that, will cause the "untitled window" to close. So, when these "untitled windows start opening, all that can be done, is minimising the "untitled window" and its duplicate (they open in pairs), and, again clicking on the link to get the destination that was sought when the application decided to goawry.I'm confused by this description above. The only thing I know of that causes this "untitled window" issue is when you open a .pdf or some other externally handled file while using a middle click (opening a tab). And closing them certainly doesn't crash anything. Perhaps you could provide specific instructions on how to duplicate this problem for others to try?
It just seems to happen.The number of browser windows open at the time, and, the number of tabs within each browser window, also vary.
The web addresses, or, URL's, that are involved with the unauthorised "untitld windows" being opened, vary, from addresses to which I have previously been, to addresses that I regularly visit, inclusing the two below, with such addresses being unlikely to involve malicious code, hence the problem appears significantly more likely to lay with some bug (or, possibly malicious code (?) ) within the particular web browser applications.
It recently happened while the system monitor showed memory usage of less than 50% total (out of 2GB RAM).
The "untitled windows" appear to open as pop-ups, although I have a setup configuration of the web browsers, to block pop-ups, which obviously does not work within the software.
The problem also appears to occur, apart from when I open links in either new tabs or new windows, when a tab within a window, automatically refreshes, such as the news and weather web pages at http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60034.shtml and http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/ . Then, I get multiple "untitled windows" opened, even if I am not doing anything, other than leaving browser windows displaying web pages, open.
Leaving web browser windows open, appears to be dangerous, due to the unauthorised actions performed by the software, including the opening of the unauthorised "untitled windows", and, otherwise increasing usage of preocessor and memory resources.
Whilst Netscape and Mozilla browsers appear to have become increasingly buggy, since about netscape 4.x, I do not remember having encountered this "untitled window" phenomenom, before Iceape and IceWeasel.
I do not know whether this problem is also present in Mozilla 2, or whatever it is now named, as, as previously mentioned, as it is not available as a .deb package, it is simply too complicated to install.
Previously, with Netscape, I think it was, installing using the.tar.gz packages, made a kafkaesque mess, as, as each upgrade version came out, in order to upgrade, in following the instructions, I had to go down a further directory level, to install a new version of the software, so it became a bit like a "Journey To The Centre Of The Earth". I think I got down to about seven levels of directories, under I think the bin directory, or the /usr/bin directory, before I gave up upgrading that software, as it got too complicated and messy.
I note also that, with Iceweasel, which retains records of crashed sessions, which allow for restoration at the next loading and running of the application after a crash, when restoring the crashed session, the "untitled windows" are not restored.
Unfortunately, Iceape, which allows easier use of email links within web pages, by clicking on the email addresses to open a "Compose New Message" window, with the email address, and, if included, subject fields, already completed, the same way that Netscape Communicator and the Mozilla Suite (I think it was called, before it all went to sea), operated, does not retain session information, so that, when a session crashes, all of the web pages that were open, and, the record of the web pages having been open within the session, so as to allow restoration of a crashed session, are lost, and crashed sessions canot be restored.
this is unfortunate, especially when the software is unstable, as are Iceape and Iceweasel.
Also, the two applications appear to be designed to use up all of the RAM, regardless of how much RAM is available and how many browser windows and tabs ar open, leading to crashes in the application, the windows manager, and, sometimes, the operating system.there are (or were at least) memory leaks. That appears to be improving in later versions coming down the pipe.
I think that, in this issue, is is more a matter of the web browsers performing unauthorised transactions, that require increasing amounts of processor and memory resources, by opening new browser windows without any action by the user, as one of the significant causes.
I note that the only action that I can take, when the offence occurs, is to twice minimise the offending browser windows that are opened by the application; as, as already mentioned, if I close the offending browser windows, it crashes the browser session, inclusing all browser windows open within the session, and, in Iceape, the session cannot be restored.
-- Bret Busby Armadale West Australia .............. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means." - Deep Thought, Chapter 28 of Book 1 of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy In Four Parts", written by Douglas Adams, published by Pan Books, 1992 ....................................................