THE PROBLEM:
When there is an existing PPP connection, Netscape seems to start normally.
Otherwise Netscape freezes on startup (for about 2 minutes) when not
connected via PPP. I guess it's waiting for a DNS lookup to time out.

The root account has always had this problem -- but then why login as root
all of the time? I've just kind of assumed at this point that if you had to
login as root -- you're probably there on another agenda anyway ;-)

To 'fix' the problem, I've found that if I delete my  ~/.netscape directory,
I can relaunch netscape -- no problem. This isn't  a long term solution
however, as I'd like to keep things that live there. But, this temporary fix
does seem to work EVERY TIME.

Strangely enough, I've found that if I create a new user account (say
'useradd foo'), and use foo's account foo doesn't seem to have the same
problems that an existing account does.

So the problem is exacerbated as the user configures the home environment.

See Also:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4851
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=6614
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=6851
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3471


THE SETUP:
My setup consists of the following (as outlined in /etc/hosts@IntelBox)

::::::::::::::/etc/hosts:::::::::::::
#Hosts file for DomainNameHERE.com
#IP		FQDN_ALIAS
#
127.0.0.1	localhost
#
#Default Gateway
152.159.250.1	LANmodem.DomainNameHERE.com	LANmodem


# Hosts


152.159.250.5	PowerMacintosh.DomainNameHERE.com	PowerMacintosh
152.159.250.3	stag.DomainNameHERE.com	stag
152.159.250.6	Maria.DomainNameHERE.com	Maria
152.159.250.39	IntelBox.DomainNameHERE.com	IntelBox
:::END:::

::::::::::::::/etc/hosts.conf:::::::::::::
order hosts,bind
multi on
:::END:::

More Info From the Gnome|System Menus|Utilities|System Info... Dialog:

Distribution:                  Red Hat Linux
Operating System:              Linux
Distribution Version:          Red Hat Linux release 6.1 (Cartman)

Operating System Version:      #1 Mon Sep 27 10:40:35 EDT 1999
Operating System Release:      2.2.12-20
Processor Type:                i686
Host Name:                     IntelBox.DomainNameHERE.com
User Name:                     sean
X Display Name:                :0
System Status:                 6:05am  up  5:54,  2 users,  load average:
0.00, 0.00, 0.04

The version of Netscape I'm using on IntelBox is:
Netscape 4.7/Export, 15-Sept-99; (c) 1995-1998 Netscape Communications Corp.

To create my PPP connection, one of the machines must tell the 3com lanmodem
(via Netscape) to open it's connection to the remote ISP dialup.

netstat -r on IntelBox produces:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt
Iface
152.159.250.0   *               255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0
eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 lo
default         LANmodem.absolu 0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0
eth0


Here's the clincher--I've experienced this problem in both RH 6.0 & now 6.1.
This came shortly after I started using Enlightenment as a WM (now I use
0.16.3) as opposed to AfterStep. Anyway, The Problem isn't Enlightenment: I
removed Enlightenment as a variable by switching to FVWM to check netscape
there.

The Problem could be Netscape: but I can't remove this as a variable -- I
don't know of any other browsers. All my other DNS seem to work just fine.

Gnome: Probably the only variable that I cannot presently remove;
incedentlally I don't recall having this problem whent I was running RH 5.1
& afterstep.

I originally upgraded from 6.0 to 6.1 to specifically alleviate this
problem. IntelBox has been running just fine since November of 1999, with no
sign of this glitch.

So as a next step, I began by examining the directories and permissions of
the files in the .netscape directory.

[sean@IntelBox sean]# cd .netscape
[sean@IntelBox sean]# ls -al
total 284
drwxrwxr-x   5 sean     sean         4096 Feb  7 01:37 .
drwx------  29 sean     sean         4096 Feb  7 01:32 ..
drwx------   2 sean     sean         4096 Feb  7 01:13 archive
-rw-------   1 sean     sean        11409 Feb  7 01:13 bookmarks.html
drwx------   2 sean     sean         4096 Feb  7 01:15 cache
-rw-------   1 sean     sean       184320 Feb  7 01:14 cert7.db
-rw-------   1 sean     sean        16384 Feb  7 01:32 history.dat
-rw-------   1 sean     sean        16384 Feb  7 01:14 key3.db
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean         1062 Feb  7 01:32 liprefs.js
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean            0 Feb  7 01:13 nswrapper.copy_defs
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean            0 Feb  7 01:37 out
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean          505 Feb  7 01:32 plugin-list
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean          505 Feb  7 01:18 plugin-list.BAK
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean         3490 Feb  7 01:32 preferences.js
-rw-rw-r--   1 sean     sean          741 Feb  7 01:14 registry
-rw-------   1 sean     sean        16384 Feb  7 01:32 secmodule.db
drwxr-xr-x   3 sean     sean         4096 Feb  7 01:13 xover-cache


Eventually I found that by deleting the 'preferences.js' file in the
.netscape
dir I could get Netscape to start up:

[sean@IntelBox sean]# rm preferences.js

This is still NOT GOOD ENOUGH because it removes the Mail and News
Preferences that I have set, as well as anything else.

This made me believe that there was a setting within the preferences.js file
that was causing Netscape to hang. So, I proceded to edit the file by
removing half of the lines at a time.


Two lines that are of interest:

user_pref("browser.startup.license_accepted", "500 4.7");		# This Line
verifies that the user accepted the liscense agreement. If you remove it a
new filestructure is built in the ~/ dir.

user_pref("news.directory", "/home/sean/");		# This is the offending
line that keeps us from starting up. If you remove it you can start up once,
but the line is added in that 'session'.


THE SOLUTION:
Create a new directory called 'nsnews' in the users home directory:

[sean@IntelBox sean]# mkdir nsnews

Then goto netscape's preferences here:
Edit|Preferences|Mail & Newsgroups| Newsgroups Servers | Newsgroups
directory

and set the target directory to ~/nsnews

This fixes the problem EVERY TIME for me (and even in the broken root
account) so AFAICT it works.


THE END:
I'm really not sure why this works the way it does, but in all fairness It
would seem proper that the information downloaded as 'News' has no business
being strewn about in the users home dir. So a private directory makes
sense.

IMHO this is a netscape bug. NOT a RH Bug; Netscape should be installing
this directory as a default (if it is really needed to prevent this kind of
lockup). This may not be the best place for this dir, but it seems to do the
job.

Never mind the fact that this shouldn't ne an issue in the first place.
Netscape should at least 'start' and THEN warn you about the missing
directory.

What is really strange is why this seems to happen in the first place. I
don't recall doing anything to cause the problem, and nothing seems to show
up in /var/log/ either.

'Sometimes a good idea today is better than a Great Idea Tomorrow'.

Good luck! I hope this helps somebody, or at least makes someone think
further about the problem. IT'S BEEN DRIVING ME NUTS FOR MONTHS.