heap size

[Ciriel Doos]

Hello all,

I need to guide someone to adjust the heap size on windows.
I'm on linux, so I have no idea where he can set that.
He couldn't find it in the control panel.
Could anyone hold my hand for a bit and tell me where exactly he needs to set it.

His specifications are: windows 98SE, 128 RAM, IE 6, Firefox.

Thanks

[Ciriel Doos]

Oh and java 5 jre

[Joe Ess]

I'm on Win2k, but it should be similar:
To change the applet runtime settings, click on Start, Settings, Control Panel.
Double-click on the Java Control Panel and click on the Java tab. In the "Java Applet Runtime Settings", click on "View". Enter the heap size using the appropriate syntax in the column marked "Java Runtime Parameters".

[Ciriel Doos]

Thanks Joe.

It didn't solve the problem (I even had him set it to -Xmx128M).
What happens is that he opens a java real chat and can type for a while, then his whole system freezes. This somethimes happens immediatly on enetering the channel.
When he wanted to alter the heapsize again, the setting was at -58M (no Xmx infront of it) java seemed to have set it itself in some miraculous way.

In a java dir he found a log with just this in it:
Free memory: 153232
Total memory: 524232

Does this problem sound familiar to anyone or does anyone have any tips/tricks we can try?

Thanks

[Joe Ess]

Originally posted by Ciriel Doos:

Does this problem sound familiar to anyone or does anyone have any tips/tricks we can try?

Yea, that problem sounds like Win98 operating as it is designed. It is not known for stability and you aren't going to fix operating system freezes by allocating more memory for a Java process. I'd advise your friend to upgrade to a more stable operating system or at least have his computer's RAM checked out. Hardware problems manifest themselves in the strangest ways. I had a bad motherboard which would corrupt the file system on the hard drive at random intervals up to several months. I replaced every piece of that computer one by one but until I replaced the mobo, file corruption.
As for the log file he found in the java directory, was it written by the chat software? It doesn't look unusual. "Free Memory" includes the swap space and applications can grow beyond the size of physical RAM.
I doubt that the problem is with the software, but you could send a support request to the vendor and see what they say.

[Ciriel Doos]

Thanks Joe, I was afraid you would say that.

p.s.: this started a few weeks ago, before that he had no problem with it.

[Ciriel Doos]

Joe, is there an IRC channel where you all meet so I can get some 1 on 1 on this for a bit?
If you don't want to make that public here, my e-mail is [e-mail]

Thanks.