Unclosable Seamonkey Window

Message

norgo · #16 Post by **norgo** » Thu 18 Oct 2018, 21:03

to use applications built on a different system is generally not recommendable.

Today I downloaded SM 2.49.4 from seamonkey homepage for testing under Tahrpup 6.0.5.
After installation of some dependencies SM worked under Tahrpup without hanging or freezing.( tested for 3 hours )
The downloaded version has crash-reporter built-in, so you could look for saved crash reports.
type following command into address line: about:crashes
maybe this helps along.

tallboy · #17 Post by **tallboy** » Sat 20 Oct 2018, 00:45

vtpup, using top or htop, can you see if you have one or two instances of the browser running?

vtpup · #18 Post by **vtpup** » Sat 20 Oct 2018, 14:18

Thank you both.

Tallboy, there was only one instance of Seamonkey in htop, but multiple threads, which I understand is normal behavior.

Norgo, I'm not sure what you mean about using applications built on a different system. As I said, the current version of Seamonkey I'm using is the tarred version supplied by Mozilla for Linux. Not a specific puppy .pet or sfs. Previously I used Seamonkeys' auto upgrade for the last couple years to get from Tahrpup's earlier distributed version to 2.48.

But at 2.48 auto-upgrade stopped working and Mozilla required re-installing from scratch by its users. BTW the rogue window problem started previous to 2.48. It happened very occasionally for several months.

I've been using Seamonkey intensively for 8 years from Puppy 4.11 through multiple puplet versions, on many computers and not had any problems with that browser until this recent odd behavior.

After trying multiple solutions proposed here with no real effect (though grateful for those suggestions) a few days ago I removed most all extensions.

These included Adblock Plus, and a couple others bundled by Tahrpup's creators (DOM Inspector, Chatzilla) which I have never used. I left No-script in place, since I routinely block unwanted scripts when web surfing.

I have not had a recurrence of the problem since, so suspecting that the problem is caused by either an interaction between extensions, or a single extension itself. I decided to also remove No-script, and then install each extension in a new version back gradually one by one over a week, to test.

Unfortunately, that turned out not to be possible. NONE of the extensions I used to use are now available for Seamonkey 2.49.4.

The most important to me are No-script, and Ad-block -- though I could have lived without that last one if had been the culprit.

These extensions ARE available for Firefox. So I cannot restore to the state my browser used to be if I stay with Seamonkey, which I vastly prefer to Firefox and Thunderbird. But without those critical extensions, I'm no longer comfortable running Seamonkey, so all of the attempts to find out what is wrong are now moot.

I'm forced to switch to Firefox and Thunderbird. I think that's very unfortunate, but nothing I can do about it.

I appreciate the help people have tried to provide here. My conclusion to this issue is that it was probably related to important extensions being incompatible with Seamonkey's recent automatic upgrades, and reinstalling the latest version of Seamonkey was not a solution because those extensions are not available for it.

Bummer.

norgo · #19 Post by **norgo** » Tue 23 Oct 2018, 17:50

@vtpup

general an application should become compiled at the same OS and version as it is made for.
Why ?
Applications often have a lot of dependencies and are working only if all needed deps are present and located in the expected path.
Otherwise the application won't work or works faulty.
If needed deps are installable afterward you are lucky.
Missing or too low version of important system libs prevent application to work ( and nothing you can do ) although app is build for linux.
So it's recommended to use only apps which are made for your system.

If a desired application isn't to obtain via PPM or other internet sources you could ask for it in section ( REQUESTS ) in our forum
There are plenty of Tahrpup user and developer.

It's a good way to test one after one addon/extension to find the culprit for the strange behave of your SM version.
You are right, version 10.x of No-script is not compatible to SM 2.49.4, but version 5.1.9 should work.

Please let us know if you found out what addon was to blame for SM misbehave and your experiences
thank you

vtpup · #20 Post by **vtpup** » Tue 23 Oct 2018, 18:26

Thanks, Norgo, I do understand about dependencies, and have actually packaged .pets in the past myself. I'm fairly confident that there are no missing or faulty dependencies for Seamonkey 2.49.4, and remember, a prior version number which was not installed from Mozilla also showed this same problem.

I'm not saying "impossible" to your suggestion -- anything is possible, and I've been wrong enough times in my life to know not to be overly confident!. But my guess, at present the most likely culprit is an extension.

I have 2.49.4 now working with Noscript 5. and will use that for testing. I have no other extensions enabled so far. If that works for awhile, I will try adding Adblock plus (which is my guess as the problem) and then see what happens. Then I will gradually add the other minor extensions that were running when I observed the problem before.

Finally I will also reinstall Tahrpup 6.05 if those fail to locate the problem, as suggested to me privately.

vtpup · #21 Post by **vtpup** » Tue 23 Oct 2018, 19:19

Okay, just had it happen again with Adblock Plus ver 2.9.1 as the ONLY extension present. Trying to duplicate it, to make sure, but it hasn't recurred after 30 tries. Will continue.

ps. Adblock plus is NOT available for Seamonkey any more, so seems a likely candidate. the extension is dated 10/6/2017

vtpup · #22 Post by **vtpup** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 14:10

Disabled Adblock Plus.
Enabled NoScript 5

The problem occurred again this morning. I was able to take screenshots of the window itself, and Htop while it was running. I'm not able to upload them, here, apparently.

What they show is, the window is not full screen in size (desktop wallpaper is showing around edges) And the window title bar is missing.

1.) This window cannot be moved by any of the suggested methods I've tried.
2.) This window can be resized by grabbing the lower right corner handle and stretching or shrinking.
3.) The upper tool bar in this window does not work (ie. clicking on View, or Tools does nothing).
4.) Other browser features do work -- tabs work, entered URLs work.
5.) This window is present in all 3 desktops.
6.) This window stays on top of any other programs opened, but TAB +ALT DOES allow changing focus to those other programs.

Next step (since the problem occurred with two different extensions operating separately) is to, per earlier suggestion, replace the present Tahrpup (which was upgraded by service packs) with a new full 6.0.5 Tahrpup version from the ibiblio repository.

OscarTalks · #23 Post by **OscarTalks** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 15:47

You should be able to upload screenshots to this forum.
If they are too big, use mtpaint to reduce them in pixel size (width of 600 should be fine) and also file size if need be.

I am still not clear what is actually displayed in these windows. Some web page? Which one? Always the same or different each time?

Sounds like the browser is trying to display something which is a bit malware-ish with dodgy code.

I am also still not clear if you have fully tried the method described earlier:-
Press and hold the Alt key
Also press and hold the left click mouse button anywhere in the middle of the window (not the edges as you keep talking about) and then drag the whole window so that the top title bar comes into view.

vtpup · #24 Post by **vtpup** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 17:19

OscarTalks, thanks.

I do know about reducing pixel sizes, however If I click on "Allowed Extensions and Sizes" immediately below this post while composing, it says:

Images -> Maximum Upload Size: 0 Bytes
gif, jpeg, jpg, png, tga, tif, xpm

I obviously can't upload an image of zero bytes.

re. the issue: The page displayed is whatever the last current URL was displaying when the browser was last closed. That's due to a normal setting in Seamonkey. Sorry, there is no consistency to which page causes it. The last page it happened on was a Wkipedia page -- that's in my screenshot if I can find out how to post it here.

I agree the worry for me was that it seemed possibly malware-ish, or dodgy code but the sites visited on the tabs shown in the screenshot are all legit sites : this forum, mozilla, wikipedia, startpage, and the add-ons manager. Ironically I had just finished researching this very problem last night. Reopening Seamonkey this morning with those tabs active caused the issue.

I'm sorry I was not clearer when I said in an earlier post I had tried all the left and right clicking and Windows key suggestions I received. In answer here, I did specifically test holding down the ALT key, left clicking, and dragging the window. It had no effect. I also did the same later with a "normal" Seamonkey window, and it worked fine.

As a point of interest now, btw, the last time it happened, the window was located lower on the screen. The window title bar was clearly missing. Not just obscured bythe top of the screen. I originally thought the problem was one of being obscured, not missing altogether. Obviously, moving the window would not solve this problem, and the behavior in other ways says this isn't an ordinary window. The appearance across 3 desktops simultaneously is one clear example.

vtpup · #25 Post by **vtpup** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 18:59

I have now removed the old Tahrpup 6.0 (upgraded to 6.0.5) files and replaced them with a new set of Tahrpup 6.0.5 files in my frugal installation.

On startup I accepted upgrading the Tahrsave file. The system is now up and being used.

#26 Post by **Makoto** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 21:08

vtpup wrote:OscarTalks, thanks.

I do know about reducing pixel sizes, however If I click on "Allowed Extensions and Sizes" immediately below this post while composing, it says:
Images -> Maximum Upload Size: 0 Bytes
gif, jpeg, jpg, png, tga, tif, xpm
I obviously can't upload an image of zero bytes.

I believe that just means there is no maximum upload size, really (but use your better judgment, of course - please don't upload images upward of 10-20MB, for example).

An alternative is to use an image-hosting site and imbed the images into your post. Here's an (old) example from my imgur gallery:

vtpup · #27 Post by **vtpup** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 22:09

Well I guess the lesson is, don't believe everything you read.

The zero bytes is incorrect, but unlimited is also incorrect. Apparently 256K is the limit.

No problem (except you guys trying to read it) .....sized to fit.

vtpup · #28 Post by **vtpup** » Thu 25 Oct 2018, 22:13

One thing I notice in the HTop screenshot is the user "messagebus". Doesn't seem right.

It's not present now that I've replaced the upgraded Tahrpup files with new Tahrpup 6.0.5.

tallboy · #29 Post by **tallboy** » Sat 27 Oct 2018, 22:24

I have the same messagebus reference in my htop in Lucid 5.2.8.7, and most other items in the htop list are the same. But I have /usr/lib/gconf2-4/gconfd-2, you have /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/gconf/gconf-2. Is that a default setup, or have you made any modifications?

vtpup · #30 Post by **vtpup** » Sun 28 Oct 2018, 15:13

tallboy,

It may be the default, I don't know -- I never purposefully changed it. Although a program or Tahr update may have. It remains after the present change.

However, the folder i386-linux-gnu/ is just a symbolic link to ./ so really the reference is to /usr/lib/gconf/gconfd-2

btw, the messagebus user seems to be back now. Though I haven't had a repeat of the rogue window problem, yet.

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Unclosable Seamonkey Window