Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1 Release Notes

These release notes describe system requirements, installation instructions, and known issues for Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1. These notes are updated as we receive feedback, so please check back for new information. Click here to provide feedback on Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1. These release notes were last updated 5 June, 2002 17:35 PST.

For answers to frequently asked questions about Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1, read the Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1 (PR1) FAQ.

Contents

What's New
System Requirements
Compatibility Information
Installation Notes
Uninstalling
Known Problems
General
Setting Profiles
Navigator
Mail and News
JavaScript Debugger
AOL Instant Messenger & ICQ
Composer
Security
Preferences
Plugins
Printing
Java
International Release Notes
Quality Feedback Agent
A Note For Web Developers

What's New In This Release

For more information on how to use these new features, go to the Help and Support Center in Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1 (Open the Help menu and choose Help and Support Center).

System Requirements

Macintosh

Windows

Linux

Compatibility Information

If you are running McAfee's WebScanX, you may experience crashes at startup. Workaround: Disable WebScanX.

See the upgrade guide for problems associated with using a profile created in 6.0 or 6.01 that was abandoned. If you continue to use 4.x profile, information in 6.0 or 6.01 profile will appear out of date. The upgrade guide has suggestions and instructions for working through this problem.

To use MathML in Netscape , you must install the appropriate TeX fonts. See http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/fonts/ for information on installing the appropriate fonts.

McAfee virus scanner has an advanced option, not enabled by default, to turn on a Web-scanning feature. This feature intersects all winsock2 system calls and may cause Netscape to crash. It is recommended that disable this feature before using Netscape.

Visiting SSL2 and SSL3 sites while in FIPS mode may lead to a crash or failure to connect.

Windows

If you have the Crescendo 5.01 plug-in, you must update to the latest version of Crescendo. Otherwise, Netscape may crash at startup.

Mac OS

If you have version 4.5 (or earlier) of StuffIt Expander, you may see an error message stating that the archive is corrupted. You can ignore the message and continue with the installation. To get a newer version of StuffIt Expander, go to http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/expander_mac_login.html

If you attempt to run Netscape on Mac OS using a language pack (such as the Japanese Language Pack) and a Language Kit, all menu bar items will be incorrectly displayed. To resolve this problem, register Netscape using the Language Register. For instance, if you're using the Japanese Language Pack and the Japanese Language Kit, register Netscape as a JA application.

If you use the SmoothType control panel instead of Apple's "Smooth all fonts on screen" option in the Appearance control panel, you need SmoothType version 2.1.1 for Netscape . Netscape is not compatible with earlier versions of SmoothType, and some pages may be improperly drawn. To get an update, go to http://www.kaleidoscope.net/greg/smoothtype.html.

Linux

Netscape requires glibc 2.1 or later.

If you have Red Hat Linux 6.0, you can't launch Netscape if Java 2 is installed. The problem doesn't occur with Red Hat 6.1 or higher.

For Red Hat Linux 7, you must install the Standard C++ libraries for Red Hat 6.x compatibility. Get the package from the Red Hat 7 installation CD or download it from Red Hat.

Red Hat 7 users who have problems with Java hanging should try setting the environment variable LD_ASSUME_KERNEL to "2.2.5".

To run Netscape on SuSE Linux 6.2, you must install the libjpeg.so.62 file available here.

Installation Notes

Install into a new empty directory. Installing on top of previously installed builds may cause problems.

Windows Users: If you get the message, "uninstall.exe file is linked to missing export shell32.dll", delete %TEMP%\ns_temp.

Multi-user installs: To install Netscape for multiple users on Unix, install as normal, then create the following script in your Netscape directory, make it executable (chmod u+x <scriptname>), and run it as root. Do not run this program as su[do] root. 

#!/bin/sh 
dist_bin=`dirname $0`
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=$dist_bin
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$dist_bin
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH
$dist_bin/regxpcom
$dist_bin/regchrome
touch $dist_bin/chrome/user-skins.rdf $dist_bin/chrome/user-locales.rdf
You should then be able to run that installation of Netscape as any user who has permissions to access it.

When you install language packs and other .xpi files, downloading pauses until you click the browser's Stop button.

If you receive the message 'The program must close to allow a previous installation to complete' when launching, it means that file cleanup after an additional installation has not completed.

Suggested workarounds:

  1. In most cases, waiting a few additional seconds after the program exits will allow the cleanup process to complete and allow you to launch.
  2. Occasionally the installation process is waiting for another program to release a file the cleanup process needs. You may need to shut down other programs or reboot the computer to allow the installation process to complete.

Windows and Mac OS: It is strongly recommended that you exit all programs before running the setup program. Also, you should temporarily disable virus detection software.

Mac OS X: Netscape will not run when the application is installed on a UFS partition. The workaround is to move the application folder to an HFS+ partition and it will run correctly.

Mac OS: Netscape installation requires some system extensions including QuickTime.

Mac OS: You should not restart your system with all extensions off before running Netscape installation.

Security

If you enable TLS in your SSL preferences and a web site server is "TLS intolerant," the client will fall back to using SSL3. However, if you have selected to use a proxy for secure connections, the browser will not be able to reach a "TLS intolerant" web site.

If you are using more than one profile, and sending signed and/or encrypted email, or visit a web site requiring your personal certificate, it is recommended that you disable Quick Launch to prevent errors.

Certificates deleted from the Certificate Manager will still appear until you restart Netscape.

Revoked certificates using OCSP may still appear in the Certificate Manager verified as "True".

If you set the memory cache to 0, you should set the disk cache to 0 also. Otherwise, you will not be able to view https:// (secure) web sites.

Windows, Mac OS and Linux: Personal Security Manager (PSM) provides security (cryptographic) features for Netscape .

Installing on Windows

  1. If you are installing from the CD:
    - Double click the Windows directory on the Netscape CD to open it, if you haven't done so already.

    If you are downloading from the Netscape site:
    - Click the NSSetup.exe link to download it to your machine.
  2. Double click the NSSetup program icon on your machine to begin the Setup program.

  3. Follow the on-screen instructions in the Setup program. The program starts automatically the first time.

Installing on Mac OS

  1. If you are installing from the CD:
    - Skip to step 3 now.

    If you are downloading from the Netscape site:
    - Click the Netscape-mac-stub.bin link to download it to your machine.

    By default, the download file (compressed in MacBinary II format, with an extension of Bin) is downloaded to your desktop.

    If the downloaded file does not expand automatically, you must expand the file using a program such as StuffIt Expander. If you don't have StuffIt Expander, you can get a copy by visiting:

    http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/expander_mac_login.html

  2. Double click the Netscape Installer folder.

  3. Double click the Netscape Installer icon.

  4. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process. The program starts automatically the first time.

Installing on Mac OS X

  1. If you are installing from the CD:
    - Skip to step 3 now.

    If you are downloading from the Netscape site:
    - Click the Netscape-macosX.smi.bin link.

    If the downloaded file does not expand automatically, you must expand the file using a program such as StuffIt Expander. If you don't have StuffIt Expander, you can get a copy by visiting:

    http://www.stuffit.com/expander/macindex.html

  2. Double-click the .smi file to open Apple Disk Copy utility and mount the disk image as "Netscape for MacOS X". (If it launches Classic instead, stop Classic and make sure the file name ends with .smi.)

  3. Open the volume called Netscape for MacOS X and copy the Netscape folder anywhere on your hard drive. (If you attempt to launch Netscape directly from the disk image, it will crash.)

  4. Unmount the disk image, if necessary, by dragging the Netscape for MacOS X icon to the trash.

  5. Launch Netscape from the folder you copied to your hard drive.

Installing on Linux

  1. If you are installing from the CD:
    - Change to the Linux directory on the CD:
    cd linux
    Then skip to step 3.

    If you are downloading from the Netscape site:
    - Download the netscape-i686-pc-linux-gnu-installer.tar.gz archive.
  2. Type one of the following to gunzip and untar the archive:
    tar -zxvf netscape-i686-pc-linux-gnu-installer.tar.gz
    OR
    gzip -dc netscape-i686-pc-linux-gnu-installer.tar.gz | tar xvf -

  3. Change to the directory that contains the Netscape installation files:
    CD netscape-installer
  4. Run the Netscape 7.0 Installer with the run script:
    ./Netscape-installer

  5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.
  6. To start Netscape, change to the directory where you installed it and run the program:
    ./netscape
    The program starts automatically the first time.

Uninstalling Netscape

Linux

Windows

Mac OS 9

Mac OS X

Known Problems

General

Linux: If you are running Red Hat Linux 7.3, Netscape may not start up correctly if your locale is set to "en_US.ISO8859-1" or "en_US.ISO885915". This may happen if you selected a 104 or 105-key keyboard during the Red Hat installation. Workaround: Set your locale to "en_US".

Mac OS: There is a known incompatibility between Netscape and WebFree, a Control Panel commonly used to block HTML based ads. When using Netscape , disable WebFree.

Mac OS: There is a known incompatibility between Netscape and NuBus Macintoshes. Neither the Installer nor the application work on NuBus Macintoshes (Power Macintosh 6100s, 7100s and 8100s), this includes NuBus Macintoshes with upgraded processors. The installer will crash near the end of the installation process.

Linux: Netscape does not recognize changes in DNS servers while running. PPP and VPN users should restart the browser (or try telling the browser to go offline and then online) after connecting to a different network.

Preferences may be lost if you exit and drive where profiles are installed runs out of free space. Workaround: Close Netscape only when sufficient free space is available.

Keyboard and Mouse

Double right clicking on a page can disable the keyboard.

Linux: Keyboard shortcuts on Linux now use Ctrl instead of Alt as the modifier key, while Alt is used for menu shortcuts. If you wish to modify these shortcut keys, add the following prefs (instructions here):

user_pref("ui.key.accelKey", 18);
(This changes the accelerator key from Ctrl (17) to Alt (18).)

user_pref("ui.key.menuAccessKey", 0);
(This changes the menu access key from Alt (18) to none.)

Linux: Clicking the middle mouse button in areas without links may lead to alerts popping up.

Event Handling

Wrong events are fired on FILE element.

Mouse wheel scrolling

Linux: You must have your X server properly configured to enable mousewheel scrolling. For XFree86, add a line to the Pointer section of your XF86Config files such as "ZAxisMapping 4 5". Also be sure that the Protocol line is set up correctly for your mouse.

Windows: Mousewheel scrolling does not work with all drivers. If you have problems, try updating your driver or disabling any "helper" programs that your mouse uses. If you have a Logitech mouse, you can either upgrade the driver (to at least v9.60) or enable the "Microsoft Office compatible scrolling" option in the Mouse/Buttons control panel.

Mac OS: Mousewheel scrolling does not work with all drivers. If you have problems, try updating your driver or disabling any "helper" programs that your mouse uses.

(Mac OS 9.x ) Scroll wheel support for Kensington input devices requires Kensington MouseWorks 5.7 or higher. Version 5.7 is now shipping; see the Kensington website.

Dialog Boxes and Windows

If Netscape is locked up but doesn't seem to have crashed, make sure there are no dialog boxes still open. Close each window on your desktop one at a time and if you uncover a dialog window, dismiss it. If you have multiple desktops, repeat these steps for each desktop.

This problem may affect Linux users downloading plugins. Follow these steps to resolve the problem:

  1. Minimize the plugin download window.
  2. Click "Cancel" to dismiss the dialog box.
  3. Reopen the download window and continue downloading the plugin.

Form Manager

Form Manager is not fully implemented in the Japanese version of Netscape .

Fonts

Many Linux systems (in particular, Red Hat Linux systems) have bad Arial fonts. If many Web pages, especially those using the Arial font, look unclear, small, or hard to read, the following links explain two ways you can change your font server to get better Arial fonts:

http://home.c2i.net/dark/linux.html#ttf
http://home.c2i.net/dark/linux.html#fuzzy

If that doesn't work, you may be able to fix the problem by renaming or removing /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2. For instance, enter the following command:

mv /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2 /usr/share/fonts.ISO8859-2

and then log out of Linux and log back in again. You can always undo this, if necessary, by entering the following command:

MV /usr/share/fonts.ISO8859-2 /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2

Proxies

Netscape needs to be configured to work properly with proxies such as Junkbuster that do not support the most recent HTTP specification. By default, Netscape tries to use HTTP 1.1. To use Netscape with a proxy that only supports HTTP 1.0, add the following pref (instructions here):
user_pref("network.http.version",1.0);

Netscape only accepts hostnames for manual proxies. If you migrate a Communicator 4 profile, you will need to change the settings manually. Communicator 4 allowed URL's in manual configuration, but Netscape does not. If you migrate a profile configured this way, you will need to change the URL to a hostname and port number.

Setting Profiles

In Profile Manager, if you rename a profile to a name you previously used, all your preferences may be lost. Workaround: If you rename a profile, use a unique name.

To make a manual change to preferences, do not edit prefs.js. Create a new text file, user.js, in the same directory as prefs.js. Entries in user.js will override entries in prefs.js, if necessary.

If you have a single profile from Communicator version 4.5 or later, that profile is automatically copied and converted for use with Netscape . Profiles from earlier Netscape versions cannot be converted.

If you have multiple profiles to copy and convert, the profile manager dialog box appears. Click the profile you want to use and then click Start.

If problems occur during installation and your Communicator profile was not copied and converted, you can still use your profile. Launch Netscape from the command line, adding the "-installer" option , or reinstall Netscape to see the profile manager dialog again.

To prevent the Activation window from appearing whenever you start Netscape, press the Cancel button (and press Cancel in the confirmation dialog). The window will continue to reappear if you close the window using a method defined by the operating system.

Location of Profiles

The following table lists the location of profiles used for Netscape:

Windows 95/98/98SE/Me

If password protection is disabled:
C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\<profile name>\<*.slt>

If password protection is enabled:
C:\Windows\Profiles\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\<profilename>\<*.slt>\
Windows NT 4.0 C:\Winnt\Profiles\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\<profile name>\*.slt
Windows 2000 C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\<profile name>\
Mac OS Documents\Mozilla\Profiles folder
Linux

Enter the following command to find where home is pointing to (registry and profiles in are located in $HOME/.mozilla):

'echo $HOME'

Note: Netscape 7.0 profile locations are different than the storage locations used by Netscape Communicator and allows users to run both programs without changing profiles of the other version.
Note: Netscape 6.0 and Netscape 6.01 profiles are stored in a directory ~\Users50 instead of ~\Profiles. Netscape 7.0 will be able to detect and use these older profiles.

Navigator

The Site Navigation Bar, also known as the Link Toolbar, is not available for this release.

If the Location Bar does not respond to the Enter/Return key, you can use the temporary workaround of pasting the URL into File | Open Web location. To fix it, close Netscape , then delete your history.dat and localstore.rdf.

Using Windows 98 with some ATI graphics adapters will result in occasional corruption of inline images as rendered on web pages. This is an ATI graphics driver bug.

If a username or password is embedded into a URI in the form of http://username:password@sitename.com. Netscape will not warn the user of this when the user follows the link. URI's with long usernames in the form of http://www.mozilla.org%2084230482304982304329048230948@fraudsite.com could deceive users into thinking they were going to mozilla.org when they were really going to fraudsite.com.

If the user is downloading a file in the background and the user exits from the File menu, the download will abort without warning. Workaround: Only exit after downloads finish.

URLs using telnet:// do not work in Linux (and possibly other UNIX systems). telnet:// URLs work for Win32 and MacOS. Workaround: Install protozilla from http://protozilla.mozdev.org/.

While using tabbed browser, visiting a page which calls the window.close() method of JavaScript, the entire window will close, as opposed to the tab which contained the code. As a workaround, you may wish to disable window.close() for all websites by setting the following preference:
user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.close", "noAccess");

Additional Internet Search Engines can be obtained at http://mycroft.mozdev.org/

The "View Frame Source" feature is not available from the View menu; however, it is available in the context menu. To see the context menu, click the left mouse button to put the mouse pointer in the frame and then click the right mouse button (Control click on the Mac OS).

Pages that appear to be rendered incorrectly may be due to standards compliance issues. See the Netscape Evangelism site for more details.

XML files that have processing instructions without pseudo-attribute named 'type' do not display.

In preferences for proxies, "No Proxy for:" does not support the *.domain syntax. If you migrate, remove any "*" characters that appear.

Linux: telnet:// URLs do not work in Linux.

Netscape does not recognize changes in DNS servers while running. PPP and VPN users should restart the browser after connecting to a different network.

SOCKS V4 is not supported in this release. SOCKS V5 is supported, Netscape will attempt to make a SOCKS V5 connection to the server in your settings. If your server supports only SOCKS V4, you will not be able to connect.

WAIS is not supported in this release.

NTLM authentication is not supported in this release.

Digest authentication is not supported in this release.

Active FTP (PORT) connections are not supported in this version. You will not be able to connect to Active-only FTP servers.

File URLs will not be read if they are inside a network based (HTTP) document. To disable this feature, add the following pref (instructions here): user_pref("security.checkloadURI", false);

When you turns off the "Always ask before opening this type of file" checkbox, you can manually undo this by removing the entry[ies] for "browser.helperApps.neverAsk.openFile" from the prefs.js file.

Accessing Pages

While enabling HTTP pipelining may significantly improve page load times, it can prevent some websites from loading correctly. If you experience problems loading a website, please verify that HTTP pipelining is disabled and try again (see Preferences->Advanced->HTTP Networking). HTTP pipelining is disabled by default.

The current OCSP implementation is strict. If it detects a server certificate, where the signer specified an OCSP site, the browser relies on that site to be available and give out appropriate information. Otherwise connections to the secure site will not be allowed, and an error code -8073 or -5961 will be reported. Workaround: If you need to connect to those sites anyway, you should disable OCSP.

Netscape may not be able to connect to some secure (HTTPS) IBM Web servers. This is a problem with the servers' software, not with Netscape .

If you use "Last page visited" as your Home (starting) page, if the last page you viewed had frames, it may not be displayed correctly when you next restart Netscape .

Accessing pages with a Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) requires 5 slashes (file://///).

Linux: Flash may crash with exported X display.

Linux: On Linux, there may be problems with ESD Audio and Flash.

Downloading Files

Hourglass cursor, progress meter, and throbber do not stop spinning although downloading has been finished. Status bar says "Transferring data from ..." when page is done loading.

If you're unable to remove user-defined helper applications try the following:
  1. Open the Edit menu, and choose Preferences. Choose Helper Applications within the Navigator category.
  2. Select the helper application/mimetype you wish to remove from the list, and click the Remove button.
  3. Click OK to confirm.
  4. Click OK to dismiss the Preferences dialog box.
  5. Quit completely and restart Netscape .
Helper application decisions may not be remembered when opening files which aren't defined by the OS. A workaround for this is:
  1. Open the Edit menu, and choose Preferences. Choose Helper Applications within the Navigator category.
  2. Click the "Reset" button.
  3. Click "OK" to dismiss the Preferences dialog box.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks cannot be rearranged if you have sorted them. To rearrange them, select Unsorted from the View menu, or click the Name column header until the arrow disappears.

You cannot save two differently named bookmarks for the same URL.

View Source

To view frame source, point to the frame and click the right mouse button (Control click on Mac OS) and then choose View Frame Source from the context menu.

Mac OS: The horizontal scrollbar in the View Source window might be missing. Resize the window to see the scrollbar.

Mail and News

If you open an email in a separate window, The context-menu option, "Open Link in New Window," will not work. Workaround: Click the link as normally done in a web page.

Moving or copying a labeled message will not retain label in destination when filing across accounts:

  1. IMAP to any other account (including Local Folders): Message labels are lost.
  2. POP to POP (including Local Folders) is OKAY.
  3. POP to IMAP: Message labels are lost.
  4. Copy Newsgroup messages to any account: Message labels are lost.

In plain text mail and mail subject headers, the Euro character (¤) may be represented by its official transliteration, "EUR". This happens when the message is encoded with a charset such as ISO-8859-1 which does not support the Euro character. To ensure the proper transmission of the Euro character, set the character encoding of your message to Western (ISO-8859-15), Unicode (UTF-8) or another encoding which supports the Euro character.

In the Mail/News Account Settings: Server Settings dialog box, any changes you make to local directory settings won't take effect until you exit and restart Netscape .

Biff, a feature that automatically checks your server for new mail, works only on the first account and does not work for any other accounts in the same profile. Work around: select each account's Inbox once and click on Get message.

Netscape does not warn the user of a low disk space condition. Some symptoms you may see are:

Mail account identity is not stored along with an unsent message.

Linux: You may encounter problems if you install Netscape in a root user environment then run as another user. Problems include saving to Sent folder, Drafts, Templates or general authentication problems.

Mail notification sound doesn't play if an alternative sound is chosen: When the user edits pref.js to specify an alternative sound, then Netscape will not play any sound when new mail arrives. Also changing it back to the default breaks the initial default sound for that profile. Workaround: Leave the pref.js setting for sound alone.

The Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings dialog box does not display correctly at lower monitor resolutions such as 800 by 600 or 640 by 480. If possible, increase your monitor's display resolution above 800 by 600.

Receiving and Reading Messages

You may not see the message header (From, Subject, Date, To, Cc, and so forth) when you read messages. This problem often occurs when you switch mail folders or newsgroups. To see headers, resize the window or the message content pane.

Attachments

In some cases you can't view more than one HTML/Web page attachment to a message in the mail window. The attachments will not all be shown or you may experience a crash when attempting to display them.

Composing Messages

You can't forward a message that has a signature file containing the HTML tag <div class="signature">.

Address Book

Imported Netscape Communicator address books appear in Netscape as a separate address books.

To import Outlook address books, you must have the default mail client set to "Microsoft Outlook" in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Do this:

1. Launch Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools in menu bar, then click Internet Options. The Internet Options dialog box appears.
3. Click the Programs tab and select "Microsoft Outlook" as the default e-mail client.
4. Hit OK and exit Explorer.

(Windows) You may need to try more then once before Outlook Express address books are imported successfully.

Copying a large number of addresses between address books may cause crash.

Filters

If you have multiple filters configured for a mail account, incoming messages will continue to be evaluated against each filter (in the order listed in the Message Filters dialog) until a filter action of Move to Folder or Delete is executed. This differs from Communicator 4.x where any filter action would stop further filtering on a message.

Pop and IMAP

You must exit and restart Netscape to see the effect of a change to the option: "show All IMAP mail folders" or "show only subscribed IMAP mail folders." To access this option: click the Advanced button in the Server section of the Account Settings dialog box.

When sending email from Cyrus IMAP mail accounts, you will get "The current command did not succeed. The mail server responded: Permission denied". Workaround: Redefine the special folder (sent, draft, template) under the Inbox folder.

News

The Subscribe dialog box may not work with news servers that require authentication. If you open a password-protected newsgroup you may be prompted more than once for the user name and password combination.

LDAP

LDAP directories with ldif extensions may appear after migration from Communicator 4.x.

Netscape may temporarily hang during LDAP autocomplete if network connectivity is broken. Specifically, if the LDAP server in question is unreachable (network connectivity problems, including taking a laptop outside a firewall), the entire app will hang when attempting to contact that browser. The app will begin responding again after about 10 seconds (the length of the TCP timeout).

Offline Mail

Some mail items (offline and disk preferences, offline item selection, online/offline indicators in search/history/subscribe) do not display properly.

Moving/Copying a downloaded message (while offline) will result in not being able to read the message at the new folder while you are offline. Workaround: Go online to read it, then re-download the message to have it accessible when you are offline.

When starting Netscape, if you only have one profile, both of the Offline preferences for startup mode ("Ask me if I want online or offline mode", or "Use my previous online/offline state") do not work. Netscape will always start in online mode. To go offline, from the File menu, choose Work Offline.

If the user starts Netscape in offline mode (clicking the work offline checkbox in the profile manager), then tries to reply to a message while in offline mode, or double clicks on a message (which brings it up in a separate window), in some instances the application might crash.

Netscape WebMail and AOL Mail

WebMail and AOL servers do not store message labels. If a labeled message is moved to another folder it will lose the label. AOL messages labeled while in the New Mail folder will lose its label when the message is read and transferred to the Old Mail folder.

Offline mail feature for use with AOL accounts has not been implemented.

This bug applies to both AOL and WebMail accounts. When you first log in to your AOL or WebMail account, if "Check for new mail at startup" is not selected (Edit>Mail/News Account Settings>Server Settings) then you must click the New Msg button twice to open a Compose window. As a workaround, if you first select the Inbox, another folder, or a message, you can then click the New MSG button once to open a Compose window. This workaround is only necessary the first time you click Get MSG after logging in to your AOL or Webmail account.

For a WebMail account, Netscape 7.0 does not support saving draft messages on the WebMail server. If you set the Copies and Folders setting for Draft messages to be your Netscape WebMail account, and then you click Save from the Compose window, Netscape Mail displays the error message "The current command did not succeed. The mail server responded: Command 'SEARCH' not supported." As a workaround, change your Copies and Folders setting for Draft messages to keep message drafts on Local Folders.

Deleting Netscape WebMail folders within Netscape may not work properly.

Creating a folder within a folder on Netscape Webmail account does not work properly.

AOL Mail and Netscape WebMail does not support filtering, searching, and subscribing.

AOL Mail and Netscape WebMail does not support these functions:

You may have problems with passwords or authentication when using the same screen name for both an AOL account and Netscape WebMail account.

Simple MAPI

When you start Netscape, it does not ask you if you want to make Netscape Mail the default mail application. Workaround: To set Netscape Mail as the default mail application, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, select Mail&Newsgroups, and then choose "Use Netscape Mail as the default mail application." Click OK to have this change take effect.

You are unable to set Netscape Mail as the default mail application, because the following message is displayed: "Netscape Mail could not be set as the default mail application because a registry key could not be updated. Workaround: Verify with your system administrator that you have write access to your system registry, and then try again." This message appears if you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP and your file system permissions do not allow you to make changes to the Windows registry or to files in the C:\Windows\System directory. Inform your system administrator that you need write permission to the Windows registry and to the Windows System directory. This message might also appear if you are trying to enable or disable Netscape Mail as your default mail application, but another application is currently using the Mapi32.dll file located in your C:\Windows\System directory. Close all other mail applications, all MS Office applications, and any other applications (for example, Wordpad), that can be used to send mail. Then start Netscape, and try again.

After making Netscape Mail the default mail application, and then exiting Netscape, you try to send mail from another application by using a new Netscape user profile, or by using an old user profile that has not yet been migrated. Netscape fails to start. Workaround: Open the Profile Manager and create the new user profile or migrate the old user profile. Start Netscape using the new profile or the migrated profile and then set Netscape Mail as the default mail application. Also, make sure you have at least one mail account set up before exiting Netscape.

You cannot enable or disable Netscape Mail as the default mail application. Workaround: Before you select or de-select the "Use Netscape Mail as the default mail application" setting in the Preferences dialog box, close all other mail applications, all MS Office applications, and any other applications (for example, Wordpad), that can be used to send mail.

You cannot use Outlook or Outlook Express as your default mail application after de-selecting the "Use Netscape Mail as the default mail application" setting in the Preferences dialog box. Quit Netscape if it is running. Workaround: Locate the following files in your C:\Windows\System directory and delete them: Mapi32.dll and Mapi32_moz_bak.dll. Then start Outlook or Outlook Express and select it as the default mail application by choosing Options from the Tools menu, and clicking the General tab.

After setting Netscape Mail as your default mail application, you try to send mail from Microsoft Word, but that application unexpectedly quits and you must restart it. Workaround: Before sending mail from Microsoft Word or any other application, make sure you save the document you are working on so that you don't lose your work if the application unexpectedly quits when you try to send mail.

You see the message "Another application is attempting to send mail using your user profile. Are you sure you want to send mail?" By default, Netscape prevents email messages from being sent programmatically from Netscape without your knowledge by displaying this confirmation message, so you can choose whether or not you want Netscape to send the message. Click OK to send the message, or click Cancel if you don't want Netscape to send the message.

If Outlook (not Outlook Express) was previously your default mail application, and then you choose Netscape Mail as the default mail application, when you start Outlook it unexpectedly quits or does not run. Start Netscape. Workaround: Choose Preferences from the Edit menu, select Mail&Newsgroups, and then deselect"Use Netscape Mail as the default mail application." Close Netscape and start Outlook. Note: This will reset Outlook as your default mail application. If you want to use Netscape Mail to send mail from other applications such as MS Office applications, you must set Netscape as the default mail application.

AOL Instant Messenger & ICQ

AOL Instant Messenger Related Issues

AIM may crash when importing a Buddy List.

IM or chat sessions cannot be printed.

Smiley shows <span> tag on AOL 7 and AOL AIM 4.7 clients when sent from Netscape IM client.

Coming out of away state, buddies sometimes don't get your messages. You'll get "Send Failed for some reason" in your conversation log in the IM session.

HTML tags appear in messages associated with receiving a file transfer request.

In Chat sessions, Buddies appear before accepting a Chat invite, and show multiple times on ignore.

Can't tell if a user is ignored in a Chat session (under People Here list)

Buddies who dismissed your Chat invite appear in the "persons here" list anyway.

Tabs don't show in IM conversation log.

"Show Idle time" preference is only set after restarting Netscape.

"Accept Buddy Icons" dialogs have chopped text.

Chat only flashes once when minimized and receiving a new Chat message.

Font colors and text styles lost when focus is removed from session.

Mac OS:Buddy Lists do not automatically transfer from AOL Instant Messenger to Netscape 7.0. You must export the AOL Instant Messenger 4.x Buddy List and import it to Netscape 7.0.

The default My Sidebar tab includes the Buddy List even when AOL Instant Messenger is not installed.

A smiley disappears if you try to make it larger by using the larger font size button on the Compose Toolbar of the Instant Message or Chat window.

Instant Message and Chat conversations can only be saved in HTML format. You cannot save as text.

When the "Tab key inserts tab" preference is selected, tabbing results in only a single space when viewed in the Instant Message window by other AOL Instant Messenger users. However, a full tab space does appear in the conversation log of AOL Instant Messenger users.

You cannot use Backspace to delete a smiley that you've added to a message by using the toolbar in an Instant Message or Chat window. To delete the smiley, select it and press the Delete button.

The presence icon for users with Netscape.net email addresses does not appear in Netscape Mail, so you cannot see whether those users are online.

In some cases (particularly when your Buddy List is large), your Buddy List may seem to disappear after you import or delete groups in the Buddy List. Resizing the Buddy List brings the list into view again.

In some cases, you can't scroll to the bottom-most or top-most group. Collapsing and re-expanding the groups closest to the group you can't reach enables you to access the group. To fix this in the My Sidebar panel, vertically resize the panel.

Exported Buddy Lists do not have the .blt extension. However, the file can be imported to AOL Instant Messenger if the file is selected for import.

The Buddy List may not import completely if the existing Buddy List has similar group names. In this case, you may need to add the buddies manually.

Inviting a buddy who is using AOL Instant Messenger version 4.3.2, and who is away (that is, in the Away state), incorrectly results in an alert: "'[Screen Name]' has declined your Chat invitation."

Linux: AOL Instant Messenger may appear to freeze if you send messages very quickly within Linux chat sessions. Please wait 5-10 seconds if this occurs.

Linux: AOL Instant Messenger may freeze if there is too much activity in multiple open IM or Chat sessions.

Issues Related to Both AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ

Preferences is disabled in IM Chat and IM or ICQ Compose sessions.

IM migration Wizard won't pass password to Sign On Screen.

Resizes new windows strangely

Exit Netscape Option Missing in standalone

Menu option fail first time standalone is invoked on new profile

The Send icon in the Classic theme is distorted.

ICQ Related Issues

Many dialogs and menus still reference IM elements instead of their
ICQ counterparts.

You may not be able to converse with buddies you've added to your list when they haven't added you to their list yet, even if they don't require authorization.

Can't send or receive away messages.

Display Name you assigned for Contacts is not shown in ICQ message sessions.

All users appear offline after new user is authenticated. Workaround: Logging off and Back on again in ICQ, all the online buddies will appear.

Mac OS X: Authorization Requests cannot be sent.

Tooltips for Online ICQ users incorrectly shows IM options like warnings and
capabilities.

Knock Knock dialogs in ICQ may appear in ICQ.

ICQ doesn't support sending away messages .

Invoking preferences on standalone goes to IM section of prefs, not ICQ.

May not get messages from previously ignored user after un-ignoring
them.

Offline Netscape ICQ user never gets Authorization requests from
other users.

Invalid Name for user when trying to Re-Add a contact.

JavaScript Debugger

Profile data cannot be saved as HTML on Mac OS. If you see the error message "Cant match <!--@range-start-->", you're running into this problem. As a workaround, save as a CSV file and import into a spreadsheet, or save as plain text.

Trying to save profile data when there is none to be saved results in the cryptic error message "summary has no properties".

Composer

During publishing, incorrect "Publish Failed" message appears in the publishing status panel, and then quickly changes to "Publishing Completed" message. Users should ignore incorrect "Publish Failed" message that briefly appears, because it will then change to "Publishing Completed" (correct message) once all files have green check marks next to them in the Publishing Status dialog box.

When Publishing in Composer, if the Publishing URL, file name, user name, or password contain any special characters (such as "@") that need to be escaped, then Composer creates a duplicate site entry each time you publish the document. To work around this bug, choose the original site name from the Site Name list in the Publish dialog box before publishing the document again. For example, some ISP users have usernames that are also their email addresses, e.g., "janedoe@ispname.net". After publishing to this site, the next time you use the Publish dialog, the username from the document URL will appear as "janedoe%40ispname.net" (the "@" was escaped during publishing). Since Composer can't find this entry, it creates a duplicate site name.

You may not be able to simultaneously edit a document using both Composer and another editor.

You can't apply a font style across paragraphs and images. Font changes must be done within each paragraph.

Applying a font style across several words yields multiple font tags in the HTML code.

When the background color on a page is set, only the frames behind the lines of selected text are colored. Resizing the window triggers the proper repaint.

After applying a color to text, the text may appear partially highlighted.

Certain pages (such as ones that set frames) can't be edited. However, you are still able to choose the Edit Page option in the File menu for such pages. An editor window opens, but you are unable to edit the page.

Edit|PasteAs function is not functioning.

File|Open Web Location, selecting to render in Composer does not open document in Composer.

Switching between Normal and HTML Source mode inserts break (br) elements.

You can not print HTML Source.

Numerous shortcut keys do not function properly.

Hourglass does not show when application is busy.

Some element icons do not render in Show All Tags mode.

List editing can cause nested lists to outdent to next level list.

Remove option from personal spell check dictionary does not work.

If the cache preference is set to "Every time I view the page" and a new document is created, toolbar icons may be disabled on the toolbar and the caret may be missing. Workaround: Do not set the cache preference to "Every time I view the page."

Security

When visiting a SSL enabled site, the lock icon will take on a yellow background, and will not indicate the strength of the SSL encryption used, whether it is 40 bit, 56 bit, or 128 bit.

Restoring a certificate to a smart card can take a long time. No feedback is provided while restoring a certificate to a smart card, which can take a long time since smart cards are relatively slow devices. As a result, it may appear that the restoration is not happening.

For security reasons, Netscape does not allow connections to certain ports. To override this on a per-port basis, add a comma separated list of ports to defaults/all.js (in your Netscape installation directory). Note that this pref only works in the all.js file in the Netscape installation directory and it affects all users of the installation. It does not work if you add it to the prefs.js file in your personal profile directory. For example, to unblock ports 1, 3, and 7, use the following line:

pref("network.security.ports.banned.override", "1,3,7");

Preferences

Do not share a profile between Netscape and Mozilla builds. Doing this can lead to unpredictable results, some of which may include loss of Search settings and preferences and unchecked growth of the Bookmarks file (large enough to freeze your system). It is best to create a new profile for each or manually copy (and change the name) an existing profile.

If you are using the Classic theme, some preference panels may be displayed incorrectly or may have missing elements. If you view a different preference panel and then return to the one you're working in, the display is corrected.

Preferences window initial size doesn't always give hints on all options available. Resize the window from its lower right corner to see them all.

Plugins

How to associate .avi/.wav files with Quicktime in Netscape:
(Instructions written for Quicktime 5.0.2)

  1. Open Quicktime.
  2. Go to Preferences / Quicktime Preferences.
  3. Select Browser Plugin from the menu.
  4. Click the Mime Settings button.
  5. Expand Video and check off .avi.
  6. Expand Audio and check off .wav.
  7. Click OK and close out of Quicktime.
    The audio or video should work the next time you go to the web page, without restarting the browser

Plugins are not refreshed if the browser is restarted with Quick Launch on. Workaround is to make sure Quicklaunch is not 'ON' by removing it from the system tray and then restarting the browser.

Netscape might crash while playing random Quicktime content.

Windows: The Adobe SVG plugin crashes. Workaround: Don't copy it (NPSVG3.dll NPSVG3.zip) into your plugins folder. If you want to view SVGs, there are Netscape builds with native SVG support.

Linux: The Flash plugin context menu does not disappear when you clicks outside the plugin area to dismiss it. Workaround: Click inside the plugin to dismiss the plugin context menu.

Linux: Netscape will hang if a Flash plugin tries to play audio and the audio device is already in use. Workaround: Stop the audio device and return to that page.

Linux: Netscape crashes while playing Flash content on a remote X display. No workaround present other than not using remote X display.

Linux: Loading a page that contains a Flash plugin may cause Netscape to lock up if you are using an audio application.

Plugins installed for Communicator 4.x may not be available for Netscape . Workaround: install these plugins in the Netscape Plugins folder.

Linux: The flash plugin crashes when viewing a flash document on a remote X display.

Windows: Microsoft Media Player file embedded in web pages may not work.

Mac OS: Netscape now scans for plugins in the system's "Internet Plugins Folder" first.

Printing

Some users might not be able to print on Windows 98 or Windows ME with the default spool setting. The workaround is to go into printer properties, choose details tab, choose spool settings, and then choose print directly to printer.

In Print Preview, plugins are not shown.

Printing web pages may not print out all pages due to table pagination problems.

Mac OS and Linux: Transparent backgrounds are printed as black.

Printing newsgroup messages with images leads to a crash.

Linux: There are several bugs involved with the Postscript module that are not present in the Xprint module. To learn how to install Xprint, go to http://xprint.mozdev.org/ or the Xprint documents hosted by Roland Mainz.

Java

When going to a site that requires the user to authenticate with HTTP to download a Java applet that also requires authentication, the user will have to login twice with the same username and password.

Netscape has been tested with all 1.3.0_* versions of the JRE, and JRE 1.3.1, and beta versions of JDK 1.4. J2SE releases previous to 1.3.0_01 will not work with Netscape .

Running J2SE in 256 color mode may cause a flicking problem.

Linux: If experiencing problems with JDK 1.3 plugin on linux, users will need to either upgrade to the JDK 1.3.1 plugin or add the following lines to the beginning of their script:
LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5
export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL

Linux: Netscape on Linux includes J2SE v1.3.0_01. The Java support on Linux is not complete (for instance, LiveConnect is not yet enabled), but will be functional in a later release.

Linux: LiveConnect support now works if you use Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1 with JRE 1.3.1. Additional LiveConnect problems are being addressed in JDK 1.4 as mentioned above.

Sun's JRE will crash at startup if your useragent does not begin with Mozilla/5. It might print 

Expected a version > 5! Version = 4

The workaround is to not forge a useragent whose version is less than 5 if you have the Sun JRE plugin in your plugin directory. This preference would appear in pref.js as something like: 

user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98;)");

If Java doesn't work, make sure the following is true:
On Windows:
Copy the NPOJI610.DLL from C:\JDK*\jre\bin to "\plugins" directory of your installation.
On UNIX:
Make a symlink to /usr/java/j*/jre/plugins/i386/ns610/libjavaplugin_oji.so in your netscape plugins/ directory. Do not copy the file, but instead make a symlink to it.

OS X

On OS X, there is no "Default Downloader Plugin" (aka. the Default Plugin) and Java is not working yet.

Knock Knock dialogs open up partially off screen. Workaround: Reset the resolution of your monitor so that knock knock dialogs comes into focus on the screen, then move the dialog where you can fully see it. You can reset the resolution afterwards.

International Release Notes

General

Netscape has been designed to display many different languages without extra steps. The user should be able to browse and use e-mail without complicated setups or efforts when necessary fonts are available on the system.

Netscape can be used with more than one language pack, which lets the user change the menu language and relevant URLs.

Contents of Sidebar tab and Bookmark will not change when you choose another region -- they are bound to a specific profile.

If you are using Chinese, Korean or Japanese language Windows 9x/ME and launching fails or crashes, read the Java section of the Known issues section below for possible causes.

You may be unable to print out Japanese characters from Win98-J with HP Laser Jet driver (Japanese version). Workaround: Install the driver that comes with the Japanese Windows 98 installation CD.

If you have WinME-Ja, you may not be able to print to a HP LaserJet 5Si/5Si MX using the HP LaserJet 5Si/5Si MX PS printer driver In this case, you should change the driver to HP LaserJet 5Si/MX.

New: On platforms which support file names in Unicode, it is possible to create files and folders bearing names in scripts which fall outside of the system locale. Browser operations which involve such folder or file names may not succeed, e.g. saving into such a folder, or opening a file whose path contains such characters. Using only characters supported by the default system language avoids this type of problems.

General and Profile Manager

On Japanese Windows XP, the desktop icon and Netscape Program Folder cannot be removed after Netscape program is removed through a program uninstallation via the Control Panel. You can manually remove them.

Navigator and Composer

Netscape does not support Dynamic Fonts. (Note: It was supported in Communicator 4.x.)

A window title (reflecting the title of a web page) may not show correctly if the web page (e.g. Japanese) does not match the language of the OS (e.g. English Windows).

On Macintosh and OS/2 (i.e. non-Windows platform) Shift_JIS Full-width tilde character (0x8160) and a few other Japanese symbol characters have differing correspondences to Unicode mapping tables depending on platforms. These differences causes several difficulties on these platforms, e.g. form submission, bookmarks, and sending mail.

The Character Coding menu doesn't work in a View Page Source window. You can change encoding in browser window and then view source.

Auto-detect All/Universal may not be able to detect encodings on pages which don't supply document encoding information. You can increase the accuracy if you choose other auto-detection modules with a smaller scope for detection , e.g. Chinese, Simplified Chinese, East Asian.

With the Windows 2000 IME, most of the new Japanese IME features (e.g. reconversion) are supported but some features may not work correctly.

Support for the Unicode surrogate range is not currently available for Mac nor Linux.

A Composer page cannot be saved into ISO-2022-KR using the Save As ... menu because there is no converter available from Unicode to ISO-2022-KR. ISO-2022-KR will be eventually hidden in the Save as .. menu.

When opening a file under a folder with multi-byte folder name, the path name in multi-byte characters is escaped in the title bar of Composer window.

Linux only: Bold and Italics styles may not work on ASCII characters when editing a CJK page. This is most likely to happen on CJK locales without good ASCII fonts. For example, you may be using language open-source CJK locale support files. On commercial Linux distribution, particularly recent ones, the support files contain better CJK fonts and this problem is less likely to occur.

Mac OS: Non-ASCII non-Latin 1 info stored in Internet Config will not show correctly in auto-fill fields such as "Your name" field in the Mail account setup dialog. If this happens, you can manually correct auto-filled entries.

Mac OS: The Character Coding menu check mark does not get updated promptly and shows incorrect indication of the current page encoding.

Mail

Filtering by body key is not implemented.

The Character Coding menu cannot correct the thread pane display of non-MIME encoded headers. This is by design. If the message displayed lacks MIME charset information, the thread pane display obeys the default message display charset set via the folder properties dialog (set via the menu Edit | Folder Properties ...). Correctly setting this option to the charset most often used in the user's mail viewing helps avoid display problem of this type

Java

Some cases have been reported in which Windows 9x/ME Japanese users have a problem starting Netscape when there is a prior installation of older JDK or JRE under the operating system in use. The JRE 130_02 (or later) that Netscape users can download from a Netscape ftp site contains many fixes since the official release of JRE 1.3. If you are using an older version of JRE 1.3 or the US version of JRE 1.3 under Japanese/Chinese/Korean Windows, you may experience this non-start problem.

To determine if the non-starting problem is due to Java installation, follow these steps:

  1. Locate the Plugins directory (which is found in the same directory as the Netscape executable).
  2. Remove all the Java plugin files from the Plugins directory, i.e. the files whose names begin with "npjava...". Remove also the NPOJI610.dll file if you find one. Back them up in another directory so that you can restore them later.
  3. Restart Netscape . If Netscape starts, then you have a Java related non-start problem.

If you have the Java problem as described above or want to install updated JRE 130_02 (or later) that you can download from a Netscape ftp site, follow these steps (Note: This type of problem has not been reported for Windows NT4/2000, but if you experience this problem on the latter two platforms, follow these steps for those platforms also):

  1. Click the Start button, open the Settings menu, and choose Control Panel.
  2. Double click the Add/Remove Programs icon and select the Install/Uninstall tab.
  3. Locate the old JRE installation (Java Runtime Environment) and delete it.
  4. After the old JRE has been deleted, run Netscape again. And go to any site that requires the use of Java. You will see a plug-in icon on such pages telling you to click on the icon to download a Java Plugin.
  5. When you click on the "get Java Plugin" icon, you will be taken to a Netscape site to download a Netscape plugin.
  6. Download the "International" version if you would like display of international characters. (recommended)
  7. Follow the instruction for the installer and complete Java 2 installation.

Mac OS and Linux: Display of non-ASCII characters (particularly Chinese/Korean/Japanese) in applets may not work without correct font settings in font.properties files. Windows releases ship with modified font.properties files. This document may be helpful to Mac and Linux users.

Using the Quality Feedback Agent with Automatic Proxy Configuration

Windows: 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. Follow these steps to do so:

  1. If you are using an HTTP proxy, or both an HTTP and SOCKS proxy, create a file named talkback.ini, containing the following three lines, using your proxy host name, domain, and port:

    UseUserHTTPProxyInfo=1
    UserHTTPProxyHost="yourproxy.yourdomain.com"
    UserHTTPProxyPort=xxxx

    where xxxx is 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

    where xxxx is 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 the following directory location within the directory that contains the N6Setup.exe file: \Fullsoft\data\talkback.ini

Notes For Web Developers

For a list of known issues with support for Web standards (HTML 4.01, CSS1/2, DOM1/ 2, XML, RDF), JavaScript, Java, and Plug-ins in Netscape, see the following document http://developer.netscape.com/docs/technote/gecko/n6release.html