Facebook unresponsive?
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It's a relatively new computer, only a day or two in use. Alienware. No 3rd party software that strikes me as a candidate...
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@WombatPete Usually step 5 should solve the problem. If it didn't, then the problem might occur somewhere else (like 3rd party software, antivirus, firewall, network issues, OS issues etc.), since it seems to work just fine for everyone else. Have you tried it in another browser already?
You could try another instance of Vivaldi to check if the issue occurs there too - preferably the latest Snapshot (you can download it from here). Don't update your current Vivaldi! Install new instance as "standalone", so that it doesn't interfere with your current installation. You can easily get rid of it later by removing the folder where it was installed.
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@pafflick, agree with all that. Firefox's a monster to have running for one page. Let me try the snapshot - how do I prevent it from installing as an update to my primary Vivaldi instance?
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@WombatPete Launch the installer, click on "Advanced" and choose "Install standalone" from the "Installation type" dropdown, then just pick a folder and click on "Accept and Install".
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@pafflick - ok, FB DOES work in the standalone 1.8.
Where does that leave me?
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And thanks, that's already progress! So does the fact that it works in the standalone, but not in the original installation, tell us anything that might help in the search for a fix of the original problem?
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@WombatPete If it works in Standalone, then it should work in the default installation with a clean profile too. Are you sure you tried launching the original installation after renaming the
%localappdata%\Vivaldi\User Data\Default\
folder to - for example:%localappdata%\Vivaldi\User Data\Default 2\
(while Vivaldi is closed and none of its processes are running)? Maybe you should try overwriting the original installation by installing 1.8 all over again, in the default directory?If the new profile would work, then you could just copy only some part of the data from your old profile folder, according to the guidelines from this tutorial.
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@pafflick I understand, but we're missing something. I renamed the default folder. V opened with no tabs and no changed settings, so that clearly worked. And yes, a new default folder was created. But no, FB didn't work. And it does work in the standalone. Weird. But there is an explanation here somewhere.
What is a snapshot, anyway? How is it unlike the standard installation version? It appears to be the very version of V I originally installed. Perhaps the thing to do is move things into the default folder for the standalone, bit by bit, and if it all works, then just eliminate the original installation? And if I do find a particular piece that causes the FB failure, I could report that back here.
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@WombatPete said in Facebook unresponsive?:
What is a snapshot, anyway? How is it unlike the standard installation version?
Basically, it's a beta version of the browser - updated more regularly, it comes with new features that are not available in the "Stable" version yet, but it might have some issues more often than the "Stable" version.
@WombatPete said in Facebook unresponsive?:
Perhaps the thing to do is move things into the default folder for the standalone, bit by bit, and if it all works, then just eliminate the original installation? And if I do find a particular piece that causes the FB failure, I could report that back here.
Yeah, that might be a good idea. Just copy only the files that are mentioned in that article and check if everything works correctly after that.
FYI, I use only Standalone installations of Vivaldi on my PC (Stable for everyday use and Snapshot for testing). I don't know if Vivaldi Standalone can be setup as the system's default browser (probably yes), as I have the Microsoft Edge setup as the default*, even though I practically don't even use it.
* Off topic: That's because sometimes external apps launch the browser without my consent, and I have a very particular phobia of opening unknown URLs in my main browser, where I'm logged into multiple accounts (like social media) and despite using extensions like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger, I open almost every URL in private windows. Perhaps it's an irrational anxiety, and I'm not even concerned about the privacy that much, but I don't want the services that I use daily to "know" what other websites do I visit and I also don't want to leave traces (like cookies) of sites that I visit just once to stay on my hard drive forever, since I practically never clear my browsing history (I guess I just try to keep it "clean" manually)...
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@pafflick I did the same thing - less because I was concerned with security and more because I didn't want a 3rd-party program to open seventy eight gazillion tabs (which was my norm)))
Let me see if it takes to being the default browser...
Ok, W10 accepts it - it's in the list and it's selectable. I've selected it. Now I try to open a link from Skype - yes, it works. Cool! Any other reason not to use the stand-alone as my basic V installation? What's the functional difference? Any advantages/disadvantages? -
@WombatPete For me personally, I find only advantages, as I have everything in one catalog that I can reach quickly (for whatever reason). It doesn't create any registry entries AFAIK (or only the necessary ones) so that removing that thing completely from your PC is just as simple as deleting its main catalog from your hard drive.
Basically, standalone installations are in a way similar to portable installations (unfortunately, Vivaldi is not portable yet), so I use them whenever available (because it's easier to transfer them from one PC to another or keep them intact & ready to use right after the system reinstall). It's a matter of preference, really. I don't want to gobble up my AppData folders (even though I rarely visit them), so I avoid that whenever I can.
Most importantly, I haven't noticed any performance issues related to the type of installation (as a matter of fact - why would there be any?), so I guess there's no reason not to use "Standalone" - unless you want to use it on other user's accounts (though there would be even workaround for that, like creating shortcuts pointing to different profile locations using the
--user-data-dir=
command). -
@pafflick Excellent. I'm giving it a shot.
I'm a fan of minimal registry dependency.
I'll post here if something can be identified as causing the FB hanging.
Thanks again for all this! -
Done! Success)
The culprit was - and I don't know why - the storage and session storage folders. All the others I copied from the original installation; those I left from the standalone installation. Works perfectly! Any idea what it might have been? -
@WombatPete Frankly, I have no idea. Perhaps some error occurred while the program was saving some data to that files, causing them to become junky or whatever. Such weird things happen in computer software from time to time. Whatever the cause, I'm glad that it's working now!
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