Communicator 4.73 Release
Notes
Last updated: May 5, 2000 [These notes are updated as we receive
feedback, so please check back for new information.]
These release notes describe
installation issues and known problems in Communicator 4.73.
Contents
include:
For an overview of the new features provided by Communicator 4.73,
see the Tour of New
Features. For
release notes on Mission Control Desktop tools and technology, see
Mission
Control Desktop 4.5.
**Notice to Calendar Users**
*As of version 4.72 of Netscape Communicator, the Netscape
Calendar client will no longer be included in the installation package, but will
be available from www.iplanet.com. Please visit http://www.iplanet.com/support/technical_resources/ics/comm472.html
for more information on how to download and install the standalone Calendar
client for use with Communicator 4.72 and later versions.
What's New in
Version 4.73
- Security fixes that address Javascript cookie
exploitation and SSL (Secure Socket Layer) vulnerability. To get more
information about these and other security issues in Netscape Communicator,
check our security information page at http://home.netscape.com/security/notes/index.html
- Global IME support
(Windows): allows input of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters. See the
International section for details.
- User agent support for
Windows 2000
- Communicator 4.73 has been
tested and certified as Y2K-compliant. See the following URLs for additional
information on Netscape's Y2K Compliancy support and product
status:
- AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
3.0
- Shop@Netscape button (click
this to go to Netscape's on-line shopping center)
- Netscape Radio radio
service -- allows you to listen to live, continuously programmed radio
stations featuring different music styles. (To launch to Netscape Radio,
select Radio from the Communicator menu.)
- WinAmp MP3 player
(Windows)
- RealPlayer G2
(Windows)
- Macromedia Flash
4.0
- Simplified process for
obtaining digital certificates
- New 56-bit DES ciphers
added to both export and US versions (requires new SSL cipher suite
server-side)
- Various bug
fixes
Before You
Install
- Note that Communicator 4.73
does not run on Windows 3.1 or on Macintosh 68K systems.
- On Mac OS and Windows
systems with an existing version of Communicator: If you use SmartUpdate to
upgrade to 4.73, be sure to click the Grant button when the Permissions dialog
box appears during the installation. Clicking Grant enables the installer to
continue, and you can still cancel the installation later in the process. If
you click Deny, a series of Permissions dialog boxes appear, and the system
sometimes quits with an error -1.
- If you are upgrading from
Navigator 2.0 or 3.0, you need to re-install any plug-ins that you want to
transfer to Communicator 4.73. In order for Communicator to automatically
transfer plug-ins from 4.0x versions, you must install Communicator 4.73 in
the same folder as the old 4.0x version. If you install 4.73 in a different
folder, you must re-install any plug-ins.
- On Mac OS systems: If you
are using a 3.0x version of Navigator and want to transfer your preferences
automatically to Communicator 4.73, you need to run NSMacPrefs. First, install
Communicator 4.73 and run it once. Then, download
and run the NSMacPrefs utility.
- On Mac OS systems: Mac OS
7.6.1 or greater is required to run Communicator 4.73. For current Apple Mac
OS software, see http://support.info.apple.com/.
These are the recommended minimum system hardware
configurations:
- Mac OS 7.6.1: 16MB
physical RAM
- Mac OS 8.0 or greater:
24MB physical RAM
- On Mac OS systems: Before
you install Communicator, make sure that your hard disk names do not include
the slash (/) character. Account Setup won't run if any of your hard disk
names include the slash (/) character.
General Issues
- Printing problems may occur
with the use of the Adobe Postcript printer driver (ADOBES4.drv, version
4.10.126) in Windows 95 and Windows 98. If you have this printer driver in
your c:\windows\system folder, you can obtain an upgrade from http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/pdrvwin.htm
- IMAP mail users: Certain
servers (i.e., University of Washington) may prevent you from renaming or
deleting subscribed mail folders if you have specified that deleted messages
should be automatically moved to the Trash folder. If you try to delete a mail
folder and then see an error message that the command failed, you should
choose Subscribe from the File menu, and then unsubscribe your Trash
folder.
- On Mac OS and Windows
systems: New profiles created in Communicator 4.73 aren't recognized by
versions of Communicator or Navigator earlier than version 4.5.
- If you change your user
name on an IMAP server, you need to restart Communicator for the name change
to take effect.
- In Calendar on Mac OS and
Windows systems: If you enter an invalid server name Calendar sometimes
appears to "hang," in which case you need to restart
Communicator.
- Exported certificate names
are appended with either letters or numbers. Communicator doesn't check for
duplicate names, so make sure to use a unique name for each
certificate.
- Composer doesn't properly
handle existing HTML files that contain CSS objects -- they may be removed
from the file.
- A zero length "cert7.db"
file in the profile directory can cause Communicator to crash at startup. To
avoid this, delete the zero length "cert7.db" file from the profile
directory.
- You can disable the My
Shopping button and Netscape Radio feature by editing the prefs.js
file.
- To disable the My
Shopping button, open the prefs.js file and add the following statement:
user_pref("browser.chrome.disableMyShopping", true);
- To disable the Netscape
Radio plugin, open the prefs.js file and add the following statement:
user_pref("browser.chrome.disableNetscapeRadio",
true);
Roaming
Access
- On Windows systems:
Clicking Cancel while uploading or downloading to an HTTP Roaming Access
Server sometimes causes Communicator to quit.
- When using a slow
connection, be patient with the progress dialog boxes. Sometimes they don't
immediately respond to your input during file transfers.
- If you choose not to
transfer your preferences, Communicator does not transfer your address book
and IMAP mail filters, which are stored with preferences.
- On Mac OS systems: If you
enable Roaming Access, Communicator doesn't save subscribed newsgroups. To
save subscribed newsgroups, go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences. Under
Roaming Access, select Item, and remove the check from the Mail Filters box in
the right frame.
Mail, Address
Books, and Pinpoint Addressing
- Certain IMAP servers cause
an error when a mail message is moved from a subfolder to the Inbox. The
workaround is to first file the message in a top-level folder, and then move
the file to the Inbox.
- If you are upgrading from
Navigator 3.0x, you need to manually import your 3.0x address book into
Communicator 4.73 by opening the address book window and choosing Import under
the File menu. On Mac and Windows, then select Communicator Address Book at
the prompt. Enter the name of your 3.0x HTML address book file.
- On Windows and UNIX
systems: Removing ns_imap folders causes Communicator to lose the mail filters
you have set up. If you suspect corrupted mail summary files, be sure to just
remove the files, not entire folders or directories.
- Communicator 4.73 allows
you to create multiple address books. Pinpoint addressing searches the first
15 address books in your address book window. If you have more than 15 address
books, you can select the 15 you want to use by re-ordering them in the
address book window.
- If you have an LDIF file
representing an address book that was generated from Communicator 4.0x and
contains 8-bit data, you can correctly import the 8-bit data into Communicator
4.7 by changing the file extension of your LDIF file to .4ld. Then, import the
LDIF file like you normally would, using this new extension. You only need to
do this if the file with 8-bit data was generated from a previous version of
Communicator.
- "Department," "URL," and
"Prefers to receive rich text (HTML) mail" values are not exported/imported
with CVS and TXT format.
Navigator
- Some HTTP proxy servers
don't support Internet Keywords when the user supplies only one keyword,
instead giving the error Could Not Find Host.
International
- Global IME support: users
of Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0 can now download
Global IME modules that enable input of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
characters into mail messages and web forms. For more information on using
Global IME under Communicator, choose International Users from the Help
menu.
- Users of Korean Windows
95 and 98: A problem with erratic behavior in non-HTML text editing fields
has been reported. We recommend removing Global IMEs if they are installed.
If Global IMEs are needed for other applications, then we recommend
Communicator 4.7 or earlier. For more information, please see http://home.netscape.com/eng/intl/gimesupport.html
- Windows 2000 users do not
need Global IMEs since it comes with its own improved CJK IMEs. Use the
fonts and IMEs available on the installation CD instead.
- If you're running Windows
98, just select the Windows Update icon in the Start menu. From there,
select Product Updates, and download the language support and IMEs you wish
to use.
- vCards (Personal Cards): if
you usually attach vCards that contain 8-bit characters (e.g., Chinese,
Japanese, Korean) to your outgoing mail messages , we strongly recommend that
you follow these suggestions when creating your vCard:
- Place the information for
the Address, City, State, Zip Code and Country fields into the Address field
(on the Contact tab) separated by either a carriage return (for Chinese,
Japanese, Korean characters) or a space (for Western/accented characters),
or,
- Insert an ASCII character
at the beginning of each field (e.g., "+" or "-"), except the Address
field.
- Iso 8859-15 charset support
has been added to Xterm in order to provide euro support for Unix. This
charset support currently is not available on Windows and Mac
OS.
- Some email sender
applications use "UNKNOWN" as the charset name in the MIME2-encoded subject
field. In such cases, Communicator uses the global default (which is set by
View->Character Set->Set Default Character Set) as a reasonable
guess.
- Previous Windows versions
of Communicator had a problem sending the Accept-Language HTTP header to
servers. This problem occurred if you used the Preferences command to add
choices to the default language selection. This problem is corrected in
Communicator versions 4.5 through 4.73. If you create a new profile to use in
4.73, you don't need to do anything else to remedy the problem.
- If you are using a profile
created in a previous version of Communicator, you need to overwrite the old
preference settings with the correct ones. To correct the preference settings,
from the Edit menu, choose Preferences. Under the Navigator category, select
Languages. Either confirm that all the selections in the right panel are
correct, or delete and re-enter them. Click OK.
- When using the User Profile
Manager to create a new profile, some Japanese characters that you enter in
the Profile Name field of the "Choose a Name and Directory for Your Profile"
dialog don't appear correctly in the directory. To correct the directory
entry, delete the directory name and manually type the correct Japanese
characters.
- When copying DBCS text from
Communicator to other applications under Windows NT, some characters not in
the common cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh, UNIX) codepoints can become
corrupted.
- Some characters may not
display correctly when using certain Microsoft fonts. Communicator uses the Unicode
1.1 Shift-JIS encoding, whereas the Microsoft fonts may use different
encoding. To avoid the problem of incorrect character displays, use a
non-Microsoft Unicode font, such as Bitstream's Cyberbit.
Windows
- On Windows NT systems, to
prevent a "system32" Windows Explorer window from appearing when Windows
starts up:
- Launch the Windows
Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
- Open this registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
- If the (Default) Name
variable has a value of "" (an empty string), delete the Name variable.
After the deletion, the value for (Default) should be "(value not
set)".
- Messenger sometimes quits
when new folders are subscribed to with SSL. This problem apparently occurs
only when you automatically subscribe to all your folders on the server. To
avoid it, manually choose the folders to which you wish to
subscribe.
- If you are downloading a
large file and you click Cancel, Communicator may quit.
- If you send an email
message and attach a web page that contains frames, the recipient will receive
the message, but with a blank attachment.
Palm-Compatible
Synchronization Tools (Windows Only)
- Back-up your
Palm-compatible address book before using Address Book
synchronization.
- These are issues to be
aware of when you synchronize the Palm address book with the Netscape Address
Book:
- If there are multiple
lines in Palm fields (not including address and notes) Communicator converts
those entries to a single line separated by commas.
- Communicator does not
automatically synchronize Palm custom fields. For more information on how to
map fields between Palm and the Netscape address book fields, see the Palm
Synchronization Read Me.
- To synchronize with a
directory that is synchronized offline, set Communicator to
Offline.
- To work with mail
synchronization, we recommend that you send mail from Palm.
Mac
OS
- To optimize plug-in loading
time, move any read-me files that may be installed in the plug-ins folder to
another folder on your hard disk.
- When uploading a file using
ftp, Communicator only sends the data fork of the file. If you want to upload
a Macintosh file that has a resource fork, convert the file to BinHex or
MacBinary first.
- Folders aliases are not
supported. You can drag a folder to an ftp directory window for upload but
only aliases to files are resolved before they are uploaded.
- When dragging a folder to
upload, the directory hierarchy of the folder is not maintained. All files
contained in the dragged folder, even those in sub-folders, are uploaded to
the directory you are logged into.
- Older versions of Norton
CrashGuard are incompatible with Communicator 4.73 and may cause your system
to "hang" or "quit."
- If you are using Mac OS
8.1: You may have problems with some text files if you start Communicator
using Easy Open. To avoid these problems, when the Easy Open dialog appears,
do not make a selection, and cancel the dialog box. Open the Easy Open control
panel. Uncheck the option "Translate 'TEXT' documents". Close the Control
Panel. You can then select your signature file.
- If you see errors or
problems while running plug-ins, Communicator may be low on memory. To provide
Communicator with more memory, quit Communicator. Then, select the Netscape
Communicator application icon, and choose "Get Info" from the File menu.
Increase Communicator's Preferred Size by at least 1000. (If you're running
Mac OS 8.5 or later, choose "Memory" from the "Show" pop-up menu to change the
memory size.)
- If you use RealPlayer 5.0
and its plug-in software that comes with Communicator 4.73, be sure to keep
the Communicator memory setting at or above the default preferred size: 8192K
with virtual memory turned on. Reducing this memory setting may cause your
system to quit when you use RealPlayer. For more information, see the
RealPlayer site and documentation regarding recommended memory
requirements.
- If you have Adobe Type
Manager installed, Communicator sometimes quits after you use the Font
Preferences panel or pop-up menus on some systems.
- Versions of Speed Doubler
up to and including 1.0.1 are incompatible with Navigator and Communicator.
Some disk cache operations may cause b-tree corruption on your hard drive. To
correct this problem, download the latest version of Speed Doubler from the
Connectix site: http://www.connectix.com/
- If you choose the "Go
Offline" command and you see a dialog box that says, "The command could not be
completed, because you have not set up your server preferences. Would you like
to set up those preferences now?", select "OK" and enter a generic user and
server name in the preference panel.
- If you see an error message
that says, "A Communications error has occurred" (or "Communications
exception"), and you are using a disk-compression program such as StuffIt
SpaceSaver, try disabling the disk-compression program to fix the
problem.
Java and
JavaScript
- JavaScript 1.3 contains an
ECMA-compliant fix regarding assignments such that if (a=b) is no longer
interpreted as if (a==b). You can update the code or, if you want the old
behavior, specify <SCRIPT language="JavaScript1.2">.
- If you use an applet that
uses RMI callbacks, you must call
netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalConnect") before your first call into the RMI
runtime.
- Changes to Java classes
have been made to improve security and simplify internal use of the reflection
API.
Unix/Linux
- On Linux/Unix systems you
may see the message "Can't convert string "false " to type boolean" after
launching Communicator from the terminal or console window. To suppress this
message:
- Delete all white spaces
at the end of strings in ~/.Xresources.
- From the command line
type "xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources"
- The DirectColor visual
class is no longer supported. If you specify a DirectColor visual with
the -visual argument, or connect to
an X server which implements DirectColor as the default visual class,
Communicator uses a TrueColor visual instead.
- If you register a mime
handler for 'application/x-javascript,' errors occur when you attempt to
display pages that have that mime type. For example, if you use the Navigator
Applications preference to add a new mimetype for 'application/x-javascript,'
then choose Save To Disk, a core dump error occurs when you display pages
containing that mime type.
- The Linux 2.0 version of
Communicator is linked against libc 5.4.22, libm 5.0.8, and XFree86
3.2.
- The Linux 2.0 glibc version
of Communicator is linked against glibc 2.0.7 and XFree86 3.3.1
- The glibc library
distributed with RedHat SparcLinux has a page size bug that prevents
Communicator from starting. To run Communicator 4.73, you need to upgrade to
the glibc-2.0.7-25 or higher RPM. This upgrade may require that you upgrade
other RPMs as well.
- If this is the very first
time you've run any version of Communicator on your system, start
Communicator, then exit, then start Communicator again before you use
Messenger to access your mail. If you attempt to use Messenger the very first
time you run Communicator, it may quit with an "Illegal instruction"
message.
- If you are using IMAP mail
and would like your Sent, Templates, or Drafts folders to be located on your
IMAP server, first create the folder on the server, then use Communicator
Preferences to specify that you want Sent, Templates, or Drafts folders to be
kept on the IMAP server.
- To copy messages from one
IMAP server to another, use the File toolbar button. You cannot drag and drop
of messages from one IMAP server to another.
- If you delete your only
IMAP server and then add a POP server, Communicator may quit.
- In the Help
window:
- The Index "look for:"
field is small and it might be difficult to read, however when you type a
word and press Enter, matching topics do appear. You can also scroll through
the index entries.
- If you receive Motif
warnings that appear as dialog boxes, you can send those warnings to the
command line instead by adding these lines to the file
~/.Xresources:
Netscape*useStdoutDialog:False
Netscape*useStderrDialog:False
- You should set the
CLASSPATH environment variable only if you need to install special Java files
in Communicator. Communicator uses CLASSPATH to find local .class files. If
CLASSPATH is set in the user's environment, only the .jar files and
directories specified in the CLASSPATH are searched. If you set your CLASSPATH
variable, you need to make sure that each .jar file in
$MOZILLA_HOME/java/classes is listed individually in your
CLASSPATH.
- A previous workaround for
Unix systems, to avoid the freezing on startup of the edit or compose window,
has been changed. If you previously set editor.disable_spell_checker in the
preferences.js file, you can now implement the improved fix by deleting this
line from the preferences.js file:
user_pref("editor.disable_spell_checker", true);
Replace it with this
line:
user_pref("editor.dont_lock_spell_files", true)
This preference setting
prevents the spell checker from locking files over NFS, thereby preventing the
window freezing problem.
- Communicator does not heed
the TMPDIR environment variable when creating temporary files.
- In order to create an IMAP
container folder on servers that do not support folders containing both
messages and subfolders, the folder should be created with a trailing slash,
e.g., "toplevel/".
- AIX systems: Some pages and
windows may not display correctly the first time you run Communicator.
Restarting Communicator corrects this problem.
- HP-UX systems: To export
security certificates:
- Enter the certificate
password.
- In the Filter field that
appears in the File dialog box, delete the "*" (asterisk) and press Enter.
The File Name field at the bottom of the dialog box now shows just the
directory path, without the file name.
- Enter the File Name and
press OK to export the certificate.
Using the Quality Feedback
Agent with Automatic Proxy Configuration
(Note: This is available for
Windows only.) 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:
1. If you are using
an HTTP proxy, or both an HTTP and SOCKS proxy, create a file named
talkback.ini, containing these three lines, using your proxy host name,
domain, and port:
UseUserHTTPProxyInfo=1UserHTTPProxyHost="yourproxy.yourdomain.com"UserHTTPProxyPort=xxxx
[your proxy port number]
If you are using a SOCKS Proxy,
create a file with these three lines:
UseUserSOCKSInfo=1UserSOCKSHost="yourproxy.yourdomain.com"
UserSOCKSPort=xxxx [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 this location, in the directory that
contains the Netscape.exe file:
\Fullsoft\data\talkback.ini