142200 - Mozilla shortcut sometimes gets installed with Win95 compatibility mode

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Aaron Lawrence]

Moz 2002031903   0.9.9+
Running on Windows 2000 SP2 with IE 6 (6.0.2600.000)

launch Mozilla from the start bar.
browse to a website (say theregister.co.uk)
select a bit of text.
copy.

I try to run another application from the start bar.

Explorer.exe crashes.

The start bar is now screwed/locked up.

If I kill and restart explorer.exe with task manager, then the start bar 
comes back up, looking OK. 

However, if I try again to launch an app from the start bar, it crashes 
again.

This happens repeatedly until I go to any other application (say task 
manager) and select and copy a piece of text. Then, explorer will start 
working again.

If I try to paste after copying from Mozilla, it does not work. No text 
is pasted into the destination (say Notepad).

It's like Mozilla screws the clipboard rather badly. 

This has been going on for many versions of Mozilla, since about 0.9.5 
IIRC. I've also upgraded from IE 5.01 to 5.5 to 6.0 over the same time. 

When I installed my current version of Moz I deleted the directory so it 
was a clean install. Mozilla itself works fine, it can copy and paste 
amongst it's own windows also.

I've uninstalled or disabled all other addons (previously had Download 
Accelerator - which doesn't support Mozilla - Stardock's virtual 
desktops (BandVWM) and AVG anti virus [only recently]). So it is pretty much a
basic Windows 2000 system.

This could be unique to my machine, but I've tried to remove everything 
else from the equation. This crash only happens when selecting and 
copying - until then things seem fine.

I've also just had Gravity, a newsreader app that's been very reliable otherwise, 
crash badly when I had just copied from Mozilla.

What more can I do?

Comment 1

[Rainer Bielefeld]

WFM Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.0+) Gecko/20020503
Don't know how to help

Comment 2

[Aaron Lawrence]

Retested with 2002050108, still the same.

Comment 3

[saari (gone)]

I've never seen this on my Win2k system. Is there any more info you can provide?
A stack trace?

Comment 4

[Aaron Lawrence]

Hi Saari,

A stack trace of what?

I can give a stack trace of the explorer crash, and in fact I already did submit 
this to Microsoft, because even if Mozilla is causing the problem explorer 
shouldn't crash as a result. I'm sure they'll be acting on it any day now :/

Mozilla itself never crashes, and the copy and paste works within Mozilla, but 
not to other programs.

I don't have this problem on my other Windows 2000 system either, but I can't 
think what the significant difference is... and it has persisted for a long 
time thru several versions...

Comment 5

[Aaron Lawrence]

Unexpected new information!

I just caused this problem to occurr again deliberately. Normally I can recover 
by going to another application and copying from it.

This time I picked Netscape 4.78 browser to use. It actually popped up a 
message saying "Could not open clipboard" when I tried to copy. 

Very strange...

Comment 6

[Terri Preston]

qa ->pmac

Comment 7

[Aaron Lawrence]

Retested with RC2 (2002051006): It works! No problem that I can find after
trying various combinations of copying and pasting to and from Moz. 

Good work.

Comment 8

[Aaron Lawrence]

I spoke to soon - same problem has returned. Which seems a bit mysterious (that 
it would appear to go away and then return). Sorry.

Comment 9

[Joshua Pruitt]

Apparently I'm the only other person having this exact same problem!

I've had it since 0.9.8 (running rc3 now).

If I copy to the clipboard, any other started apps crash explorer.exe
immediately when I try to start them. Only a reboot fixed this.

In addition, I cannot run Java in Mozilla (JRE 1.4.0). An applet causes mozilla
to exit abruptly. It works fine in IE.

Like Aaron, I too am running Windows 2000.

Here's the REALLY weird part. After running the installer for a Mozilla upgrade,
the installer will, of course, start up Mozilla. FOR THIS ONE INSTANCE OF
MOZILLA RUNNING, the first time after an install / upgrade, BOTH THE COPY AND
JAVA PROBLEMS ARE RESOLVED AND WORK FINE! But... as soon as I exit Mozilla and
start it again - boom - problems are back.

So obviously, something is being loaded when Mozilla normally runs, that's not
being loaded when Mozilla runs when invoked from the installer. This seems to be
echoed by Aaron's comment #7. It confused me too, at first.

Weird.

Just to compare notes here, I'm running:

 o Dell Dimension XPS T6000r
 o Windows 2000 SP2
 o NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 64
 o 3Com Etherlink III ISA
 o Aureal Vortex 8830 Audio
 o Hauppauge Win/TV 878/9 VFW

@Aaron - does any of this stuff match your configuration?

Comment 10

[Aaron Lawrence]

Joshua,

Thanks for the confirmation! Perhaps we can make some progress...

My system is home-built:
- Asus A7V motherboard
  Has a separate onboard IDE 100 promise controller
- AMD Athlon 1GHz 200MHz FSB
- 512 MB RAM
- 40GB IBM Hard disk
- NVidia GeForce 2MX video (v2.8.3.2 Nvidia drivers)
  Running at 1152x864 32 bits color on "default" monitor
- Windows 2000 SP2
- 3Com Etherlink XL (PCI) network
- Aureal Vortex 8820 Audio
- External modem.
- Asus 40x cdrom
- Iomega Zip 100 drive
- PS/2 mouse, keyboard
Hm, none of that is the same as yours! except Windows. [Since you have a Dell I 
doubt it is AMD CPU or Asus motherboard.]

Some of them are similar: NVidia video, Aureal audio, 3Com network, but it would 
be unusual for driver bugs to continue across product families like that... I 
also never heard of a driver affecting a relatively user-level thing like 
clipboard.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Some software I have - perhaps there is commonality:
4NT command prompt
Ad-aware 5.62
Adobe Acrobat 4.0
Asus Probe (motherboard monitoring)
Audiogalaxy
AVG Anti-virus
Borland Delphi 4 and 6
CDex cd (ripper)
Commanche 4 demo
DivX 4.12
Download Accelerator 5 Beta
ExamDiff Pro
Half-life
HTML help workshop
Iomegaware
Microplanet Gravity (newsreader)
Microsoft Intellipoint 4
Internet Explorer 6 (has been 5.01, 5.5)
Need for Speed - Porsche 2000
Netscape 4.79
Paint Shop Pro 7
realMyst 
RealPlayer
Serious Sam 1 & 2
"Sierra utilities"
Unreal + Unreal TOurnament
Winamp
Hotfixes (from Windows Update) :
 Q252795
 Q276471
 Q285156
 Q285851
 Q299553
 Q299796
 Q302755
 Q313829
 Q314147
Windows 2000 app compatiblity update
Windows 2000 security rollup package
Winzip
Wise Installation system 6

I'd be inclined to disregard the games. The main suspects would be OS patches, 
or apps which integrate with the desktop or web browsers. That would leave:
4NT command prompt
Ad-aware 5.62
Adobe Acrobat 4.0
AVG Anti-virus
Download Accelerator 5 Beta
Iomegaware
Microsoft Intellipoint 4
Internet Explorer 6 (has been 5.01, 5.5)
Netscape 4.79
RealPlayer
Winamp
The hotfixes
Winzip

Any common ones there?

Comment 11

[Joshua Pruitt]

I think you're right - I doubt hardware, though similar, would cause problems
across specific models. And yes, Dell AFAIK only ships Intel processors (mine
is, in any case).

Well, I have all the same Windows update / rollup packages that you do (being a
stickler for staying current).

As far as software goes, here are the matches:

 · Adobe Acrobat 4
 · AVG Anti-Virus
 · DivX 4
 · Ad-aware
 · IE 6
 · Paint Shop Pro 7
 · RealPlayer
 · Winamp

Hm. It seems weird that any of these would cause any problems..., but, I guess
I'll start uninstalling them, and seeing if anything happens, starting with the
most obscure and working my way up. ;P

Comment 12

[Joshua Pruitt]

Well, so far uninstalling things hasn't helped (I'll keep trying).
A couple of notes, though.

·1 Whenever the fatal copy is made from within Mozilla, this is
   what shows up in the Windows clipbook viewer (started before the
   copy operation takes place, obviously):

   "ClipBook Viewer cannot display the information in its currect
   format or there is not enough memory to display it. Quit one or
   more applications to increase the available memory, and then try
   again."

   In addition, deleting the contents of the clipbook allows
   applications to start normally - until the next Mozilla copy
   operation, that is. :P

·2 Here's what shows up in Event Viewer when explorer.exe crashes:

   Event Type:        Information
   Event Source:      Winlogon
   Event Category:    None
   Event ID:          1002
   Date:              5/30/2002
   Time:              12:37:01 AM
   User:              N/A
   Computer:          RAMA
   Description:       The shell stopped unexpectedly and Explorer.exe
                      was restarted. 

Hmm. I'm stumped.

Comment 13

[Joshua Pruitt]

I SOLVED IT!

Right-click on the shortcut icon, go to "Properties". Click on the
"Compatibility" tab. UNCHECK the "Run in Compatibility Mode" checkbox.

Mine was set to "Windows 95 Compatibility Layer". The instant I unchecked that
option, everything worked. My Java works. I can now copy and paste without
killing explorer.exe.

So THAT'S why the problems disappeared when the installer itself ran the
application - the problem is in the shortcut!

Now, as to WHY my shortcuts were set to run Mozilla in "compatibility mode" in
the first damn place, I just don't know.

Oh well - now it works! Lemme know if you have success with this as well! :)

If so - This "bug" is history!

Comment 14

[Aaron Lawrence]

You are a complete legend unto yourself. 

That was indeed the problem. Turning off Win95 compatibility mode fixed it.

This is GREAT news! Thank you Joshua.

I don't think this can be closed yet. But the description could be changed to be 
"Mozilla shortcut sometimes gets installed with Win95 compatibility mode". 

Because a clean install should not do this. 

Agreed? 

Comment 15

[Bill Mason]

-> Installer, changed summary to reflect current bug issue.

Comment 16

[Aaron Lawrence]

A thought: I keep up to date on compatibility updates for W2K (or at least I 
did). Perhaps one of those broke it. 

Comment 17

[Aaron Lawrence]

Given that no-one else reports it, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge,
and I have installed Mozilla quite a few times since without seeing the problem
again - I will close it. No point leaving it open.