Communicator
4.61 Release Notes
Last updated: June 1,
1999; previous update May 13,1999
[These notes are
updated as we receive feedback, so please check back for new information.]
These release notes
describe installation issues and known problems in Communicator 4.61. Contents
include:
For an overview
of the new features provided by Communicator 4.61, see the Tour
of New Features. For
release notes on Mission Control Desktop tools and technology, see Mission
Control Desktop 4.5.
What's
New in Version 4.61
-
Updated AOL Instant
Messenger 2.0
-
Fixes to improve security
-
G2 player
-
Simplified process for
obtaining digital certificates
-
New 56-bit DES ciphers
added to both export and US versions (requires new SSL cipher suite server-side)
-
Updated NetHelp content
-
Various bug fixes
Before
You Install
-
Note that Communicator
4.61 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 4.61, 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 4.61. In order for Communicator to automatically
transfer plug-ins from 4.0x versions, you must install Communicator 4.61
in the same folder as the old 4.0x version. If you install 4.61 in a different
folder, you must re-install any plug-ins.
-
On Mac OS systems: If
you are using a 3.0x version of Navigator and want to transfer your preferences
automatically to Communicator 4.61, you need to run NSMacPrefs. First,
install Communicator 4.6 and run it once. Then, download
and run the NSMacPrefs utility.
-
On Mac OS systems: Mac
OS 7.6.1 or greater is required to run Communicator 4.61. For current Apple
Mac OS software, see http://support.info.apple.com.
These are the recommended minimum system hardware configurations:
-
Mac OS 7.6.1: 16MB physical
RAM
-
Mac OS 8.0 or greater:
24MB physical RAM
-
On Mac OS systems: 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.
General
Issues
-
On Mac OS and Windows
systems: New profiles created in Communicator 4.61 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.
-
In Calendar on Mac OS
and Windows systems: If you enter an invalid server name Calendar sometimes
appears to "hang," in which case you need to restart Communicator.
-
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.
-
Composer doesn't properly
handle existing HTML files that contain CSS objects -- they may be removed
from the file.
-
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.
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,
be patient with the progress dialog boxes. Sometimes they 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, select Item, and remove the check from the Mail Filters
box in the right frame.
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 first file the message in a top-level folder, and
then move the file to the Inbox.
-
If you are upgrading
from Navigator 3.0x, you need to manually import your 3.0x address book
into Communicator 4.61 by opening the address book window and choosing
Import under the File menu. On Mac and Windows, then 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 4.61 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 re-ordering
them in the address book window.
-
Pinpoint addressing
in Communicator 4.61 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 4.61 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.
Navigator
-
Some HTTP proxy servers
don't support Internet Keywords when the user supplies only one keyword,
instead giving the error Could Not Find Host.
-
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 meta tags:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="60">
-
By default, when saving
from an FTP server in Navigator, Communicator saves binary files as HTML
files.
International
-
vCards (Personal Cards):
if you usually attach vCards that contain 8-bit characters (e.g., 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.
-
On Windows systems:
To print the Euro currency symbol, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/euro.asp#printing
-
Previous Windows versions
of Communicator had a problem sending the Accept-Language HTTP header to
servers. This problem occurred if you used the Preferences command to add
choices to the default language selection. This problem is corrected in
Communicator 4.5 and 4.61. If you create a new profile to use in 4.61,
you don't need to do anything else to remedy the problem.
-
If you are using a profile
created in a previous version of Communicator, 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 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.
Windows
-
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.
Palm-Compatible
Synchronization Tools (Windows Only)
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
Folders 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 sub-folders, are uploaded
to the directory you are logged into.
-
Older versions of Norton
CrashGuard are incompatible with Communicator 4.61 and may cause your system
to "hang" or "quit."
-
If you are using Mac
OS 8.1: You may have problems with some text files if you start Communicator
using Easy Open. To avoid these problems, when the Easy Open dialog appears,
do not make a selection, and cancel the dialog box. Open the Easy Open
control panel. Uncheck the option "Translate 'TEXT' documents". Close the
Control Panel. You can then select your signature file.
-
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 the Real
Player 5.0 Player and its plug-in software that comes with Communicator
4.61, 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 and 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.
Java
and JavaScript
-
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.
Unix/Linux
-
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 mimetype. 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 mimetype.
-
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
-
The glibc library distributed
with RedHat SparcLinux has a page size bug that prevents Communicator from
starting. To run Communicator 4.61, you need to upgrade to the glibc-2.0.7-25
or higher RPM. This upgrade may require that you upgrade other RPMs as
well.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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. Also, Communicator does
not work on AIX 4.3.2; it will crash the kernel and you will need to reboot.
-
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.
Using the Quality Feedback
Agent with Automatic Proxy Configuration
(Note: This is
available for 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: \Fullsoft\data\talkback.ini