Problems with all browsers in Tahrpup

Using applications, configuring, problems
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fernan
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Problems with all browsers in Tahrpup

#1 Post by fernan »

Hello. Palemoon 27.9.4 stopped playing youtube (recently, in 2 of my 3 tahrpup machines). Firefox, no sound. Chrome, doesn't start. I don't want to install a 4th browser to keep trying.

I'd like to know if you have some web browser that just works.

Thanks !

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Flash
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#2 Post by Flash »

Which Tahrpup, exactly? I'm not familiar with Tahrpup. Is yours 32-bit or 64-bit? How do you use it? (Frugal install in USB flash drive, full install in hard disk drive, etc.)

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fabrice_035
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#3 Post by fabrice_035 »

hey,

[Distro: tahrpup 6.0.6 / 32 bits]


Youtube in :

- Firefox work fine (version Quantum 62.0.3), but you must install pulseaudio or apulse

- Slimjet [ Version 20.0.2.0 (basé sur Chromium 68.0.3440.75) (Build officiel) (32 bits) ] work fine too, he doesn't need apulse or pulseaudio.


Regard

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Mike Walsh
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#4 Post by Mike Walsh »

@ fernan:-

Which Tahrpup? (32-bit or 64-bit?)

Which version of Firefox? Which version of Chrome?

-------------------------------------

For Firefox, I'd simply install fredx181's 'portable-FF-Quantum' (pulseaudio included in the build). Find it here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112376

Follow the instructions, and install the Menu-entry .pet I supplied for it. (Needs to be in /opt for this to work.)

-------------------------------------

As for Chrome; if you're 64-bit, then use my packages from here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=107301

If 32-bit, you can get the last 32-bit Chrome that Google built for Linux (48.0.2564.116) here at my G-Drive a/c:-

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HvSYnJ ... sp=sharing

---------------------------------------

As for PaleMoon, I put together a couple of .pet packages for 28.1.0 the other day. You can find 'em here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 80#1006380

---------------------------------------

For Chrome/Firefox, uninstall whatever you already have before trying either of the above. For PaleMoon, since it's 'built-in', just install this 'over the top'; it occupies the same locations.


Hope some of that might help.


Mike. :wink:

fernan
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#5 Post by fernan »

tahrpup 6.0.5, with the updates from the upate menu item.

The only machine where Palemoon still shows Youtube videos is a full install. The other 2 machines where Palemoon stopped to play youtube (HTML5 error), are frugall installs, much newer installs, and with the "spanish" language pack (my mom's and wife's computers). I run Puppy in english, and Palemoon is working until today (with minor issues, fingers crossed)

Firefox, no audio, but that's a known "feature" of the newer firefox, and also I can't upload picts to facebook, the browser crashs when you select a file to upload.

"Apulse" shows as "already installed", and I'll not install any other sound server since I don't want to break my only computer with MPD (Music Player Daemon) up and running.

Chrome, only an old portable version works (48.0.2564.97) with the annoying "your browser is too old" "it's not safe" "update for a better experience" messages all the time

I'll try Slimjet, seems many sites "prefer" you use a Chrome based browser. Where should I get it? Puppy package manager, or some PET from a web server?

fernan
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#6 Post by fernan »

I forgot ! 32 bits !! When I tried 64 bits, more problems, more software not working, so I stay with 32 bits

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mikeslr
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#7 Post by mikeslr »

fernan wrote:... Firefox, no audio, but that's a known "feature" of the newer firefox, and also I can't upload picts to facebook, the browser crashs when you select a file to upload.

"Apulse" shows as "already installed", and I'll not install any other sound server since I don't want to break my only computer with MPD (Music Player Daemon) up and running...
As Mike Walsh said, "For Firefox, I'd simply install fredx181's 'portable-FF-Quantum' (pulseaudio* included in the build). Find it here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112376"

Note: This version is portable with pulseaudio* included in the build. It uses the builtin version. The builtin version does not overwrite any other version you may have on your system which other version continues to be used by applications requiring them.

Regarding facebook -- I've no knowledge. But I wonder if a work-around would be to upload to some other host (google-photos, imgur, flickr?) than import into facebook. I'm guessing, but it may be that your computer's resources (RAM, CPU) may not be sufficient to accomplish direct uploads to facebook. See the posts here: https://forums.windowscentral.com/ask-d ... k-com.html

* Actually, if my flakey memory has not lead me astray, fredx181 recently explained that the builtin "apulse" is not pulse-audio, but rather a module which enables firefox to substitute Puppy's builtin alsa for the pulse-audio firefox expects.

fernan
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#8 Post by fernan »

Thanks. The Firefox linked seems to work. I didn't try to upload images, but the problem is related to the dialog box I think, not Ram, perhaps some gtk library. Anyway I'll try to upload picts with this new version later today.

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mikeslr
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Iron 63 for Tahrpup

#9 Post by mikeslr »

Hi fernan,

Just booted into Tahrpup 6.0.6 [a somewhat updated 6.0.5 you'll find here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 810#982810] and discovered that I have OscarTalk's Iron 63 running on it. You can find both an Iron pet and SFS here: https://yadi.sk/d/_S5b4g7tpcyZn, I'm posting from it now with a YouTube video playing, with sound, in the background.

An examination of PPM indicates that I haven't installed anything --such as gtk3 or apulse-- which might relate to it. Neither does a review of the applications I used to update it from 6.0.5. So you should not have any problem running it in Tahrpup 6.0.5.

I don't use facebook. But if its "fussy" about which browsers are acceptable, you might want to install a User-Agent-Switcher, by which you could tell facebook that you're using Chrome or firefox.

fernan
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#10 Post by fernan »

Well, just 2 hours using the fresh install of Firefox:
Firefox had a problem and crashed. We’ll try to restore your tabs and windows when it restarts.

To help us diagnose and fix the problem, you can send us a crash report.
It seems the Internet became like this. It's very frustrating, but I don't see a solution. It seems that a browser that "just works" doesn't exist anymore, at least in Tahrpup. I don't have another OS at hand to try, but I remember some years ago it wasn't like this...

I'll keep trying different browsers, and searching the web for solutions.

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mikeslr
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#11 Post by mikeslr »

"Well, just 2 hours using the fresh install of Firefox:
Quote:
Firefox had a problem and crashed"

The graphic rich content website feel they must offer is also RAM demanding. It doesn't help that Puppies, by default, are designed to do everything in RAM. In order to avoid having to retransmit content, websites store content on your computer as "cache". By default, you'll find firefox-and-clones caches in /root/.cache --note the "dot" signifying a hidden file. Depending how old your chrome-or-clone browser is, its cache may be there, in /root/spot/.cache or in /home/spot/.cache. By default, under Puppies merge-file-system, all those locations are in RAM. When your RAM is exhausted, crashes occur.

Obviously, industry expects you to buy and have many GBs of RAM and/or to use a "Unitary" operating system which stores cache on your drive.

I located firefox-quantum on /mnt/home. Being portable, it's designed to store its cache in its own folder. Consequently, on my system its cache is not in RAM.

There's a really nice extension available for Chrome-and-clones named "History Eraser". It has different settings. One set you can use will close all open tabs, clear cache, then reopen the tabs.

See this post for instructions on how to change Puppies' default system, including its handling of cache, in order to keep as much RAM as possible for actual work. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 066#974066

Not to say that any of the above will solve the problem. But, it might help.

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Mike Walsh
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#12 Post by Mike Walsh »

@ fernan:-

Following on from what Mike says above, I suspect the problem's locally; either with your hardware, or more likely with the way you have your browser preferences set.

Couple of questions; nobody's asked this yet.... How much RAM d'you have?

Secondly.....have you ever set up your browser's cache limit? We'll concentrate on FF-Quantum-portable here for now.

I suspect that

a) You don't have that much RAM available, and
b) Quantum's default cache settings haven't been touched.

Scenario:-

Laptop with 1 GB RAM, running Tahrpup and an up-to-date browser (in this case, Quantum).

Tahrpup needs minimum 512 MB RAM.
Quantum will use around 250-300 MB when running.
The default cache setting is 350 MB.....which by this time, is probably full. (Doesn't take long. A couple of hours browsing will easily fill it...)

You're already up to between 1.1-1.15 GB.....which is more than you have available. Predictably, the browser crashes (which, as Mike says, is down to Pup's mode of operation. Makes for a very responsive OS, but it does pre-suppose you have plenty of RAM to play with.)

----------------------------------------------------------
fernan wrote:It seems the Internet became like this. It's very frustrating, but I don't see a solution. It seems that a browser that "just works" doesn't exist anymore, at least in Tahrpup. I don't have another OS at hand to try, but I remember some years ago it wasn't like this.
No, you're right. Puppies were smaller. Browsers didn't use as much RAM. The amount of code in a single web-page was a hell of a lot less than it is nowadays.

If you're still using the same hardware, the whole shebang is now using easily 50-60% more RAM than it used to. Mike's been saying this about browsers & web-sites for some time now, and I absolutely agree with him.

Software & hardware are inextricably linked together. Hardware manufacturers try to develop equipment that will have capabilities to spare, when dealing with any possible scenario. More powerful CPUs; more RAM; better graphics cards; bigger drives.

Developers see all this extra RAM & capacity, and think 'Oooh! All that extra to play with....let's make use of it. I'm gonna add this.....and this......and that.....and this....and' (you get the picture). Whatever capacity hardware manufacturers make available, software developers will find a way to use. Makes for very lazy coding, too.

So Joe Public starts moaning that he now needs a more powerful machine. That's OK. More money for the hardware manufacturers, and up go prices again. The circle goes round, and round, and round, year on year.

(And it's never ending, too.....)

----------------------------------------------------------

In the case of Fred's Quantum-portable, the simplest solution is to stick it on a flash drive.....and run it from there. This is totally practical the way it's been put together.

Quantum will run in RAM.....but your cache will remain on the flash drive.

That's what I'd do.


Mike. :wink:

fernan
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#13 Post by fernan »

I have 3 different computers with tahrpup, all 3 old hardware, 2 and 3 GB Ram, and problems are in all 3 machines. My main computer, the older puppy, the only one that is a full installl, the only one that plays youtube videos in Palemoon (I don't know why, the other 2 computers, fresher puppies almost "brand new" installs, stopped playing youtube in Palemoon, it worked OK one month ago), is 2 Gb ram, and the problems are: Firefox, no sound and crash every time I try to upload a picture to Facebook among other sites.

I didn't touch any preferences, or cache preferences, I was expecting a web browser that works from scratch. My Firefox is installed outside the root folder, at /mnt/home/firefox32

Palemoon gives me errors while playing music from Deezer.com, the music stops I think everytime an AD wants to get into the playlist. But, Firefox doesn't have sound, so I can't use Deezer.com. Also, Facebook is very slow in this browser. In Firefox it runs better, but it crashes, So I use Firefox for browsing, and open Palemoon to updload a picture, and close it again and continue using Firefox, until I need sound, so I close it again and try if Palemoon works with that video, what sometimes doesn't work.

Palemoon doesn't play "Netflix", so I need another browser, but Firefox doesn't have sound, OK, I installed the old portable Chrome, it plays Netflix and Youtube, but all the time I receive signs and even e-mails that I'm using an old browser, unsafe, better experience, and all that #&%&%$/&. From the 3 browsers, the older Chrome has video and sound (what I don't have with Palemoon and Firefox)

I agree about the lazy coding. I remember with 48Kb of ram I had a computer playing video games (CZ Spectrum), and now a single Icon uses more than that, and you need at least 8GB of ram to play the same "Minesweeper" you played with Windows95.

I really don't want to uninstall my OS and install everything from scratch, since I don't see this will be a solution. I have a tahrpup recentrly installed, frugal, and it has problems with the browsers too.

What I could try is a newer session, with different name, and install just one web browser, and start installing all the needed dependencies until it works OK.

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Mike Walsh
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#14 Post by Mike Walsh »

@ fernan:-

Oh, I would ignore the 'out-of-date, update for a better experience' stuff coming from an older Chrome. Just use it; I do!

I've got so used to all that guff with Chrome 48, it's like part of the furniture now. It simply doesn't register any more.....I no longer 'see' it. (And it certainly doesn't bother me). Chrome 48 is my daily workhorse for the 32-bit Pups in the kennels.....like an old, familiar friend.

Some versions of Firefox, running in certain Pups (Precise comes to mind, here, along with any Precise-based 'Puplets'), don't seem to 'respond' to the 'apulse' stuff.....well, they don't seem to for me. For these Pups, rather than Quantum, I stick with FF52ESR; 'apulse' does what it's supposed to, and all is OK with the world.

---------------------------------------------
Give this version of FF52esr a try. It's the most recent one (52.9.0), and includes the necessary 'pulse' stuff to enable audio. It'll play Netflix, Youtube, and streaming audio sites.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BlQsGR ... sp=sharing

Make sure you go into Preferences->Content, and tick the check-box for playing DRM content.


Mike. :wink:

fernan
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#15 Post by fernan »

Thanks!, Downloading it to my "Syncthing" folder ...

I'll give Chrome 48 a try too.

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OscarTalks
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#16 Post by OscarTalks »

fernan wrote:tahrpup 6.0.5,
I'll try Slimjet, seems many sites "prefer" you use a Chrome based browser. Where should I get it? Puppy package manager, or some PET from a web server?
Hello fernan,

In case you haven't seen this, you may wish to test Slimjet 20.0.4.0 which is very new. Based on Chromium 68
Strictly at your own risk, no guarantees, not tested Netflix, but it did start and run in 32bit Tahr 6.0.5 for me when I briefly tried it.

You just need to make sure you have libgtk-3 installed via PPM and also a recent Palemoon which must be installed in /opt
More details and download link here:-
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... &start=158
Oscar in England
Image

fernan
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#17 Post by fernan »

Made a new tahrpup session, installed the tahrpup updates, libgtk-3, and installed the suggested Firefox 52.9.0

Youtube.com works, with sound, but for example I get a HTML5 error when loading this site (supposed Youtube too) http://www.tvpublica.com.ar/buenosaires2018/

I get
Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available.
Click here to visit our frequently asked questions about HTML5 video.
But if I click on the video thumbnails, and go to the youtube site, I can see videos (not live streaming)

I can see the streaming in Chrome 48, in my previous session.

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