Opera issue on Windows 95

[Andrew T.]

There's an odd bug I've experienced with Opera on my Windows 95B system that's transcended the last few versions of the software; 10, 9, and probably 8 alike.

Integer values pertaining to the file size or dimensions of a file (such as on the status indicator, download window and various dialogues) either don't appear, or are replaced with garbage characters:

Has anyone else experienced this problem, and is there any way around it? Although it seems like a small issue (the software runs fine otherwise), it's the biggest factor keeping me from turning to Opera as my regular browser.

Edited December 11, 2009 by Andrew T.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Jeez, never seen that before. Though at first glance it reminds of something you might have seen back in the bad old days when disk BIOS parameters were lost and crosslinked files in a bad FAT displayed in a DIR command.

This may be one of those times that the lame advice of clear the cache might help (because those dialogs are looking at the file sizes on your HDD, the originating URL is merely info). Those should be files in Opera\Profile\Cache and Opera\Profile\Temporary_Downloads.

You might temporarily try opera:config under User Prefs and set Cache Directory4 and Temporary Download Directory to another disk drive if you have one. This is just to rule out any HDD problem.

I might even do a DOS bluescreen scandisk to be extra sure. And keep something like TestDisk on hand. You probably have no USB right? I believe it will still fit on a floppy.

I'm not a huge fan of the current cache system which is looking more and more like the MSIE cache. What I find worrisome is if you peek into Opera\Profile\Icons you might see thousands of files using http%3A%2F%2Fsomething.ico for example. This is no sweat for NTFS under WinXP, but makes me nervous on FAT32 and Win9x (expecting an Opera bug anyday now to place real colons and backslashes into the filename!). Hmmm, aren't you on FAT16 with Win95? Might even be more dangerous.

But this might simply be some locale related error which also might be found on that preferences page.

[Andrew T.]

Hi Charlotte,

I'm fairly sure the bug isn't cache- or disk-related. Note that it affects stated file dimensions, as well as sizes.

My assumption was that it was related to a call for some library of functions that isn't there. (It isn't msimg32.dll; though Opera throws an error referencing that when you first run it on pre-WinME systems.) Some versions of K-Meleon displayed similar garbage on the menu bar on 95; though I don't know if it's the same issue at work here.

I might even do a DOS bluescreen scandisk to be extra sure. And keep something like TestDisk on hand. You probably have no USB right? I believe it will still fit on a floppy.

I'm not a huge fan of the current cache system which is looking more and more like the MSIE cache. What I find worrisome is if you peek into Opera\Profile\Icons you might see thousands of files using http%3A%2F%2Fsomething.ico for example. This is no sweat for NTFS under WinXP, but makes me nervous on FAT32 and Win9x (expecting an Opera bug anyday now to place real colons and backslashes into the filename!). Hmmm, aren't you on FAT16 with Win95? Might even be more dangerous.

Just for the record, Windows 95 OSR2 has both FAT32 and rudimentary USB support. (Frankly, I'm not sure if anyone nowadays could survive on FAT16 alone...)