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Firefox 24 - 52 for ME and 98


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Make a bootable backup of your system if possible to get back to that point quickly. First try to run Firefox before installing all the updates and patches. FF 24 - 32 should need latest KernelEx only.

@athlonxpuser, you didn't say what graphics drivers you installed.

Edited by schwups
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I installed 81.98 for the nvidia card and 6.2 for the ati radeon card, both of them were found via the driver search on the official nvidia / amd site.

So later this evening I will reinstall Windows 98 but before that I wonder if I might have used the wrong updated KernelEx files? I installed KernelEx 4.5.2 normally and then copied the KernelEx 4.5.2019.24 Updates in DOS mode. However in the first post of this thread it's stated that KernelEx 4.5.2016.19 should be used. Does that make any difference?

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I didn't state to use KernelEx 4.5.2016.19 (only)! Please note latest Core Updates are eight files and some of these have different version numbers:


KernelEx.dll 4.5.2016.19,
Kexbasen.dll 4.5.2016.24,
Kexbases.dll 24,
Kexcom.dll 18,
Sheet.dll 19,
verify.exe 18,
VKrnlEx.vxd of 18,
Core.ini 20i

Download exact these files from topic Kernelex 4.5 Core Updates. The files are not on the first page.
Then copy the files over these of version 4.5.2 (C:\WINDOWS\KernelEx) in safe mode or if you like from DOS OS or use a (Linux) "Live CD". There are many possibilities to do this.

Thats all.:)

 

Edited by schwups
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So I removed KernelEx completely, reinstalled it and then used exactly the same files you mentioned but still nothing has changed. Firefox of various versions will freeze instantly whenever I try to load a page and the only way to make it work is to disable Javascript completely. By the way I also found out that I have the same issues with K-Meleon 74.

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39 minutes ago, athlonxpuser said:

So I removed KernelEx completely, reinstalled it and then used exactly the same files you mentioned but still nothing has changed. Firefox of various versions will freeze instantly whenever I try to load a page and the only way to make it work is to disable Javascript completely. By the way I also found out that I have the same issues with K-Meleon 74.

Try adding user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true); in FirefoxPortable\Data\profile\prefs.js just in case.

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1. I don't believe that FF Safe Mode helps, but did you already tried that?

firefox.exe -safe-mode

2. The page about:support may provide a hint of the problem. Error messages can be under the Graphics section.

3. Try to open the web console. Probably for you not possible with JS enabled.

 

 

TS2.png

Troubleshooting.png

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No, unfortunately starting Firefox in safe mode didn't change anything.

I also can't open the web console since Firefox freezes instantly when trying to load a website and won't respond to any input.

graphics section under about:support looks like this for me:

graphics.png.e687c1ff388663d809fe3d089897658f.png

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In the case that there is something to it. My current controllers are Realtek

RTL8111DL, RTL8201CL, RTL8110SC

and a Marvell 8053.

I don't have this "JS Problem" with my machines. I can't reproduce the problem so far.

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athlonxpuser said:
> I can browse the web with IE6 (very limited amount of sites still works)
> and Retrozilla (the updated version with TLS 1.2 etc)

Makes no sense to me, RZ runs on 98 without any KernelEx at all! But you've installed the latest greatest. And you did set the compat. There's a little trap though, when renaming e.g. folders those settings are forgotten again, since they store the full exe path. Maybe doublecheck that this compat is still set.

In any case, at very least roytams Fx3.6 should fully work, which needs only basic old Kx452:
HTTP or https://o.rthost.win/gpc/files1.rt/fx36vc71-20171108_newnss.7z
For portable use it can be started with the contained bat file.
IMO Fx3.6 is already lightyears ahead of Firefox2.

KM-Goanna74 is rather buggy in itself, e.g. mine takes a cumulative 0.2sec nap for every single link on a webpage, and often crashes.
RT's Palemoon26 for Win2000 has the same engine inside but is said to run more stable. My own Kx-version is too old for it, but probably your younger one can run it.
(I find it very curious that acc Schwups' tests *younger* browsers seem to run *better* on his ME system, must be the engines themselves?)

Another thought, old Kx bug, check if your profile contains those 3 files for httpS:
key3.db, cert8.db, secmod.db

athlonxpuser said:
> I also can't open the web console since Firefox freezes instantly
> when trying to load a website and won't respond to any input.

Since other users have posted they can't reproduce, am afraid it's not really lack of resources, rather cpu related... But anyway, testing can't harm, so for lack of other ideas: my weak old computer often nearly freezes too, and it seems to "sometimes" help when minimizing the browser window and/or activating another tool, then back again.

Also not sure if much use for this mystery, but javascript can be enabled in different levels. Perhaps less resources allow at least to open console again? E.g. to allow only a minimum JS:

javascript.enabled = true (all js directly contained or created in page source)
permissions.default.script = 2 (load external js-files: 1=all, 2=none, 3=same domain)
permissions.default.xmlhttprequest = 2
permissions.default.subdocument = 2 (block all iframes / less resources)

And starting scripts in order (slow), not all at once (fast but buggy and risky):
javascript.options.... .jit.... = false
javascript.options.... .ion.... = false

And my machine often semi-freezes by bloated CSS alone, so just to test with yet less resources:
permissions.default.style = 2 (no external css-files)

Oh, and Firefox session-restore function is infamous, have read it writes completely insane amounts of data to disk all the time, over a GB even when just idle a few hours. Also was blamed as culprit for some dead SSD disks, but Mozilla claims those insane amounts were completely normal and necessary for session-restore and people today believe everything. Can't remember which FF versions are affected, but personally would disable. May also cause when freezing probs.

Goodmaneuver said:
> It froze for me too when testing 31.8 and anything above FF9 actually.

Brings up memories.... years ago, when first trying (old) KernelEx, I read that FF10 should work, and tried to use it as fallback. But it was a pure disaster. Extremely slow and crashy, almost not usable at all, gave it up completely. Can't remember now if that only was with JS or also without. Usually I keep JS blocked permanently, but due to fallback purpose I may have tried it for urgent js-stuff, like recaptcha etc. Was extremely short on free time in that era and discovered only many years later that FF9 would have worked FAR better - could have kicked myself! But at that point had already gotten a tip to try Opera12.02 (yet another AAARGH, also years too late ;-)

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When testing, it was FF35, some web pages worked and some froze. I believe it was FF8 that was supported with K4.5.2 and FF9 also worked latter. There is still freezing with FF4 and above for me really, - it depends on the web page and FF4 - 9 does not make a difference as far as the freezing is concerned with the particular pages. FF3.6 had no Gif animation image support. Originally when accessing my network drive, - NAS, the NIC cards were freezing and It was the directory sub directories. The deeper I explored then the freeze would happen. They got better over time. I have very few add on cards that work, - most second hand. The Realtek ones and the Marvel one is worth a try.

Edited by Goodmaneuver
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On 11/29/2020 at 3:31 AM, Goodmaneuver said:

It froze for me too when testing 31.8 and anything above FF9 actually. I thought it was the NIC card that was having trouble. I think with the Intel ones the send and receive buffer sizes can be adjusted.

I found an option in the network settings to adjust the Receive Buffer Size for my Realtek integrated network card where I can select 8k, 16k, 32k or 64k but no matter what I choose, it doesn't change anything when it comes to using newer versions of Firefox with Javascript enabled. After that I also tried some old 3com PCI network card but with that one it didn't work either.

 

9 hours ago, siria said:

In any case, at very least roytams Fx3.6 should fully work, which needs only basic old Kx452:

Yes, I just installed that one and it works very well, it can load the pages quickly and displays most pages correctly or at least readable. Even sites like wikipedia work which didn't want to work with Retrozilla. Unfortunately youtube doesn't even load the start page but that's no surprise with such an old version of Firefox.

 

9 hours ago, siria said:

RT's Palemoon26 for Win2000 has the same engine inside but is said to run more stable. My own Kx-version is too old for it, but probably your younger one can run it.

Palemoon 26.5 doesn't want to start here on Windows 98. I can still see the browser window but then it crashes immediately, no matter if I select Windows 2000 SP4 or Windows XP SP2 compatibility for both palemoon.exe and Xul.dll.

 

9 hours ago, siria said:

my weak old computer often nearly freezes too, and it seems to "sometimes" help when minimizing the browser window and/or activating another tool, then back again.

I tried of all of that already but it doesn't help, I can't get it to respond again when it has frozen, even after waiting for many minutes.

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On 11/26/2020 at 1:05 AM, athlonxpuser said:

Test system is an asrock 775i65g, celeron 450 (core2-based, supports SSE2 and SSE3), gpu is the integrated Intel 82865G for now... I installed 2GB of RAM using Rloew's Ram Patch but I had only 512 MB before without the patch and it also didn't work. Disabling newtabpage in about:config didn't really make any difference for me. Yeah I have definitely picked WinXPSP2 and not legacy. With Javascript disabled it certainly seems to work better and most pages can load, however when it's enabled not even google or bing will work without freezing, while some people here can even watch youtube so there definitely must be something wrong on my side.

Are you using standard HIMEM.SYS? It's a stretch, and I'm not sure if it'll help any, but try out the latest HimemX (v3.36) instead.

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I’m trying to get FF45 to run however I just get an error occurred on opening. DW shows 4 DLLs as missing however they are in the kernelex folder. Is the known DLL list in the registry case sensitive? I’ve added the files from the core updates. Firefox.exe and XUL.dll are both at XP SP2 compatibility mode. I’m guessing I haven’t configured KernelEx correctly but not sure? 

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