[SD4L-user] Problems with Scramdisk (?) 1.3-0 on Gutsy 7.10

[Millen, S. <smm...@ea...>]

>From a post made on the Ubuntu forums:


Hello all,

I'm running Gutsy 7.10 on a Dell Inspiron 1525N laptop (essential
hardware listed on the Dell site, if it's of interest) just recently
purchased. I also use Scramdisk for Linux version 1.3-0 to which I have
containers (formatted in ext3) copied from a Feisty 7.04 machine which
were created using a previous version of Scramdisk (but still should be
compatible). I direct Firefox to look for my user profiles within the
encrypted containers. 

On my Feisty machine (until it was murdered recently, great sadness :()
there were never any problems. However, on my new Gutsy machine, it
seems that I'm experiencing:

a) more hangups (like 20 seconds to a minute) on loading web pages (ok,
this could be at the web server end) but which nearly freeze up my
system. It does this even though a quick look at the system monitor does
not show high RAM or CPU usage. 

b) A lot of times when this happens (but even when it doesn't) when I
close Firefox and restart it I get a "Firefox is already running, you
must either close Firefox or restart your system" error. In the system
monitor it does not show Firefox running. 

When I open the terminal and type in:

ps -e -a

thinking that I might see Firefox listed there still running (and thus
could issue a kill command) I don't see it there either. Nothing puts
things right except a system restart, which is a pain and distressingly
Windows-like and un-Linux-like.

c) If I do restart (or even if I don't have to restart after an
apparently normal session but have turned on the machine normally and
logged in) when I start Firefox I get a "Firefox was unexpected closed
during the last session" error asking me if I want to start a new
session or to restore the old one. I get this error message even if
Firefox *did* seem to close normally at the end of last session;

d) When I dismount the normal encrypted container file after a session,
to log out and shut down the laptop, the container formatted in ext3
where the folder with the profile data is listed usually has to be
brutally dismounted. Even there it will not dismount until a 2nd
dismount command is issued. (Previously, on my Feisty machine, that
happened occasionally too, but I think there the problem was memory
leaks in gaim, not Firefox, and a single brutal dismount was sufficient.
Nor did it seem to affect the system adversely in any other way).

The reason why I think Scramdisk is involved in some way (and a post
will be made to the Scramdisk user's group on this) is:

a) I am currently helping a married couple run their new Dell Linux 530N
box, using Gutsy 7.10, without Scramdisk, and I have not observed this
problem. Neither has a friend who's running Gutsy without Scramdisk on a
Zareason Limbo 2440 box and who says Firefox runs "flawlessly".

b) I am experiencing another problem which seems to be Scramdisk
related. My user account is the one where I use Scramdisk, my
administrative rights account does not. 

When I use the new applet feature that lists the users and allows for
quick switching from my admin (non-Scramdisk using) account to my user
account which does use Scramdisk, there is no problem. However, when I
go the reverse way using the quick switching applet, from my user
account (with Scramdisk containers open) to my non-Scramdisk using admin
account, four applets on the panels crash when the admin account screen
loads (the quick switcher, trash, and two others--I forget but can post
them later). Going from one account to another in either direction doing
it the old-fashioned way--by using the "stop" button--causes no
problems. This bug is *very* repeatable.

Like I said, I'll post this to the Scramdisk User's forum so that the
developers can read this. FWIW, the only thing that I could be running
that might be considered a plug-in is the one which allows Firefox to
run Flash (to play Youtubes and such).

Stewart