Pages won't load in SeaMonkey

Using applications, configuring, problems
Message
Author
Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

Pages won't load in SeaMonkey

#1 Post by Arlish Tharng »

I have a good full hard drive install of Wary 5.3, it boots perfectly from Grub installed to the MBR, its network tests and configuration all got the seal of approval, it reports being connected but it will not finish loading sites. It will take the first steps in doing so but hangs up about half way through on a file its downloading and gets no further. Any thoughts?

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#2 Post by mikeb »

Hmm a flakey wifi card/driver tends to behave like that so I would focus on that aspect..... perhaps post some hardware details.

mike

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#3 Post by Arlish Tharng »

Mike,

Thanks for the input.

Flakey is a good term. The browser seems to connect alright, its just that the pages involved won't download thereafter. If this were happening with the other computer on the network - a Windows 2000 installation with the same 3Com NIC - I'd suspect the DSL modem or some aspect of my internet service. But the Windows computer connects and downloads the pages just fine. Now the hardware I'm using for the Linux box is dated - PII 333 processor, 256 MG Memory - but its getting recognized and there are no complaints about functionality from the network wizard. I suspect the browser, Seamonkey, that its just too much for this machine. But then again to simply die after connecting with reasonable enthusiasm, I don't know!

watchdog
Posts: 2021
Joined: Fri 28 Sep 2012, 18:04
Location: Italy

#4 Post by watchdog »

You are writing of the built-in seamonkey, I suppose. You have the the full install so I suggest to you to frugal install wary 5.3, install dbus and dbus-glib from PPM after updating lists of packages and try a more recent seamonkey in the frugal install. If it works you can install it in the full install. Try this pet:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90882

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#5 Post by mikeb »

Hmm yes it might simply be too heavy a browser for the system .... later versions suck ram and cpu cycles.

It may be worth trying something like opera10 just as a comparison. Firefox 3.6 would be of similar demands.

Otherwise it might be worth using something like wget on a known good download to establish the quality of the wifi...linux is usually ok with heavy load where windows will give out (which seems NOT to be the case for you) so need to at least rule out a poor wifi driver. Could you use ethernet cable as a test?

No good trying the online speedtests as they simply use too much flash cpu to be useful.

mike

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#6 Post by Arlish Tharng »

Mike, watchdog,

Well shut my mouth! Started looking at the network driver situation a little more exhaustively and by klutzily fiddling with the various wizards dealing with eth0 connectivity, may have stumbled into a solution. I have an old 3COM 905C-TX on this box. It was considered an excellent NIC in its day. Well the system now gives me 3Com Tornado as the driver and sure enough SeaMonkey works in a way I would have expected of a PII 333 computer: Its loads slowly but it gets there so I guess I owe Mike a thanks for targeting the driver question and Watchdog one for a suggested alternative.

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#7 Post by mikeb »

:)

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#8 Post by Arlish Tharng »

Mike,

Think I've stumbled upon the reason I was having trouble getting pages to load in SeaMonkey: I don't think the network connection wizard in Wary is saving driver selections properly. After writing about my success in getting pages to download yesterday, the problem returned after rebooting today. I solved the problem by re-installing the correct driver although I had elected to save the setting for the next boot-up before power-off. Unless I can get the wizard to work properly next time, it looks as though I'll have to keep re-installing the driver prior to each internet use, not my idea of a good time. Wary is a nice approach and right for my machine but our developer no longer works with it, I understand. If any one ever picks this thing up again two things to consider repairing are: (1) the HD install on version 5 which won't accept the legacy install of the Grub boot manager and, (2) this business in version 3 of problems with saving driver selections in the network wizard. I'd do it, but I'm a salesman :-)

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#9 Post by mikeb »

Hmm a problem that seems to crop up with the simple network setup...dougals original version which sould be in there always behaves for me.
There may still be old configs from wifi overiding too... a fresh start/save file might be a good idea.

Lucid autoconnects to ethernet...I thought wary would do that too...

mike

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#10 Post by Arlish Tharng »

Mike,

Talk about frustrated? Yup, the problem with web pages not downloading is back! Everything I've tried brings no permanent solution. I can't even get the package manager to download and install a lighter browser because the ftp site won't respond. Yet I'm told by the system that I have a good eth0 and DHCP connections. My Windows system downloads the pages at the effected sites also. As soon as I can get this up and running again - even temporarily - I'll fetch a new and lighter browser and see if that helps. But right now I'm fresh out of ideas.

User avatar
OscarTalks
Posts: 2196
Joined: Mon 06 Feb 2012, 00:58
Location: London, England

#11 Post by OscarTalks »

Do you have any swap? Your 256 MB of RAM will almost certainly be insufficient without it if you try to use a browser. If you want to try other browsers there is the latest Dillo for Wary but it is ultra-light so doesn't have features like frames or javascript and stuff. There is also a Slimboat adapted for Wary. This has more features than Dillo but is a little lighter and faster than SeaMonkey or Firefox.
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks/dillo-3.0.4-i486-w5.pet
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks/slimboat ... -wary5.pet
Oscar in England
Image

watchdog
Posts: 2021
Joined: Fri 28 Sep 2012, 18:04
Location: Italy

#12 Post by watchdog »

Do you think it's a DNS resolution problem? Try open or google's DNS. Put in a /etc/resolv.conf.head the following content for example:

Code: Select all

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220
nameserver 63.226.12.96
nameserver 72.3.208.251
and run DHCP again.

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#13 Post by mikeb »

Hmm the realtek dongle that played me up behaves better with the computer on its side lol.... but I guess then its on and off behaviour might simply have been due to poor signal strength.
I did jumpt through several hoops trying different drivers but seem to have ended up back where i started with just the physical rearrangement.

mike

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#14 Post by Arlish Tharng »

watchdog,

Help me a bit here on the DNS server business. You want me to create a /etc/resolv.conf.head file with

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220
nameserver 63.226.12.96
nameserver 72.3.208.251

as the text and place it where?

I think you may be on to something with a DNS problem. To many address not found errors. I can only manage browser service 15% of the time at this point and, frankly I'm getting sick of it.

watchdog
Posts: 2021
Joined: Fri 28 Sep 2012, 18:04
Location: Italy

#15 Post by watchdog »

Open with geany text editor (Menu-Document) a new file and paste in it that content and save as resolv.conf.head in /etc dir where is resolv.conf. Then run DHCP again. I suspect something your provider network related: try open DNS.

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#16 Post by Arlish Tharng »

watchdog

I tried this solution but could not see DNS numbers after running DHCP in network info. Was able subsequently to determine that a form of symbolic link - one that addressed itself - was the problem so renamed the file etc/resolv.conf etc/resolv.conf.old and created a new etc/resolv.conf with the name server numbers you gave me. Sure enough, the DNS numbers appeared in the network info and I am now back to where I was earlier with only the slow or strained page loading. Earlier than that all I was getting was page error after page error. So we've made some progress. But how to get the page loading to complete instead of hanging half way through? I'm beginning to think its God punishing me for my sin. :-)

watchdog
Posts: 2021
Joined: Fri 28 Sep 2012, 18:04
Location: Italy

#17 Post by watchdog »

I think the resolv.conf not correctly behaves: you have something broken in your network scripts. I'm not expert of the full install so I suggest to test in a frugal install or in a live before abandoning the problem. Resolv.conf will be overwritten at next boot with your provider's DNS if you do not use resolv.conf.head. Use Network Wizard by BK. You can test a swap file on hd to enhance ram behaviour. You can do it with:

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=/path-to/swap bs=1048576 count=500 #500Mb
mkswap /path-to/swap
swapon /path-to/swap

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#18 Post by mikeb »

Hmm going back a bit... pentium 2 333.... best system that ran on the one I had was an Nlited XP. Puppy 4.12 was okish but linux in general was poor due to a lack of a video driver.

Still appears to be wifi driver ... and since ethernet is happy resolv.conf seems unlikely to be the solution here.

Not sure what wary is like... do other things run reasonably well? Again its unlikely in linux a struggling cpu would cause wifi problems since such would be prioritised.

mike

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#19 Post by Arlish Tharng »

watchdog,

I created etc/resolv.conf.head with nameserver 4.2.2.1 and nameserver 4.2.2.4 , two which were identified by DNS Benchmark as being quicker than my ISP's DNS. I rebooted, tried to browse and got the same old same old: The site connects but won't load. I checked the settings for DNS in the Network Configuration device and get nameserver 68.94.156.1 and nameserver 68.94.157.1 , the ISP DNS numbers! Apparently etc/resolv.conf.head can't override the ISP settings! How to do this anyway?

By the way, I've got 1GB swap file, /dev/sda2. Admittedly 256MB SDRAM isn't a lot but a swap file this large ought to help to some degree, eh? The processor is a PII 333 Mhz which the fastest the motherboard supports with the last BIOS upgrade made available by NEC just before it closed down its support. Prior to that I'd been running a PII 233 Mhz on this box. With a new 30 GB hard drive on a Promise Controller I've got a dream machine by 1998 standards. :-)

mikeb,

See additional comments about etc/resolv.conf.head, swap file and hardware in reply to watchdog just above. Yes, everything else seems to run just fine. There are times when the memory limitations are clear, the mouse isn't quite as responsive, etc., but, hell, I'm willing to live with petty annoyances like that if I reliably can get on the internet. From reviewing the material online it would seem that this page loading problem with MonkeySee/MonkeyDo is endemic. But no one arrives at a workable solution either. Its too bad that Wary isn't undergoing further development. In my view the 5.3 version is the right distro for this computer: I can do a full install after setting up partitions on a zeroed out drive with GParted on System Rescue Disk; I can get Wary 5.3 to use the standard Grub Bootloader without having to resort to the DOS Grub loader which one can't get around when using 5.5 Wary. I just wish I could load pages! And its not the browser: I've tried Dillo too and its the same thing. Its somewhere in the network but where?

Arlish Tharng
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun 25 May 2014, 04:44

#20 Post by Arlish Tharng »

You're not going to believe this but, once again, the problem seems to have fixed itself. I don't know if any of the etc/resolv.conf or etc/resolve.conf.head files I created have had something to do with it but the Wary full install on my PII anachronism is running almost as well as the Windows install on my main box. I'm afraid to go off line or reboot. The network information tool shows the ISP's DNS numbers not the ones provided with .head but for some reason they are now working and quite well! Nobody sneeze or start coughing please. :-)

Post Reply