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| Date | Description | OS version | Experience level |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 10, 2006 | FAT32 Crash During Boot | Both | General |
| July 16, 2006 | USB sticks: Two Tips | Both | General |
| July 22, 2006 | Feature Installer: Circumvent Traps | OS/2 | General |
| July 28, 2006 | WPS Hang; *.INI File Cleaning | Both | Beginner+ |
| August 6, 2006 | Commercial Printing From OS/2 | Both | Intermediate |
| August 17, 2006 | MIDI Playback Problem Solved | Both | Intermediate |
| August 20, 2006 | Flash 7, Sound, And Mozilla | Both | Intermediate |
FAT32 Crash During Boot
July 10, 2006 - Both - General
In comp.os.os2.bugs Rüdiger Ihle complained that:
After updating to version 0.9.11 of the FAT32 package, I'm getting crashes when CHKDSK needs to be performed during bootup:
07-01-2006 16:49:25 SYS3175 PID 0006 TID 0001 Slot 000b C:\OS2\CACHEF32.EXE c0000005 00023788 P1=00000001 P2=00000003 P3=XXXXXXXX P4=XXXXXXXX. . .and so on
KO Myung-Hun had the fix for that one:
It's a known problem. You can avoid this problem using f32stat.exe. Do the following after boot up:
f32stat x: /FCLEANwhere x: is the FAT32 drive.
USB sticks: Two Tips
July 16, 2006 - Both - General
Mike O'Connor, "a long-time user of OS/2 + eCS," sent this directly:
I have a 512MiB Legend [now Lenovo] PenDrive Pro, a device that contains two components, a “[bootable] Floppy” component and also a HDD-component, which I've yet to make boot [but still trying!].
TIP#1
I used this USB stick to hold my eCS 1.2 registration key, updated NIC drivers etc., for installing the eCS 1.2MR.
Despite what it says in the documentation about HPFS or FAT being the only acceptable USB formats at installation time, mine has long been formatted as JFS — JFS-bootable in fact in a primary partition.
TIP#2
I found out the hard way [CHKDSK involved, as next step] that due to the large disparity in [particularly WRITE-] access speed between Flash-RAM storage and magnetic storage—that, e.g., zipping 400-500MiB of a mail profile onto the USB stick usually failed, especially when using the WPS.
Also with DFSee 7.15 [OS/2 version] stored on the stick and accessing it from the [SHIFT-F3] installation prompt produced the following trap:
Exception in module: OS2LVM TRAP 0003 ERRCD=0000 ERACC=**** ERLIM=******** EAX=00000000 EBX=f8e97118 ECX=fab9a864 EDX=00000000 ESI=fd4005000 EDI=00000028 EBP=fee7fbac FLG=00002217…and so on, down to:
The system is stopped. Record all of the above information and contact your service representative.Above was to sort out the fact that WXP Pro has the SATA disk MBR showing as a Large-Floppy [unpartitionable] format in my new HP Athlon64 3200+ system.
The reason the two examples above failed was that one needs to enter the commands [ZIP.exe & dfsos2.exe] from the USB drive's prompt, and this then results in success!
Feature Installer: Circumvent Traps
July 22, 2006 - OS/2 - General
Lars Erdmann, in comp.os.os2.bugs, advises us:
I am sure it's not only me who has worked his ass off to get something installed with the Feature installer (for example: java 1.1.8 unicode).
It kept trapping in install.dll. Opening a command line and issuing:
SET BEGINLIBPATH=d:\netscape\program(change appropriately for your system)
. . .and then re-running install.exe from the package made everything OK.
[NB: In his original post to the newsgroup, Lars had written an incorrect BEGINLIBPATH. He corrected it later to what you see above. -yke]
WPS Hang; *.INI File Cleaning
July 28, 2006 - Both - Beginner+
This is an “oldie-but-a-goodie,” and most of us already know it. But it bears repeating from time to time. The present offering is from Mark Dodel (who had to use it recently), and he got the text below from Ian Manners (date and place not given).
We've marked it Beginner-level, because everyone should know the routine. But we've flagged it “+” because problems can come up, and then you really need to know more than beginners usually would.
“Gavin” (somewhere) had a problem, and Ian gave this advice:
OK, have you cleaned your INI files out?
I use :checkini /C /Y:2[Part of WPTools -yke ]
cleanini.exe /DelAll /multipass /LogDel /c /Restart[CleanIni55.zip -yke]
I also occasionally delete the key PM_Workplace:FolderPos by using UniMaint. Be aware that this key stores all your folder/icon positions etc.! [emphasis added -yke]
It can get very big on systems that get a fair bit of use. Zapping this key will normally shrink the size of your OS2.INI file very dramatically as well.
[UNIMAINT -yke]I do this about every 12 months on my main OS/2 box as I do a lot of image/photo manipulation, sorting, merging, etc., as well as it contains my primary MOD/MIDI archive which has over 6,000 files, and is also used for writing DVDs so gets quite a workout with its 2x160GiB HDs.
As always, backup your INI files before doing (not that I can talk). [emphasis added -yke]
Maybe the New Thing here is deletion of the PM_Workplace:FolderPos key, which YKE hadn't heard of before.
Commercial Printing From OS/2
August 6, 2006 - Both - Intermediate
In comp.os.os2.misc, Pierre Jelenc was perplexed:
Is there a way to produce graphics files that will give good results (i.e., not pixillated/jagged text) from a commercial printing company such as 4Over4.com?
Producing a JPEG is trivial, of course, but the results are terrible wherever there are sharp boundaries, such as are produced by PS or TTF fonts. PhotoGraphics gives excellent results but is not an option for a file that needs to be used by a commercial printer.
I tried to create an EPS file, but all it does is to create a bitmap and encode that, instead of drawing vector outlines of the fonts. It is no better than TIFF or JPEG.
“johnsuth” had a way to do it:
Try printing your PhotoGraphics project to a Postscript printer driver and save the output to file; then employ Ghostscript to convert the PS file to PDF.
A little later, James J. Weinkam added:
I have prepared copy for commercial printing using Papyrus. Set up paper size and page format corresponding to what the commercial printer will actually use.
Create, if necessary, a printer object for a printer model that can handle that paper size and that supports postscript. There is no need to own the physical printer; just install the drivers anyway. (Choose the most expensive model you can find, you save more that way :-)) Print to a file then convert to PDF using Ghostscript.
MIDI Playback Problem Solved
August 17, 2006 - Both - Intermediate
Our very own Editor-in-Chief Christian Hennecke had a problem with MIDI playback, posted in ecomstation.misc.multimedia:
On a fresh install of eCS 1.2[M]R German, I don't get any MIDI sound. A double-click on any MIDI file makes the file briefly show the "opened object" hightlighting, then it returns to normal. Opening any MIDI file in any player produces an rc=5129 error message.
I have the Crystal 1.76 driver for a CS4232 chip installed. I do not use the OPL3 FM driver but rather the MPU-401 driver from Thetaband to access the built-in wavetable on my card. Entries in CONFIG.SYS are the same as on my old eCS 1.1 system where this worked.
There used to be a problem with the installation of the MPU-401 driver where entries in MMPM2.INI got inserted in the wrong order. This does not happen with the new minstall.exe, though.
Here are the relevant sections of my MMPM2.INI:
[Drivers] Digitalvideo=IBMDIGVIDPLAYER01,IBMMPEGPLAYER01 Speaker=SPEAKER Headphone=HEADPHONE Microphone=MICROPHONE Filter=IBMFILTER01,IBMFILTER02,IBMFILTER03 Waveaudio=IBMWaveBusAudio01 Ampmix=IBMAmpMixBusAudio01,IBMAMPMIXMPU40101 CDaudio=IBMCDAUDIO01,IBMCDAUDIO02 Sequencer=IBMSEQMPU40101 [IBMSEQMPU40101] VERSIONNUMBER=2.0.0 PRODUCTINFO=MPU-401 MCDDRIVER=MIDIMCD VSDDRIVER=AUDIOIF PDDNAME=MPU4011$ MCDTABLE=MDM RESOURCENAME=MPU-401SEQ01 DEVICEFLAG=1 DEVICETYPE=8 SHARETYPE=3 RESOURCEUNITS=1 RESOURCECLASSES=1,1 CONNECTORS=1,1,IBMAMPMIXMPU40101,1 PARMSTRING=CHANNELS=1111111111111111, MIDITYPE=General MIDI EXTNAMES=1,MID EATYPES=MIDI ALIASNAME=MPU 401 Midi [IBMSEQMPU40101-PLAY] NUMDEVICES=1 NUMCONNECTIONS=1 DEVICE01=AMPMIX CONNECTION01=0,1,1,1,4,1 [IBMAMPMIXMPU40101] VERSIONNUMBER=2.0.0 PRODUCTINFO=MPU-401 MCDDRIVER=AMPMXMCD VSDDRIVER=AUDIOIF PDDNAME=MPU4011$ MCDTABLE=MDM RESOURCENAME=MPU-401AMPMIX01 DEVICEFLAG=2 DEVICETYPE=9 SHARETYPE=3 RESOURCEUNITS=1 RESOURCECLASSES=1,1 CONNECTORS=2,4,,0,14,,0 PARMSTRING=TREBLE=50,BASS=50,PITCH=50,GAIN=70,BALANCE=50,VOL=100,INPUT=LINE,OUTPUT=SPEAKER,RESOURCEDLL=MPU401,RCID=9Thetaband's MMCHECK utility doesn't report any errors.
Hendrik Schmieder solved Christian's problem:
Try it with:
[IBMSEQMPU40101-PLAY] NUMDEVICES=1 NUMCONNECTIONS=1 DEVICE01=AMPMIX02 — Note! CONNECTION01=0,1,1,1,4,1And if this does not work add:
[defaultnames] Sequencer=IBMSEQMPU40101But you have to modify mmpm2.ini from a maintenance partition.
Flash 7, Sound, And Mozilla
August 20, 2006 - (Both) - (Intermediate)
Rainer Stroebel found this in comp.os.os2.misc:
Rich Walsh wrote:
Many users of the Mozilla family of apps find that they have to use
SET LIBPATHSTRICT=Tto run more than one [Mozilla] app simultaneously. An unfortunate side-effect is that sound no longer works in the Flash v7 plugin.I've identified the cause of this breakage and have developed a fix. You can get it from:
It will backup one of the Flash DLLs, then change a single byte in the original file. Thereafter, Flash v7 will produce sound even when LIBPATHSTRICT is in effect. (BTW, be sure to close your browser before running it—you can't patch a DLL that is in use.)