Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless
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@hatrack said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
Has anyone any first comments ?
Yep, sure.
- I've used V since Feb 2015, TP1.
- It's been my default browser since 2015.
- Specifically, though i always keep both Stable & Snapshot installed, unlike you my default is Snapshot.
- I am not [necessarily :face_with_stuck-out_tongue_winking_eye: ] a masochist; if V for me misbehaved as you described, my preceding statement would have to be false.
- Afaik none of the problems you listed, have beset me.
- It's true to say that the current Snapshot bugs of lost tab thumbnail pop-ups, & broken middle-click paste, are a hassle for me, but i am cognisant of it being my deliberate & considered choice to use Snapshot.
- Is your DE in
Mint 18.3
KDE, Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce? - Have you been inspecting your systemd journal for salient error messages?
- Maybe for the next week or so, stop launching your V from the App Menu & instead launch from terminal, then keep reviewing all the lines there each time it misbehaves for you.
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@Priest72 or you could just create backups, not worry about it, and run whatever OS you like. There are plenty of distros you can use besides Puppy if you do want a live boot disk though... I keep Kali on one, but you don't really want to run Kali as your daily driver. My current preferred distro, Arch, would work as a live boot disk as well; that's actually how you install it.
Regardless, I prefer the speed offered by using internal connections and really fast drives for my OS, and couldn't really fit what I need on a DVD or flash drive.
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@hatrack said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
I have not changed my profile. I presume that to do this, I would need to de-install and re-install Vivaldi and I have never done this. This is a Linux system so all upgrades come via the Upgrade Manager. I apply upgrades by selecting the version offered and then invoking the operation via the "Apply Changes".
No, your conception here is incorrect. Also, it is not ...
@hatrack said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
changed my profile
... it is...
@luetage said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
reset your profile
The forum has 17 bazillion posts & references on how & why to do this. It has nothing to do with uninstalling V the program. Using mine as an example:
steffie@archlinuxTower[~/.config/vivaldi] 09:54:45 Sun Sep 27 $> ls | grep Default drwxr-xr-x 35 steffie 1000 4096 2020-09-26 00:16 Default
Find your
Default
, delete or much better, rename it [with V closed], then relaunch V ... it will create a virgin clean new profile for you. If you no longer experience any of your hassles thereafter, then the root cause was a corrupt profile. If the hassles continue, then the investigation must go on. -
@Steffie Or (when Vivaldi is running) just look at Vivaldi - Help/About for the profile path.
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@TbGbe Yes of course, but... thereafter the OP would still need to go to their file manager or their terminal to perform the actual delete/rename. I was cutting out the middle-humanoid.
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@hatrack said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
@npro - I have not yet submitted a bug report - - - everything I know about this malfunction is presented in my original post. The crashes are totally unpredictable. The longest period without malfunction has been about four hours of continuous browsing. At other times, the browser crashes during the initial loading. This is usually manifest as a partial loading, failing to display the Speed Dial. This then may (or may not ! ) turn into a complete computer crash when I attempt to select a new tab. All crashes are absolutely total - - - the mouse and keyboard appear to no longer be connected to the machine so that there is no way to recover control of this, except by switching off the power supply and then rebooting.
So you have mentioned 4 problems (I would say it's just one, probably system/GPU driver related) and those are just the symptoms of it) but nothing was reported here and to the bug tracker. These are:
- Browser fails to load Speed Dial. This can sometimes be rectified by selecting a new tab but, sometimes this action crashes both the browser and computer.
- Browser crashes during loading, crashing the computer.
- Browser crashes when moving to a new page on a site, sometimes also crashing the computer.
- When the browser crashes the computer, everything is locked up so that the only way to regain control is to power-off at the mains supply.
You have following options:
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a) you can try to troubleshoot them yourself with the help of https://help.vivaldi.com/article/troubleshooting-issues/
tl;dr the "Test in a different profile" section of it -
b) Report them here individually in case other users can reproduce them as well following these generic guidelines, https://help.vivaldi.com/article/reporting-a-bug-in-vivaldi/
tl;dr describe the issue in detail, provide system info for example if you have inxi by runninginxi -Fazy --no-host
in a terminal and the contents ofvivaldi://gpu
in the address bar using the forum's </> Code, possibly logs from Xorg/systemd at the time of the crash. -
c) like b) but directly to the Vivaldi bug-tracker following the guidelines https://help.vivaldi.com/article/reporting-a-bug-in-vivaldi/ & for crashes https://help.vivaldi.com/article/reporting-crashes-on-linux/
Since you have also acknowledged it you can edit your title to something more specific and appropriate.
How you like to proceed is your call.
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@hatrack said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
I have not changed my profile. I presume that to do this, I would need to de-install and re-install Vivaldi
No, in fact uninstalling & reinstalling will not affect your profile at all.
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Hi all - -
I thank all forum members who have read my post and replied to it.I spent most of Sunday, experimenting and generally considering my problems. First off, I created a new profile (thanks Steffie). Initially, I thought that this had fixed the malfunctions but later on, the system started misbehaving again so clearly, something else is the cause. I went back to the original profile, which has all my configurations that it have created from "Settings". These are very important to me because as well as being elderly (87 !) I am also visually impaired.
With the original (faulty ? ) setup restored, I was considering my options when I had one of those flashes of brilliance for which I am noted.
I subscribe to a VPN, which is always enabled. Could it possibly be that the VPN is losing the connection due to overload ? After all, many people are now working from home and will be using VPNs. So, still with the original "faulty" profile, I simply disabled the VPN. I then vigorously exercised the system for several hours - - - switching to multiple pages on a site, opening numerous tabs, closing Vivaldi down and then restarting this to begin exercising all over again. I did not have one single crash.
I contacted "Support" for this VPN (PIA, which is usually very good) and they informed me that loss of connection to UK servers (which are the ones I use) is - - "a known problem, which is receiving their attention". So - - - the VPN looks as though it is the cause of my intermittent instability problems. As further supporting evidence, my problems began about six months ago - - - which is when large numbers of people began working from home, due to Covid-19.
I intend to run Vivaldi for a couple of days with the VPN disabled and then, if I get no more problems, I will mark this post as SOLVED. I repeat my thanks to all on this forum, unreservedly apologise for my stupidity and send my best regards to all.
hatrack.
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@hatrack I'm sorry to be a wet-blanket at you, but in all honesty i simply cannot see how a dodgy VPN, nor indeed a patchy internet connection in general, can possibly explain the dominant theme of your OP, which i selectively quote here:
crashing the computer
IMO the root-cause for the moment still remains undiscovered. Sorry again.
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seems to me like faulty RAM. Did you OC your processor or memory receently?
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@hatrack Thanks for reporting the results of all your testing, that's helpful for those trying to help you, and possibly others in the future. I have to agree auth @Steffie, however, as I also think it's unlikely that the VPN is causing your system to crash.
Have you taken a look at the link I provided above about reporting crashes on Linux? If Vivaldi crashes, you need to get the crash log to see what's going on. If your system crashes, you need to look into your system logs to see what's going on. I don't have a Linux Mint boot installed right now, and don't know its config off the top of my head, but a brief web search will yield numerous results on how to find & read your system logs when it crashes.
@hatrack said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
system started misbehaving again
What does this mean? How is it misbehaving? If it's just intermittently failing to load a page while your VPN is reconnecting, well that would be expected and should resolve itself once the VPN reconnects. I use PIA as well, and went through a brief period where the servers I used had connection reliability issues. The connection would drop, but reconnect rather quickly.
The most annoying part of that was the system notifications about the loss and then restoration of the connection.Sometimes it would annoy me enough that I would connect to another server. You can do that as well. You're not forced to use any specific servers, just pick a non-UK server, if those are the ones causing you trouble, and use that until PIA resolves the issue.
But I find it incredibly unlikely that this caused any of the crashes you have experienced. It's not impossible, but not likely either. If so, there is a deeper issue in your system.
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@lahirukins said in First Report - Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
seems to me like faulty RAM. Did you OC your processor or memory receently?
Faulty RAM? What indicates that? That seems like a WAG. It's possible, but what caused you to guess that?
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@hatrack i dunno about these other peoples post, but this browser has become extremely unstable the past month. literally just crashed my computer. when i restarted and came back, NONE of my tabs were saved. Usually i can just click the trash and reload all tabs, but they were all erased. Then today the browser just crashed for no reason when I wasnt even at the computer. I noticed some heavy lag in the past week when opening a bunch of tabs. Something I've never experienced before. Especially on this insane computer im using with 16 gigs of ram, brand new mobo, crazy fast processor. No excuse for such instability. Never have had probs with this browser before. My friend is complaining that his is going crazy too. Bout to downgrade to an older version
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@chaletamale
I apologise to all on this forum for not continuing this thread. I am elderly and I got sick so this took me out of circulation for quite some time. Then I lost all internet access and my ISP (Sky) simply refused to provide any service at all so I had to cancel them and sign up with a new ISP. All told, this took three weeks.
After that sad catalogue, my continued experience with Vivaldi just confirms my original post - - it is too unstable now. So, I have dumped this browser altogether and have deleted it completely from my system. Naturally, I first exported all my bookmarks and have now gone to Opera. I imported my bookmarks without any drama and I now have a fast and stable browser.
This is sad for Vivaldi was a breath of fresh air in the early days and I gladly made it my default but I guess it was over-developed and has turned into an unstable monster. I am a user, not a developer so what I need is software which is fast and stable. Both Opera and Firefox fill those requirements.
Best regards to all on this forum. -
I just re-read the thread as i'd forgotten it.Tbh it's made me feel sad. It seems a salient reminder that as important to us as this esoteric stuff is, it's actually trivial fluff compared to real-world stresses & health traumas.
Best wishes to you @hatrack i hope you will be well, & content.
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@Steffie
To Steffie & Gwen-Dragon,
Thank you both for your kindly and charming farewell messages.I am indeed saddened to leave Vivaldi but one must take a pragmatic view of the software they use. The 'Web has now developed to such a degree that we now hardly use anything other than a browser. I use mine for concentrated personal research in scientific subjects, plus on-line shopping, banking and to see newspapers . I am now nearly 87, partially disabled and visually impaired. This latter is a real source of annoyance ... I have to use a x3 hand magnifier to read my monitor and because I have only one working eye, I have little stereo perception, so my text is full of typos which have to be laboriously found and corrected. I'm just not prepared to struggle with an unstable browser as well when there are others which satisfy my needs. Opera IS very good and I have configured it to employ cascading menus, instead of tiles. This gives me a very intuitive setup which I like. Just as a philosophical thought, I consider a browser to be a vehicle ... the really important stuff is the bookmarks. These can be exported as a *.html file into a new vehicle (AKA "a browser") in seconds.
Returning now to the discussion of Vivaldi, I really did like the idea that it was designed to be extensively configurable by the user. My guess is that the developers have enhanced the code too far, too quickly. In so doing, they have generated regressions and instabilities which are now very hard to find. I am not sneering at their efforts ... I am continually reminded of a remark made by my old boss, about 60 years ago - - "Don't blame yourself excessively ... the man who never made a mistake never made anything worthwhile" - - I plan to give the developers sometime to revise their effort and then, about April 2021, to download Vivaldi again. If it is then stable and I can combine the configurability of Vivaldi with the cascading menus I've devised in Opera, I'll be a VERY happy bunny !
Very best regards to all on this forum - -
hatrack -
@hatrack said in Vivaldi is now so unstable as to be virtually useless:
@Steffie
To Steffie & Gwen-Dragon,
Thank you both for your kindly and charming farewell messages.I am indeed saddened to leave Vivaldi but one must take a pragmatic view of the software they use. The 'Web has now developed to such a degree that we now hardly use anything other than a browser. I use mine for concentrated personal research in scientific subjects, plus on-line shopping, banking and to see newspapers . I am now nearly 87, partially disabled and visually impaired. This latter is a real source of annoyance ... I have to use a x3 hand magnifier to read my monitor and because I have only one working eye, I have little stereo perception, so my text is full of typos which have to be laboriously found and corrected. I'm just not prepared to struggle with an unstable browser as well when there are others which satisfy my needs. Opera IS very good and I have configured it to employ cascading menus, instead of tiles. This gives me a very intuitive setup which I like. Just as a philosophical thought, I consider a browser to be a vehicle ... the really important stuff is the bookmarks. These can be exported as a *.html file into a new vehicle (AKA "a browser") in seconds.
Returning now to the discussion of Vivaldi, I really did like the idea that it was designed to be extensively configurable by the user. My guess is that the developers have enhanced the code too far, too quickly. In so doing, they have generated regressions and instabilities which are now very hard to find. I am not sneering at their efforts ... I am continually reminded of a remark made by my old boss, about 60 years ago - - "Don't blame yourself excessively ... the man who never made a mistake never made anything worthwhile" - - I plan to give the developers sometime to revise their effort and then, about April 2021, to download Vivaldi again. If it is then stable and I can combine the configurability of Vivaldi with the cascading menus I've devised in Opera, I'll be a VERY happy bunny !
Very best regards to all on this forum - -
hatrackIm hoping it becomes stable. I remember when firefox became unusable. They listened to the community and finally fixed it. I absolutely despise their UI though, which is why I havnt completely given up on vivaldi. Im gonna wait this out because so far its only been a few hickups. Hopefully they get it fixed soon though, because I take crashing my computer very serious
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Hi,
I use it on Kubuntu 2004. Works fine.
My wife uses it on Ubuntu 2004 and also fine.Only on Android it hangs quite often.
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