Overnight Lock-up

I'm not sure whether this is a Netscape problem or a Win XP problem, but it's a minor annoyance that I can't seem to track down. On my home machine I have Netscape 7.1 installed on Win XP O/S with a dial-up connection. Because I'm usually only on this system late in the evening and early in the morning, I often leave Netscape open on the desktop after I go offline, and it sits open overnight.

In the morning when I return to the computer, I frequently find that I can't dial in again and check my mail or go from there because Netscape just will not respond. If I try to close Netscape and reopen it, I often have to resort to the task manager and sometimes even a reboot before things smooth out and behave normally.

Nothing else seems to suffer from this lock-up, the mouse moves normally, the hard drive responds fine, and it's not a power-saver setting that I can locate. Does anybody have any experience with this or does it suggest anything that I should check when I'm on the system the next time?

 

Hi bentley,

Just wanted you to know that I'm not ignoring your post. I did leave Netscape open last night with the browser and mail open. This a.m. I had no problem accessing the browser or mail, i.e., no lockup. I also use DUN and run Windows 98SE, and have my Screen Saver | Power Schemes configured so that the monitor and hard disk shut off after 30 minutes. I have disabled "Standby" (set to "Never "). I have no idea what the settings might be for XP, but assume they will be similar. I fully intended to do this the night of the 26th, but it slipped my mind, and I shut down before thinking!

I will try again for a couple more nights to see if I can recreate your problem... Right now your alternative would be to close Netscape when you log off the Internet.

Ramona

 

The strange part is that it doesn't happen every night.

This morning it was hung up with two webpages and email minimized on the task bar. Yesterday no problem, and I think it was the same configuration. I've got standby set to "never" and my screen saver goes to a blank screen after some time. I always think I'll have a reason to go back online late in the evening, so I leave it there, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Now I'm trying to keep track of what's open when I stumble over to it first thing in the AM with my coffee, but that is not necessarily my finest moment...

I have Norton anti-virus set to run some nights after I've gone to bed, and with NAV and Netscape, this problem is magnified many times! I've finally learned on those nights to shut down Netscape.

 

Since you have dial-up, you can try this simple test. Do NOT load Netscape or any program, just have computer sitting at desktop. Link into your internet provider and go to bed. If computer continues the same behavior, the issue is your connection, OS, modem, hardware or other background running service.

 

No, the connection is not left open. Sorry, didn't make that clear in the first place.

 

If your leaving email active... assuming set to auto poll every xx minutes with no open ISP link could put N7 email client in a constant "error" connection condition... awkward to say the least. I would suggest changing setting to manual download only or closing email client. If you have already done this, I'm running out of suggestions.

 

Having had a couple of days at home to play with this problem, I've begun to suspect it's an XP quirk and not specific to Netscape.

It isn't email that does it, Dennis. I tried that, since it certainly did seem plausible, but no luck. I have a suspicion that running XP on a P3 with only 256 MBs of memory is where the problem really lies.

 

Hi bentley

You have checked scheduled tasks. But there are routines not listed in that view. The following could be some possibilities ... M$ update, AV updates are most commonly set to auto start schedule in the background. Again with no ISP link active, don't know how these request are manage. Does this every happen with no applications loaded, just leaving computer on over night?