Errors in Yahoo

[Scott]

I have tested PWB v2.03 and v2.04 on a Windows 98 system with the following results when forwarding Yahoo mail.

Procedure:
Select Message
Click Forward button
Click To: link
Check To box
Click Insert Checked Contacts
Click Send Button

System:
Windows 98 SE
Internet Explorer 6.0.2600.0000 with Q324929 and Q313829
PWB v2.03 revision 1
-Received error invalid page fault on MSHTML.DLL

System:
Windows 98 SE
Internet Explorer 6.0.2600.0000 with Q324929 and Q313829
PWB v2.04 rc1 (3-10-03)
-No error

System:
Windows 98 SE
Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106 with SP1
PWB v2.04 rc1 (3-10-03)
-No error

--Scott

[Guest]

Yes, we are occasionally seeing patrons in yahoo accessing email, when the content of the screen simply vanishes. They're left with a blank desktop.

Windows 98, 2nd edition; Pentium 2 (in today's case).

Odd.... Jeff

[spragers]

Scott -

We had been seeing this problem before on NT stations as well, though perhaps not for the same reasons (patrons using Yahoo mail, click to send a message, and PWB disappears). However, I have been rolling out the new releases and updates as soon as they are available, and since implementing 2.04 I haven't received any complaints. I even managed to override our X-stop filter yesterday for a patron, which is something we could NEVER get to work, even when using IE

Everyone -

In other words, I think that 2.04 will clear this problem up on all versions of Windows.

[Scott]

Yes, PWB v2.04 fixes the problem.

This thread has become a little long and I think some people are not looking at the second page of posts.

--Scott

[jpapier]

Well, guys, we're using PWB 2.04 rev 1 here, Win 98 SE, Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106, and we've had a number of cases again today where the desktop just vanishes, sometimes with Yahoo, sometimes with Hotmail.

It doesn't happen all of the time, but it happens frequently enough.

Jeff

[Scott]

From what I gather, It seems to be limited to Windows 98. Let's see if we can get some information gathered and I will take another look at the problem. The more people we can get to answers these the more narrow our focus can be.

Are you using PWB as the Windows shell?

Any common factors when it happens?

What is the patron doing when it happens, or is it random?

What version of Internet Explorer does your systems have?

What version of the file MSHTML.DLL does your systems have?

Is it possible to duplicate the problem?

--Scott

[Guest]

Scott,

Hotmail and Yahoo! continue to crash. Patrons are getting an "Illegal Operation" screen. Unfortunately, so far I haven't been able to see the error screen, only the blank desktop afterwards.

Here's what I have been able to track down this morning:

Common to all of our public PCs:

PWB running as shell
mshtml.dll version = 6.00.2600.0000
Internet Explorer version = 6.0.2600.0000
all are running manageie.dll

Some public PCs have Windows Second Edition, others don't.
I'm wondering if that's a connection there.

I haven't been able to reproduce the problem myself, but I haven't had that much opportunity to try. Those pcs are fantastically busy. However I did sit next to someone this morning who crashed Hotmail. He says he was simply reading mail, not even doing attachments.

Any insights would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff

[bookworm0109]

I noticed that this thread has basically been dropped. We have been experiencing exactly this problem with Yahoo Mail (and some other sites as well), and the problem existed with r4 as well as r2.

Does this issue still exist for people? Has anyone found a solution?

Let me share what we've learned.

We first experienced this problem with IE6. We made the transition to PWB and the problem continued. We made several upgrades to IE without testing the problem. When we finally tested it again with IE6, we did not experience the problem again with IE.

PWB will freeze when going to these sites, but it will clear itself after two to four minutes and go to the site normally. Most patrons do not wait this long.

The problem only affects our machines that go through our firewall (i.e. filtered). Our unfiltered machines seem to work fine.

This problem actually locks the machine on some of our faster, newer computers (1g+ processors). We seem to have less problems with our slower computers (<1g processors).

Yahoo mail has a non JavaScript version of their page. We do not experience this slowdown when we use this version. (The only way I've found to get to this version is to turn off Javascript!)

My conclusion from these facts is that the problem is somehow related to how javascript is processed. IE had a problem that they managed to find a way to fix. Fixing IE does not fix PWB, however.

There must be something going on with the timing. As our firewall slows down information being transmitted to Yahoo, somehow some signals are getting crossed somewhere, and it acts as though Javascript is waiting for a response from a site that has already sent it -- this eventually times out. Perhaps it then tries to retransmit a signal, which is responded to immediately. Either that or some kind of loop is occuring.

We are running this Win98 machines with all the most current patches. We've been forced to go back to IE because this has been such a major headache with us. Hopefully this move is temporary.

I've found other references to this problem elsewhere on the Internet, usually with alternative browsers. None of these sites have suggested a solution.

This data has come as a result of a year and a half of complaints and observation. It's been -- a chalange -- for us.

[spragers]

Can you give an example of other references to this problem?

I've received several "complaints" (though none very recently) on our newer Dell XP stations (2.4 Ghz) - a patron would click on the "send" or "spell check" button and PWB would immediately freeze and stop responding. Eventually one would have to power down the machine to get a complete reboot.

Only pops up once every couple of weeks or so, but it's been better as of late.

[Guest]

Here is a list of some of the links I found in my searches. Some of these might not be the same issue. It is a very difficult thing to get one's hands around because it is so inconsistant and so nebulous.

You say you only hear complaints once every couple of weeks. How many times does this happen where people DON'T complain? As bad as it's been here, I'd say only 1 in 20 people would complain about it. Most people think it is either a Yahoo problem, something they themselves did wrong, or "just one of those things that happen".

Probably the best diagnosis I found - Opera: http://list.opera.com/pipermail/opera-l ... 06397.html

Opera problem: http://list.opera.com/pipermail/opera-l ... 03866.html

Opera again: http://list.opera.com/pipermail/opera-l ... 06391.html

IE mshtml.dll error IE6: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/r1050473858

Discussion of same kind of problem, only with an different error message: http://forums.techguy.org/t182987/se702 ... 53c41.html

Dissucssion of an odd possible solution: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Dreamcast ... 7?source=1

Yahoo's extremely unhelpful discussion of the problem: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/erro ... rs-09.html

Discussion of issue - look at posts beginning 11/07/03: http://www.newbie.org/help/messages/679.html

Look at the discussion on Yahoo Mail (the proposed fix does not work): http://www.oxilp.ac.uk/it_info/faq.html

[spragers]

From the Yahoo! help link posted above:

We use fully supported (though sometimes unusual) scripts to deliver our service, so you shouldn't be having this problem.

I wonder what constitutes an "unusual" script...

The best course of action is to restart your browser and/or your computer. If this doesn't solve your problem, you may need to either reinstall your browser or use a different one.

I still don't think this is necessarily a PWB issue, since the problem (or a similar problem) is being reported in any number of different browsers. And, I wonder just what browser they would recommend if you told them "it doesn't work with IE..."

[bookworm0109]

Quote:
The best course of action is to restart your browser and/or your computer. If this doesn't solve your problem, you may need to either reinstall your browser or use a different one.

I still don't think this is necessarily a PWB issue, since the problem (or a similar problem) is being reported in any number of different browsers. And, I wonder just what browser they would recommend if you told them "it doesn't work with IE..."

I suspect that they mean Netscape, who apparently wrote the book on Javascript. Yahoo Mail works flawlessly in Netscape.

BUT . . . I would like to use PWB for security reasons. While it's true that it's not strictly a PWB problem, it seems that IE managed to find a 'fix'. The problem occurs on many other sites, not just Yahoo Mail (goarmy.com and Baker and Taylor link are a couple of them). The common denominator seems to be that ALL of these sites require some kind of authentication.

That's what makes it a b***h to test. A patron comes to the desk to complain that his browser freezes whenever he goes to this particular site. Unfortunately, the only way we can test this is if we can authenticate to the site, which we usually can't do.

Like I said before, this is a MAJOR problem for us. A very large portion of our Internet public wants to use Yahoo mail. Currently, the only way we can provide access is through IE. While we'd prefer PWB, we have to provide the public with good access to Yahoo mail or they will linch us.

[Scott]

We have hundreds of patrons using Yahoo and Hotmail on our library computers (60+ systems, Windows 2k, IE 6.0sp1, PWB v2.04r4) running PWB with no problems. We are using Windows Policies to prevent access to the local drives and are using the PWB IP filter to prevent access to our Intranet, we are not using the PWB URL filter.

A curious incident I ran across the other day while researching another problem. If you are blocking access to the hard drive via the PWB URL filter ("-C:\"), a web site attempts to use the internal IE web resources ("res://C:\..."), and expects the page to be there, this may cause an error in PWB when the page tries to access the resource but can not. This can be prevented by adding "+res://" to your URL filter file above the "-C:\".

--Scott

[Guest]

I noticed that this thread has basically been dropped. We have been experiencing exactly this problem with Yahoo Mail (and some other sites as well), and the problem existed with r4 as well as r2.

Does this issue still exist for people? Has anyone found a solution?

Let me share what we've learned.

We first experienced this problem with IE6. We made the transition to PWB and the problem continued. We made several upgrades to IE without testing the problem. When we finally tested it again with IE6, we did not experience the problem again with IE.

PWB will freeze when going to these sites, but it will clear itself after two to four minutes and go to the site normally. Most patrons do not wait this long.

The problem only affects our machines that go through our firewall (i.e. filtered). Our unfiltered machines seem to work fine.

This problem actually locks the machine on some of our faster, newer computers (1g+ processors). We seem to have less problems with our slower computers (<1g processors).

Yahoo mail has a non JavaScript version of their page. We do not experience this slowdown when we use this version. (The only way I've found to get to this version is to turn off Javascript!)

My conclusion from these facts is that the problem is somehow related to how javascript is processed. IE had a problem that they managed to find a way to fix. Fixing IE does not fix PWB, however.

There must be something going on with the timing. As our firewall slows down information being transmitted to Yahoo, somehow some signals are getting crossed somewhere, and it acts as though Javascript is waiting for a response from a site that has already sent it -- this eventually times out. Perhaps it then tries to retransmit a signal, which is responded to immediately. Either that or some kind of loop is occuring.

We are running this Win98 machines with all the most current patches. We've been forced to go back to IE because this has been such a major headache with us. Hopefully this move is temporary.

I've found other references to this problem elsewhere on the Internet, usually with alternative browsers. None of these sites have suggested a solution.

This data has come as a result of a year and a half of complaints and observation. It's been -- a chalange -- for us.

[Scott]

The problem only affects our machines that go through our firewall (i.e. filtered). Our unfiltered machines seem to work fine.

There are a few things that can effect the performance of PWB.

If you are using the PWB filters, the filter files should be located on the local computer. Each time there is a navigation whether to a new page or in a banner, PWB needs to parse the filter files. If the filter files are located on a

If you are using the IP filter, PWB has to resolve the IP, then parse the IP filter file before allowing the navigation to take place. If only the computers affected run through your firewall, PWB may be having a hard time resolving the IP. You should try disabling the IP filter and see if this helps.

If you are running PWB from a network location, a slow network will effect loading times, both when starting PWB and when a pop-up is created.

If you are using one of the clear cache functions. This can effect browsing times because PWB will need to download all the resources when visiting new pages after clearing the cache.

I would be happy to work with you directly on resolving the issues. Please send a copy of your INI file to Support@TeamSoftwareSolutions.com so we can take a look at it.

--Scott