Communicator 4.8 Release Notes
Last
updated: August 22, 2002
These release notes
describe installation issues and known problems in Communicator 4.8.
Contents:
Before You
Install
- A Netscape
version of AOL Instant Messenger (4.3) is bundled with Communicator.
If you have installed a more recent version of AOL Instant Messenger, we
recommend that you re-install AIM after you install Communicator 4.8.
- Using SmartUpdate
to update from previous versions of Communicator to version 4.8 does
not work for restricted users on Windows 2000 systems. Administrators
of Windows 2000 machines must completely uninstall older versions of
Communicator, then install version 4.8 by using the full installer.
- Communicator 4.8 does
not run on Windows 3.1 or on Macintosh 68K systems.
- On Mac OS and Windows systems
with an existing version of Communicator: If you use SmartUpdate to
upgrade to 4.78, be sure to click the Grant button when the Permissions dialog
box appears during the installation. Clicking Grant enables the installer
to continue, and you can still cancel the installation later in the
process. If you click Deny, a series of Permissions dialog boxes appear,
and the system sometimes quits with an error -1.
- If you are upgrading from
Navigator 2.0 or 3.0, you need to re-install any plug-ins that you want
to transfer to Communicator 4.F8. In order for Communicator to transfer
plug-ins from 4.0x versions automatically, you must install Communicator
4.8 in the same folder as the old 4.0x version. If you install 4.8
in a different folder, you must re-install any plug-ins.
General Issues
- Smart Update
does not update Windows NT and Win2K.
- Smart Update for Mac does not update plug-ins.
- If your computer
does not have a sound card, and you visit a site with RMF (Beatnik
sound) content embedded in it, your system will crash. If you installed
Beatnik (installed by default in Communicator 4.8) and you don't have
a sound card, and you want to avoid any potential problems, you can
remove Beatnik from your system. Follow the steps at http://www.beatnik.com/nosoundhw/.
- If files with a .depot
suffix are displayed in the browser instead of being downloaded, your
proxy server needs to be configured to download depot files. Your system
administrator should update the mimetypes configuration file on the
proxy server.
- Printing problems may occur
with the use of the Adobe Postcript printer driver (ADOBES4.drv, version
4.10.126) in Windows 95 and Windows 98. If you have this printer driver
in your c:\windows\system folder, you can obtain an upgrade from http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/pdrvwin.htm.
- On Mac OS and Windows systems:
New profiles created in Communicator 4.8 aren't recognized by versions
of Communicator or Navigator earlier than version 4.5.
- If you change your user
name on an IMAP server, you need to restart Communicator for the name change
to take effect.
- Exported certificate names
are appended with either letters or numbers. Communicator doesn't check
for duplicate names, so make sure to use a unique name for each certificate.
- A zero length "cert7.db"
file in the profile directory can cause Communicator to crash at startup.
To avoid this, delete the zero length "cert7.db" file from the profile
directory.
- You can disable the Shop@Netscape
button and Netscape Radio feature by editing the prefs.js file (preferences.js
on UNIX).
- To disable the Shop@Netscape
button, open the prefs.js file and add the following statement:
user_pref("browser.chrome.disableMyShopping", true);
- To disable
the Netscape Radio plugin, open the prefs.js file and add the following
statement: user_pref("browser.chrome.disableNetscapeRadio",
true);
Component Issues
Navigator
- When Communicator updates
a page, either through the Reload button or a meta tag, it checks for
changes in HTML descriptions, but doesn't check check for changes within
individual elements on the page. Because the HTML description of an
image can remain the same even after the content of the image is updated,
there may be applications, such as a webcam, for which you want to
"force" an update.
To force the update
of individual elements on a page, you can use the following meta tags:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="60">
Mail, Address
Books, and Pinpoint Addressing
- Certain IMAP servers cause
an error when a mail message is moved from a subfolder to the Inbox.
The workaround is to file the message in a top-level folder, and then move
the file to the Inbox.
- IMAP mail users: Certain
servers may prevent you from renaming or deleting subscribed mail folders
if you have specified that deleted messages should be automatically
moved to the Trash folder. If you try to delete a mail folder and then
see an error message that the command failed, you should choose Subscribe
from the File menu, and then unsubscribe your Trash folder.
- If you are upgrading from
Navigator 3.0x, you must manually import your 3.0x address book into
Communicator 4.8 by opening the address book window and choosing Import
under the File menu. On Mac and Windows systems, select Communicator
Address Book at the prompt. Enter the name of your 3.0x HTML address
book file.
- On Windows and UNIX systems:
Removing ns_imap folders causes Communicator to lose the mail filters
you have set up. If you suspect corrupted mail summary files, be sure to
just remove the files, not entire folders or directories.
- Communicator 4.8 allows
you to create multiple address books. Pinpoint addressing searches the first
15 address books in your address book window. If you have more than
15 address books, you can select the 15 you want to use by reordering
them in the address book window.
- Pinpoint addressing in
Communicator 4.8 searches for matches against the display name, last name,
email address and nickname. Communicator 4.0x gave precedence to nickname
matches. If you want exact matches against a nickname to have precedence
over matches against the other fields, add this line to your JavaScript
preferences file:
user_pref("ldap_2.autoComplete.nicknameHasPrecedence",
true);
- If you have an LDIF file
representing an address book that was generated from Communicator 4.0x
and contains 8-bit data, you can correctly import the 8-bit data into
Communicator 4.7 by changing the file extension of your LDIF file to
.4ld. Then, import the LDIF file like you normally would, using this
new extension. You only need to do this if the file with 8-bit data was
generated from a previous version of Communicator.
- "Department," "URL," and
"Prefers to receive rich text (HTML) mail" values are not exported/imported
with CVS and TXT format.
Composer
- When editing an HTML file,
Composer may remove Cascading Style Sheet objects.
Roaming Access
- On Windows systems: Clicking
Cancel while uploading or downloading to an HTTP roaming-access server
sometimes causes Communicator to quit.
- When using a slow connection,
progress dialog boxes don't immediately respond to your input during
file transfers.
- If you choose not to transfer
your preferences, Communicator does not transfer your address book
and IMAP mail filters, which are stored with preferences.
- On Mac OS systems: If you
enable Roaming Access, Communicator doesn't save subscribed newsgroups.
To save subscribed newsgroups, go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
Under Roaming Access, choose Item Selection, and remove the check from
the Mail Filters box in the right frame.
Java and JavaScript
- Java Plug-in
Support. A new Java plug-in preference option allows users to take
advantage of the latest Sun Java plug-in (available for free at http://java.sun.com). When enabled, the
Sun Java plug-in delivers an improved user experience for Java-enabled
sites and completely replaces Netscape Java.
- JavaScript
1.3 contains an ECMA-compliant fix regarding assignments such that
if (a=b) is no longer interpreted as if (a==b). You can update the
code or, if you want the old behavior, specify <SCRIPT language="JavaScript1.2">.
- If you use an applet that
uses RMI callbacks, you must call netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalConnect") before your first call into the RMI runtime.
- Changes to Java classes
have been made to improve security and simplify internal use of the reflection
API.
Platform-Specific
Issues
Windows
- Windows 2000: To install
Communicator 4.77 or later, a user must have Power User permissions.
After installation, users of any permission level can start the program,
create profiles, delete profile directories, and modify profiles without
special operating system permissions. Refer to http://www.help.netscape.com/communicator/install/install_guide.html,
for more information.
- Windows 2000: To upgrade
from RealPlayer 7 to RealPlayer 8, which is the version that comes
with Communicator 4.77 or later, you must uninstall RealPlayer 7 prior to
installing Communicator 4.77 or later.
- Windows 2000: To change
the Mapi.dll a user must have Power User permissions.
- Windows 2000: If you use
a dialup (modem) connection and want Communicator to dial over that connection
when you start the program, follow these steps:
- Open the Control Panel.
- Select
Administrative Tools, then Services.
- Change
the Remote Access Auto Configuration Manager service to "Automatic
(at startup)."
- On Windows NT systems,
to prevent a "system32" Windows Explorer window from appearing when Windows
starts up:
- Launch the Windows Registry
Editor (regedit.exe).
- Open this
registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
- If the
(Default) Name variable has a value of "" (an empty string), delete
the Name variable. After the deletion, the value for (Default) should
be "(value not set)".
- Messenger sometimes quits
when new folders are subscribed to with SSL. This problem apparently
occurs only when you automatically subscribe to all your folders on the
server. To avoid it, manually choose the folders to which you wish to
subscribe.
- If you are downloading
a large file and you click Cancel, Communicator may quit.
- If you send an email message
and attach a web page that contains frames, the recipient will receive
the message, but with a blank attachment.
Quality Feedback Agent
and Automatic Proxy Configuration (Windows only)
- If you are using automatic
proxy configuration, and you want to use the Full Circle Talkback Quality
Feedback Agent to send incident reports to Netscape, you need to replace
the talkback.ini file with one that contains the appropriate proxy
configuration information:
1. If you are
using an HTTP proxy, or both an HTTP and SOCKS proxy, create a file
named talkback.ini, containing these three lines, using your proxy
host name, domain, and port:
- UseUserHTTPProxyInfo=1
- UserHTTPProxyHost="yourproxy.yourdomain.com"
- UserHTTPProxyPort=xxxx [your proxy
port number]
If you are using
a SOCKS Proxy, create a file with these three lines:
- UseUserSOCKSInfo=1
- UserSOCKSHost="yourproxy.yourdomain.com"
- UserSOCKSPort=xxxx [your SOCKS port
number]
2. Replace the existing talkback.ini
file with the version you created.
On Windows 95 and Windows
NT systems, copy the talkback.ini file to this location, in the directory
that contains the Netscape.exe file: \Netscape\Communicator4.8\talkback.ini.
Palm Synchronization
(Windows only)
- Upgrading to the Palm OS
3.0 may cause problems with Netscape Calendar Sync. You may have to check
your connection settings for Netscape Calendar Sync after installing
Palm OS 3.0.
- Back-up your Palm-compatible
address book before using Address Book synchronization.
- These are issues to be
aware of when you synchronize the Palm address book with the Netscape Address
Book:
- If there are multiple
lines in Palm fields (not including address and notes) Communicator converts
those entries to a single line separated by commas.
- Communicator
does not automatically synchronize Palm custom fields. For more information
on how to map fields between Palm and the Netscape address book
fields, see the Palm Synchronization Read Me.
- To synchronize
with a directory that is synchronized offline, set Communicator to
Offline.
- To work
with mail synchronization, we recommend that you send mail from Palm.
Mac OS
- AOL Instant Messenger 3.0
is bundled with Communicator 4.8. If you are running OS 8.5 or above,
you can upgrade to AIM4.x by going to http://www.aol.com/aim and following
the instructions.
- To optimize
plug-in loading time, move any read-me files that may be installed
in the plug-ins folder to another folder on your hard disk.
- On Mac OS systems: If you
are using a 3.0x version of Navigator and want to transfer your preferences
automatically to Communicator 4.8, you need to run NSMacPrefs. First,
install Communicator 4.8 and run it once. Then, download
and run the NSMacPrefs utility.
- Mac OS 7.6.1 or greater
is required to run Communicator 4.8. For current Apple Mac OS software,
see http://support.info.apple.com.
These are the recommended minimum system hardware configurations:
- RAM requirements for Mac
OS 7.6.1: 16MB physical RAM. For Mac OS 8.0 or greater: 24MB physical
RAM.
- Before you install Communicator,
make sure that your hard disk names do not include the slash (/) character.
Account Setup won't run if any of your hard disk names include the
slash (/) character.
- When uploading a file using
ftp, Communicator only sends the data fork of the file. If you want
to upload a Macintosh file that has a resource fork, convert the file to
BinHex or MacBinary first.
- Folder aliases are not
supported. You can drag a folder to an ftp directory window for upload but
only aliases to files are resolved before they are uploaded.
- When dragging a folder
to upload, the directory hierarchy of the folder is not maintained. All files
contained in the dragged folder, even those in subfolders, are uploaded
to the directory you are logged into.
- Older versions of Norton
CrashGuard are incompatible with Communicator 4.7 and may cause your system
to freeze or quit.
- If you see errors or problems
while running plug-ins, Communicator may be low on memory. To provide
Communicator with more memory, quit Communicator. Then, select the Netscape
Communicator application icon, and choose Get Info from the File menu.
Increase Communicator's Preferred Size by at least 1000. (If you're
running Mac OS 8.5 or later, choose Memory from the Show pop-up menu
to change the memory size.)
- If you use RealPlayer with
Communicator 4.8, be sure to keep the Communicator memory setting at
or above the default preferred size: 8192K with virtual memory turned on.
Reducing this memory setting may cause your system to quit when you
use Real Player. For more information, see the Real Player site at http://www.real.com/help/index.html
for documentation regarding recommended memory requirements.
- If you have Adobe Type
Manager installed, Communicator sometimes quits after you use the Font Preferences
panel or pop-up menus on some systems.
- Versions of Speed Doubler
up to and including 1.0.1 are incompatible with Navigator and Communicator.
Some disk cache operations may cause b-tree corruption on your hard
drive. To correct this problem, download the latest version of Speed
Doubler from the Connectix site: http://www.connectix.com
- If you choose the "Go Offline"
command and you see a dialog box that says, "The command could not be
completed, because you have not set up your server preferences. Would you
like to set up those preferences now?", select "OK" and enter a generic
user and server name in the preference panel.
- If you see an error message
that says, "A Communications error has occurred" (or "Communications
exception"), and you are using a disk-compression program such as StuffIt
SpaceSaver, try disabling the disk-compression program to fix the problem.
UNIX/Linux
- Solaris 2.6 only: Solaris
2.6/OpenWindows Communicator 4.0x does not render fonts properly. OpenWindows
3.6 patch 105633-05 fixes this problem, and is available from http://sunsolve.sun.com.
Alternatively, you can add the following
lines to your $HOME/.xinitrc file:
xset +fp /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/
xset fp rehash
CDE users on 2.6 will need to add
the first of the two lines above to their HOME/.dt/sessions/session
etc (be sure the permissions on this file are 755). Exit Communicator
and then restart.
- Linux only: Using the Insert
Link command (or the Link button) in Composer or when composing HTML
messages may cause Communicator to crash. The workaround is to create a
link by simply typing the complete text of the URL (for example, type
"http://www.netscape.com"). URLs entered as text are still displayed
as links in the body of a mail message; in Composer, the text is converted
to anchor tags.
Alternatively, you
may want to upgrade to XFree86 4.0 or 3.3.7 when they are available.
These versions include a fix in XLib that eliminate the crash problem.
Or, you can set an environment variable:
MOZILLA_LINUX_INSERT_LINK_FIX
An example for bourne shell users is:
MOZILLA_LINUX_INSERT_LINK_FIX=1; export
MOZILLA_LINUX_INSERT_LINK_FIX
- On Linux/UNIX systems you
may see the message "Can't convert string 'false' to type boolean" after
launching Communicator from the terminal or console window. To suppress
this message:
- Delete all white spaces
at the end of strings in ~/.Xresources.
- From
the command line type "xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources".
- The DirectColor visual
class is no longer supported. If you specify a DirectColor visual with the
-visual argument, or connect to an
X server which implements DirectColor as the default visual class,
Communicator uses a TrueColor visual instead.
- If you register a mime
handler for 'application/x-javascript,' errors occur when you attempt to display
pages that have that mime type. For example, if you use the Navigator
Applications preference to add a new mimetype for 'application/x-javascript,'
then choose Save To Disk, a core dump error occurs when you display
pages containing that mime type.
- The Linux 2.0 version of
Communicator is linked against libc 5.4.22, libm 5.0.8, and XFree86 3.2.
- The Linux 2.0 glibc version
of Communicator is linked against glibc 2.0.7 and XFree86 3.3.1
- If this is the very first
time you've run any version of Communicator on your system, start Communicator,
then exit, then start Communicator again before you use Messenger to
access your mail. If you attempt to use Messenger the very first time
you run Communicator, it may quit with an "Illegal instruction" message.
- If you are using IMAP mail
and would like your Sent, Templates, or Drafts folders to be located
on your IMAP server, first create the folder on the server, then use Communicator
Preferences to specify that you want Sent, Templates, or Drafts folders
to be kept on the IMAP server.
- To copy messages from one
IMAP server to another, use the File toolbar button. You cannot drag and
drop of messages from one IMAP server to another.
- If you delete your only
IMAP server and then add a POP server, Communicator may quit.
- In the Help window: The
Index "Look for" field is small and it might be difficult to read; however,
when you type a word and press Enter, matching topics do appear. You
can also scroll through the index entries.
- If you receive Motif warnings
that appear as dialog boxes, you can send those warnings to the command
line instead by adding these lines to the file ~/.Xresources:
Netscape*useStdoutDialog:False
Netscape*useStderrDialog:False
- You should set the CLASSPATH environment variable only if you need to install
special Java files in Communicator. Communicator uses CLASSPATH to find local .class files. If CLASSPATH is set in the user's environment, only the .jar
files and directories specified in the CLASSPATH are searched. If you set your CLASSPATH variable, you need to make sure that each .jar
file in $MOZILLA_HOME/java/classes is listed individually in your CLASSPATH.
- A previous workaround for
UNIX systems, to avoid the freezing on startup of the edit or compose
window, has been changed. If you previously set editor.disable_spell_checker
in the preferences.js file, you can now implement the improved fix
by deleting this line from the preferences.js file:
user_pref("editor.disable_spell_checker",
true);
Replace it with this line:
user_pref("editor.dont_lock_spell_files",
true)
This preference setting
prevents the spell checker from locking files over NFS, thereby preventing
the window freezing problem.
- If Communicator exhibits
consistent problems on pages containing JavaScript, check your ~/.mailcap file, and remove this line if it is in that
file:
application/x-javascript;;\x-mozilla-flags=save
- Communicator does not heed
the TMPDIR environment variable when creating temporary files.
- In order to create an IMAP
container folder on servers that do not support folders containing both
messages and subfolders, the folder should be created with a trailing
slash, e.g., "toplevel/".
- AIX systems: Some pages
and windows may not display correctly the first time you run Communicator.
Restarting Communicator corrects this problem.
- HP-UX systems: To export
security certificates:
- Enter the certificate
password.
- In the
Filter field that appears in the File dialog box, delete the "*"
(asterisk) and press Enter. The File Name field at the bottom of
the dialog box now shows just the directory path, without the file
name.
- Enter the
File Name and press OK to export the certificate.
International
Issues
- Communicator currently
does not support Hebrew to Unicode conversion. This may cause "???" characters
to be displayed instead of valid characters in JavaScript. Communicator
4.61 with Arabic/Hebrew support is available for download from IBM
at http://www6.software.ibm.com/dl/netscape3/bidi-p.
- Global IME support: users
of Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0 can now download
Global IME modules that enable input of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
characters into mail messages and web forms. For more information on
using Global IME under Communicator, choose International Users from
the Help menu.
- Users of Korean Windows
95 and 98: A problem with erratic behavior in non-HTML text editing fields
was reported for 4.72 and 4.73 when global IMEs for Chinese and/or
Japanese were installed. This problem has been fixed in 4.75. For
more information on the status of global IME support in Communicator,
please see http://home.netscape.com/eng/intl/gimesupport.html.
- On Windows 2000, Korean
IMEs (including Korean global IMEs in other Windows 2000 languages) may
not work well.
- Windows
2000 users do not need Global IMEs since it comes with its own improved
CJK IMEs. Use the fonts and IMEs available on the installation CD
instead.
- If you're running Windows
98, just select the Windows Update icon in the Start menu. From there,
select Product Updates, and download the language support and IMEs
you wish to use.
- vCards (Personal Cards):
if you usually attach vCards that contain 8-bit characters (e.g., Western
accented characters, Chinese, Japanese, Korean) to your outgoing mail
messages, we strongly recommend that you follow these suggestions when
creating your vCard:
- Place the information
for the Address, City, State, Zip Code and Country fields into the Address
field (on the Contact tab) separated by either a carriage return
(for Chinese, Japanese, Korean characters) or a space (for Western/accented
characters), or,
- Insert
an ASCII character at the beginning of each field (e.g., "+" or
"-"), except the Address field.
- Iso 8859-15 charset support
has been added to Xterm in order to provide euro support for UNIX.
This charset support currently is not available on Windows and Mac OS.
- Some email sender applications
use "UNKNOWN" as the charset name in the MIME2-encoded subject field.
In such cases, Communicator uses the global default (which is set by
View->Character Set->Set Default Character Set) as a reasonable
guess.
- If you are using a profile
created in a previous version of Communicator (that is, earlier than 4.5),
you need to overwrite the old preference settings with the correct ones.
To correct the preference settings:
- From the Edit menu, choose
Preferences.
- Under the
Navigator category, select Languages.
- Either
confirm that all the selections in the right pane are correct, or
delete and re-enter them.
- Click OK.
- When using the User Profile
Manager to create a new profile, some Japanese characters that you
enter in the Profile Name field of the "Choose a Name and Directory for Your
Profile" dialog box don't appear correctly in the directory. To correct
the directory entry, delete the directory name and manually type the
correct Japanese characters.
- When copying DBCS text
from Communicator to other applications under Windows NT, some characters
not in the common cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh, UNIX) codepoints
can become corrupted.
- Some characters may not
display correctly when using certain Microsoft fonts. Communicator uses
the Unicode
1.1 Shift-JIS encoding, whereas the Microsoft fonts may use different
encoding. To avoid the problem of incorrect character displays, use
a non-Microsoft Unicode font, such as Bitstream's Cyberbit.