Known Issues - Curl RTE 4.0.4

Contents

Installer

Silent installer error creating start menu shortcut

Upgrading or uninstalling the Curl RTE or Curl IDE can fail if the earlier install was performed when the machine's regional settings were set to a host locale that differs from the current host locale. A typical example would be to install one version of the Curl RTE with the machine set to the Japanese host locale, and then to either uninstall or upgrade with the machine set to the US or UK host locale. The failure looks something like the following, displayed in a Command window when the silent installer is invoked:

Throwing unexpected:
ExistingFileException: Failed to create directory
'file:///c:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs/Curl RTE': Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)
*** Error encountered: ExistingFileException:
Failed to create directory 'file:///c:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs/Curl RTE': Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

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| To dismiss this window, press the 'enter' key. |
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Workaround: Restore the machine to the host locale that was in force when the original installation was performed. Uninstall all. Switch the host locale to the new setting. Reinstall.

Install and uninstall of Curl RTE and Curl IDE products should be performed with the machine in a consistent host locale.

Surge 4.0 does not install on SuSE 8.2/KDE (openssl dep)

The Curl RTE 4.0 does not install or run on the Linux SuSE 8.2 distribution.

Workaround: None available. SuSE 8.2 and Curl RTE 4.0 require incompatible versions of libcrypto.so.

FireFox is caching the plugin list and not noticing when Surge is installed

If running applets in a FireFox or Mozilla browser, and Java is disabled, FireFox does not notice new plugins.

Workaround: You can browse about:plugins and FireFox or Mozilla will update its list of plugins. You can enable Java in FireFox or Mozilla preferences. You can upgrade to newer versions of FireFox or Mozilla, FireFox 1.0.5 and Mozilla 1.8 are expected to have this bug fixed. This is a limitation of Mozilla and FireFox, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=273785

Linux RTE installer adding bogus IDE menu shortcuts

The Linux RTE installer creates Start Menu shortcuts for the Curl IDE even when it is not installed.

Workaround: None. These menu shortcuts are harmless. They raise an explanatory dialog if clicked.

Start menu entries not created on Japanese NT

Start Menu items installed by the Curl RTE or Curl LAB installers on Japanese Windows® NT only do not function. The products are properly installed otherwise, and browsing to Curl applets functions correctly. It is only the Start Menu items which are faulty.

Workaround: Install the product or products a second time without first uninstalling. This action may repair the Start Menus.

Must log out and log in again to see linux start menu items

On Linux systems running the Gnome window manager, the Start Menu items are not displayed following installation of the Curl IDE.

Workaround: Log out and log back in to force the Start Menu items to display.

Installer does not correctly detect DirectX version

The SurgeR RTE requires Microsoft® DirectX version 7.0 or later to properly implement the graphics APIs. The Surge RTE installer detects the installed version of DirectX. If it does not meet the minimum requirements, the user is advised to install the most recent version of DirectX and is directed to the Microsoft® web site.

Curl, Inc. is aware of reports that on some machines running Microsoft® Windows® 98SE the Surge RTE installer fails to report an insufficiently modern version of DirectX. Our installer follows the Microsoft® guidelines for detecting the correct version of DirectX, and to date we have been unable to reproduce this problem in our testing labs. Nevertheless, the workaround is simple: install the most recent version of DirectX before installing the Surge RTE.

Remedy: Install the most recent version of DirectX before installing the Surge RTE.

GUI and Graphics

Underline on trademark symbol on Linux

If an underline style is applied to a trademark symbol, the underline position may be offset relative to adjacent characters on certain Linux systems.

Letters in italics sometimes clipped

Any character has one bounding box that is appropriate for text layout and possibly a different bounding box that is appropriate for drawing. The Curl RTE uses the layout box in both cases. As a result, the first or last character in a line can sometimes be clipped slightly. The same effect is at times seen in most web browsers.

XP and ATI 3d Rage Pro card shows graphics scrambling

In rare cases graphics output may be garbled. This has for example been observed with the ATI 3d Rage Pro card under Windows® XP. These problems can often be fixed by installing the latest drivers from the manufacturers web site.

Fonts in Mixed Locales

There are three font aliases in Surge. These are "serif", "sans-serif" and "monospace". The RTE uses the working locale to map these font aliases to a particular font family name.

If an attempt is made to display Japanese string when the working locale is English the alias could resolve to a font that does not contain the Japanese characters. Such characters will render incorrectly, usually as a small rectangle. This will only occur if the host locale is "ja" and the working locale is "en".

Note on Language Support

The only languages fully supported and tested by the Curl RTE are U.S. English and Japanese. Most languages that read from left to right can be displayed and entered in a control in a Curl applet provided that the appropriate font is requested and is available on the system where the applet is running. It is reported that Thai cannot be displayed correctly with Curl RTE version 4.0.

File Manipulation, I/O, OCC and Persistent Data

curl://occ always opens in default browser

On Windows®, OCC applets ("curl://occ/...") open in the default browser even when the Url is entered in the address field of a browser which is not the default.

W98: one minute pause before disconnected occ loading

On Windows® 98 the SurgeR RTE may take 60 seconds to recognize that it is disconnected from the network before loading the local copy of an OCC applet.

The Surge RTE, when attempting to load an OCC (Occasionally Connected Computing) applet, first checks to determine whether the client PC can reach the server that hosts the applet over the network. If it cannot, it transparently loads a local copy of the applet instead. On Windows® 98, the check to determine whether the client PC has network access to the server hosting the applet takes 60 seconds to fail. On other versions of Windows®, the check takes a few seconds.

The only known workaround is to use Windows® XP or Windows® 2000 as the client operating system.

Crash when 127.0.0.1 is denied

Do not deny connections to ip address 127.0.0.1 in your firewall. The Surge RTE and Surge Lab™ IDE rely on this loopback address for internal purposes. These products will not function if access to ports on this address are blocked.

Network socket limits

When running Curl RTE on Microsoft® Windows® 98, you can run out of network sockets due to a low limit on the number of sockets in the OS. This would show up as applets not finishing loading, or as errors about running out of network resources. To fix this, using regedit, you can create a new registry entry of type String at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\ MSTCP\MaxConnections with a value of 256.

OS, Browser and Server Issues

IE Javascript problem with window containing Curl applet

If an applet is opened using JavaScript's window.open call in Internet Explorer, that window will not be closeable using window.close, unless the window.open call has happened again while the window was already open.

Workaround: If an HTML page with the applet in it using an EMBED/OBJECT/IFRAME tag is opened with window.open, then the window will be closeable with window.close. This bug is known to Microsoft®, and may be fixed in future OS service packs.

browse-forward and browse-backward do not work on Konquerer 3.1.4

Applet.browse-forward and Applet.browse-backward do not work for applets running in a Konqueror 3.1.4 and early browser. If they are used, Konqueror will pop-up an error about javascript: not being supported.

Workaround: This may be fixed in more recent versions of Konqueror.

browse-backward doesn't work on Netscape® 8.0.2

Applet.browse-forward and Applet.browse-backward do not work for applets running in a Netscape® 8.X browser. If they are used, nothing happens.

Workaround: None, this is an issue with Netscape® 8.X.

Issues with tabbed browsing in Firefox and IE 7

Tabbed browsing has issues viewing Curl applications in Firefox and IE 7. Specific issues include:

• If an applet opens a View, that View remains visible when the user switches to another tab, even though the Curl applet itself is no longer visible (it is covered by the content of the other tab).
• Closing a tab containing a Curl applet suspends the applet. However, that applet is not killed, and its resources are not entirely reclaimed, until the browser window itself is closed.
• The title in the browser window of a Curl applet disappears when a new tab is opened in Firefox.

Workaround: None. The browsers did not add support for notifying plugins when the user switches tabs.

IE crash with browse-url-post on W98 and ME

Using Applet.browse-url-post in an applet running in the Internet Explorer browser on a Windows®98 or Windows®ME computer may cause the browser to crash.

Workaround: Use a different web browser or upgrade to a newer OS.

Problems with embed and object tags in Netscape® 4.75

Netscape® 4.X may display odd errors or no error when there is an EMBED tag or OBJECT which points to a URL that doesn't exist.

Workaround: Upgrade to a newer browser. This is a limitation in the Netscape® 4.X browsers.

Curl applet in POST response doesn't work in Konqueror 3.3.1

Any POSTed data sent to a Curl applet does not work correctly in Konqueror 3.3.1 and earlier.

Workaround: None known. This is a limitation in the Konqueror browser.

We treat all applets as sticky on mozilla-based browsers

In the following browsers, all Curl applets are "sticky". That is, they run as if '{applet.become-sticky}' appears in the applet source code. Therefore, browsing to the Url of an applet which is already in the browser history simply returns to the existing applet instance.

This limitation affects

• all versions of Netscape® above 4.8
• all versions of Mozilla
• all versions of Firefox

Workaround: None. This is a limitation in the Mozilla-based browsers, which do not support providing history information to plugins.

Linux: Konqueror does not automatically notice new plugins

The Konqueror browser running under KDE does not automatically recognize the presence of the Surge plugin.

Workaround: In Konqueror, go to Settings -> Configure Konquerer -> Plugins -> Plugins Press the button labeled "Scan for new plugins".

Embedded curl fails to print on IE 5.0

Microsoft®R Internet Explorer version 5.0 will not print Curl applets that are embedded in a Web page.

To solve this problem, upgrade your version of Microsoft®R Internet Explorer. Download the latest version from the Microsoft® Web site.

curl links that open in IE fail with anchors

A link from a Curl applet to another Curl applet via a file URL that contains an anchor string will not behave properly in Microsoft® Internet Explorer.

An example of this type of link is:

{link {url "file:///c:/my-directory/document.curl#destination"} Click here!}

Internet Explorer will link to "document.curl" but will not scroll to the anchor, "#destination".

Linux browser menu behavior when viewing applets

On Linux, certain web browser menus are disabled or nonfunctional when viewing Curl applets.

Mozilla: The "find" menu is not connected to Surge and does not cause anything to happen.

Epiphany: The "find" menu is not connected to Surge and does not cause anything to happen. Selecting "print" causes Epiphany to pop up a printer dialog; when you close it, Surge pops up its own dialog.

Konquerer: Quite a few menu items like "find", "print", etc., become disabled when viewing a curl applet.

Curl RTE on Fedora Core 3 over SSH

Recent versions of OpenSSH uses untrusted X11 cookies by default. This means you may experience errors when running Curl over SSH on Linux on Fedora Core 3. The earlier behaviour can be restored by setting ForwardX11Trusted yes in ssh_config. See the OpenSSH FAQ.

Keyboard Focus in Mozilla Address Bar under Linux

If you are running a Curl applet using Mozilla on Linux, you may find that once the keyboard focus has been given to a Curl applet it is difficult to get it back to the browser address bar. This appears to be a bug in some versions of Mozilla.

Our Mozilla lacks Japanese resources

The Surge RTE on Linux will use a copy of the Mozilla browser which is included with the Surge RTE, when it needs to spawn a web-browser, if it can't find a suitable web-browser already installed on the machine. This copy of Mozilla only includes English resources, regardless of what language the user might use.

Konqueror browser has issues running Surge plugin

Surge does not work correctly running under the Konqueror browser, due to the failure of the Konqueror executable to call "NPP_Destroy()" at the proper times. The effect is that reloading an applet creates a new instance rather than replacing the former instance. Eventually, a large number of Surge processes is created leading to an exception. The only workaround until Konqueror fixes their code is to shut down the Konqueror browser from time to time to clear out all Surge processes associated with that browser.

On Linux, Surge doesn't copy over Firefox profiles so user settings will be ignored

Surge RTE on Linux uses Mozilla based libraries to handle http: and https: URLs, and makes copies of the user's most recently used Mozilla profile to get various settings like Proxy servers to be used and client side certificates to use. However the Surge RTE does not copy over Firefox profiles, so Firefox users would need to run Mozilla to make changes to settings that would be seen by the Surge RTE.

Driver Au8830 fails during install or shutdown on NT

If you are running the Surge software platform on the Windows® NT, you may encounter the following error message: "Surge.EXE - Cancel Timeout. The driver \Driver\Au8830 failed to complete a cancelled I/O request in the allotted time."

This indicates that you may need to update your audio driver. This information can be found at http://www.3dsoundSurge.com/drivers/Vortex2/.

If you encounter this problem after updating your audio driver, contact our support team at support@curl.com.

Audio on NT only works for "curl and nothing else" or "everything but curl"

In Windows®R NT, if a sound source is playing when you start the Surge Runtime Environment, sound from applets written in the Curl content language will not play until you close the original sound source and restart the Surge runtime environment.

Security warning when starting surge on Vista with IE 7 in protected mode

If you install the Curl RTE or Curl Lab on Microsoft's Vista with the process ieuser.exe running, when you try to load a Curl applet, you will get a security warning indicating that:

"A website wants to open web content using this program on your computer...."

To workaround this problem, you can:

• make sure that ieuser.exe is not running when you install the Curl RTE, or,
• reboot after installing the Curl RTE

ctrl+N and ctrl+T commands are doubled in Firefox

Some acclerator commands in Firefox are executed twice when a Curl applet is loaded, for example, using ctrl+T, ctrl+N and ctrl+H for New Tab, New Window, History.

Changing security level in IE 7 with curl applet loaded causes IE 7 to crash

If you change the system security level in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 with a Curl applet loaded in IE 7, IE 7 will crash.

The Surge Control Panel

The Surge Control Panel is available by clicking on the Surge icon in the system tray, then clicking Show Surge Control Panel. If the icon is not visible, you may raise the Control Panel via the Windows®R Start menu.

Control Panel: No syntactic validity checking for hosts and directories

Privileged hostnames in the Control Panel are not validated.

There is no semantic validity checking for hostnames you enter as privileged locations in the Surge Control Panel. Also, the preceding http:// is assumed, so you should not enter it.

There is syntactic validity checking, to the extent that location names containing spaces are rejected.

Difficult to edit in trusted location of Control Panel

You cannot edit a Privileged Location in the Surge Control Panel. To change an entry, first remove it (by clicking the revoke privilege link) and then add the desired entry.