NetSurf-gcc-5312.zip: SWI &115F5F unknown

I unpacked NetSurf-gcc-5312.zip with !SparkFS 1.46. When I run it I get SWI &115F5F unknown.

This situation seems to have occurred before (on Rpi3B+ with RO 5.28). Could the problem be with !SparkFS and not !NetSurf? NetSurf’s !RunImage file has a count of 5,021,567 bytes. Can anybody confirm that that is correct? The zipfile’s MD5 checked out OK.

NetSurf’s !RunImage file has a count of 5,021,567 bytes. Can anybody confirm that that is correct?

That is the length here, with no errors seen.

A sight of the log would, might or might not help.

Mine also has the same length, and I’m running it successfully here – RasPi 3B+, RO 5.29 (29-Jun-21).

Do you update !Boot and !System from time to time from NetSurf’s distribution?

Thanks David. After extraction the NetSurf in GWtest.zip gives

Internal error: abort on data transfer at &005BDF34

when I run it. As for log files, I cannot find any.
&5BDF34 is offset &5B5F34 in application space, which looks totally harmless in !RunImage.

SWI &115F5F unknown

This is a completely misleading error, but a StrongED search for 115f5f on !RunImage as found in the zip reveals two finds as SWIPL &115F5F. xpanding !RunImage gives a more realistic, but not noticeably more helpful, error.

As for log files, I cannot find any.

NetSurf’s log is at :-

Scrap.ScrapDirs.ScrapDir.WWW.NetSurf.Log

I might have this wrong but my impression is that I seen a number of reports from Gavin of what seem to be very odd issues. Card corruptions?

Scrap.ScrapDirs.ScrapDir.WWW.NetSurf.Log

I keep Scrap in RAM. Nevertheless I now have the logfile. Successful exit but 12 lines of

[WARN netsurf] desktop/netsurf.c 103 netsurf_lwc_iterator

stuff. I have just run DiscKnight on the card. 25 errors, now corrected. Same SWI &115F5F unknown error when I doubleclick !NetSurf. Checked with DiscKnight again. SDFS Disc is good. For good measure I have also had DiscKnight check the 11GB of hard-disk (where NetSurf is kept). Disc is good. Are there any tests of RAM I should try?

Did DiscKnight give a log of what files were affected by the errors? I wouldn’t trust any of them to be intact. I would begin by wiping Netsurf and downloading a fresh copy.

Something I noticed years ago with a corrupted IDE drive is that the new format (E and later) doesn’t need *Compact, it does this automatically. The problem is that if the drive structure is broken and the drive has a lot of data or segmented files (I’m not entirely sure of what process starts an auto compaction), the date on the drive can become progressively more and more wrong if it happens to touch any of the broken parts. You won’t get any warning or error for much of this, the date will just be trashed.
To explain, imagine you have three files, one two and three. Now imagine three is damaged and a bit of it points into the middle of one. Somewhere along the way you delete file one. Space is reconsolidated and two is moved into that place. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that a bit of three is still pointing into where one used to be (and two now is).
It’s a bit of a simplistic description, suffice to say that I found bits of recognisable log files on the middle of executables and all sorts.

It is essential to check your disc structure regularly. Preferably with DiscKnight, but failing that *CheckMap will usually notice (and indicate that you need to buy a copy of DiscKnight as CheckMap lies and can’t fix anything).

Checkmap only checks for map corruption, you’ll only find broken directories by trying to open them.

Luckily on Filecore most files are not fragmented, so we don’t get many files which the parts are mixed up after disc corruption. Although you may find files have become corrupted by applications writing to a file handle they don’t own – that’s how fragments of log files end up embedded in other things.

In the past, when I was relying on RISC OS rather more, I would use my current version of NetSurf to download the zip file of a more recent version from the NetSurf site. Then I would unzip it with SparkFS, test the new version, and if all went well I would throw out the old version, replacing it by the new. There was an occasion when I caught myself out with this bootstrapping. I was left with a new version that would not download and was stuck. So now I tend to download from the NetSurf site using Chrome on Raspbian (or Firefox on Manjaro), and then use !FTPc to transfer from my Linux machine to my RISC OS machine. In this way I am no longer reliant on NetSurf for the fetching of new versions.

In fact, very much to my regret, I find myself using Linux more and more for the stuff that has to be done, leaving RISC OS just for my footling about.

DiscKnight has saved my bacon on numerous occasions. I am astonished and grateful for how good it is.

By the way, netsurf-gcc-5312.zip is working fine on my ArmBook with RO5.27.

hen I would unzip it with SparkFS, test the new version, and if all went well I would throw out the old version, replacing it by the new.

Ah, there’s your problem.

I rename mine as _!NetSurf (becomes a directory, not an app, so doesn’t clutter Apps, plus gets moved to the end of the directory display).

This stays in-situ until the next update has been downloaded and the current !NetSurf is to be renamed as _!NetSurf.

I run a similar process for Pi firmware updates and RISC OS updates, allowing me to revert fairly easily by attaching the card to either the PC or, as is more common nowadays, my phone.

very much to my regret, I find myself using Linux more and more for the stuff that has to be done

It’s a shame, but in terms of “the modern world”, RISC OS is very firmly stuck in the late ‘90s. I use RISC OS for fun and enjoyment, but a lot of things ¹ require a different machine. Once upon a time that was a Windows box. These days, much of the work can be done with a freebie Android tablet, so I’m actually using Windows an order of magnitude less than RISC OS. In fact, if it wasn’t for DVD ripping ² and a graphics program that is way friendlier (and faster) than PhotoDesk, I’d have little reason to even run a PC…

¹ Netflix, wasting huge amounts of time watching random rubbish on YouTube, managing my bank accounts, the internet in general ³, writing stuff ⁴, reading stuff ⁵, photo editing in something that resembles a reasonable timeframe and without the pain ⁶.

² I don’t actually own a functional TV any more – for the very few things I watch on satellite, I have a CVBS to VGA adaptor. It’s actually pretty good. https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20180124

³ I am patiently waiting for a general release of Iris in order to see how it fares with the sites that I usually visit. NetSurf pretty much cannot cope with the piles of scripting that everybody seems to think is necessary these days.

⁴ Once upon a time, was OvationPro. These days, tends to be Google Docs because then I’m no longer tied to a specific machine (that has the files). Just a shame that the official Docs app is so awful and lacking in features.

⁵ This was part of the reason why I started pulling apart the epub format. It’s not actually that complicated – basically a zip file with a table of contents and then one or more XHTML files (and possibly graphics in the usual formats – JPEG, GIF, or PNG). Unlike web based HTML, there’s no tolerance for error. A <br> (should be <br /> to be compliant) will probably cause embedded readers (in ebooks) to simply abandon parsing. Calibre has a lot of verification checks for this reason.
However… let’s just say the timing was wrong and leave it at that.

⁶ This is part of the reason why I’m interested in seeing what ArtCube develops in to. We have a very basic pixel-based editor (Paint) and we have a pretty complicated editor (PhotoDesk), but we’re missing a tool to: rotate the image by various small amounts, zoom in while retaining image dimensions, crop, fiddle with brightness in various bands (lights, darks, and a few in between), red eye correction, sharpening, and blurring out selected areas. All of this to be previewable in real-time. If you’re not sure what I mean exactly, then find somebody with an Android phone and look at Google’s “Photos” app. That, with a few extra features (like the blurring that would be useful to people wanting to use photos on blog posts, etc).

Ah, there’s your problem.

Thanks for the tip. I got into so many bad habits, not thinking things through at the start. That is where fora like this can be a boon; there is the chance to learn from other people’s mistakes (or forethought).

Now that Rpi4s can boot from a USB3-attached hard-drive, so that fiddly micro-SDcards are no longer a requirement, and storage is so cheap, it is feasible to play with alternative OSs by just plugging them in before start up. As well as Raspbian, which I use because it has been optimized for the Rpi, I have also tried Manjaro-ARM, which is very good looking and very customizable. A graphical goodie that RISC OS has hitherto missed out on is being able to customize the iconbar’s background, so it can blend in with the backdrop. Another is being able to choose where the window-furniture goes (although that currently seems to be broken in Raspbian which gets into trouble if some OpenBox configurations are chosen). These are superficial facilities, but are become so widespread I fear newcomers to RISC OS may be disappointed at their absence.

I let fetch_ns by Frank de Bruijn do all the heavy-lift. The zipped NetSurf downloads are kept as backup and it automatically replaces the curren NS app. :)

fetch_ns