Re: Seg faulting Help-Browser

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Thu, Jun 01, 2000 at 03:57:33PM -0400 or thereabouts, Optimus Prime wrote:
> 
> First of all, I'd just like to announce that I am a beginner to all this
> stuff so, please, be gentle.  :)

:)
> 
> It would seem as though all of a sudden the Gnome Help Browser on my
> desktop is giving me a 'segmentation fault' error.  I don't think I
> changed anything before this happened, and none of the other users on this
> computer are experiencing the same problem.  As you can probably imagine,
> I need this help browser!!!  I'm not sure what version it is, so if
> someone could tell me where to look this up, or if they have a experienced
> a similar problem, that would be great.

You can find the version of most GNOME programs by looking for the
'help' option in the toolbar and then clicking on 'About'. 
gnome-help-browser is no exception.

If some part of GNOME suddenly starts going crackers for no apparent
reason you'll often see "remove your .gnome directory" as a "solution".
I personally loathe this as a cure for the symptoms rather than the
problem, but I suppose you could try this (which will also remove 
all your options and settings you have carefully set within GNOME,
how wonderful) or remove the .gnome/GnomeHelp file only. I have no
idea what this will do, mind you :)

If you start getting "segmentation faults" (aka core dumps, seggies,
and other such terms), then you will probably find a file called 'core'
in your home directory. Typing 'file core' will tell you whether it
came from that program. If so, then get the 'bug-buddy' program, and
run it, and when it asks about debugging information, tell it to look
at this core file. If you get lots of empty brackets and question marks
(lots and lots and -lots- of question marks and empty brackets) then it
won't be much help, but if you get lots of incomprehensible other
stuff, then finish going through bug-buddy and send it off.

That said, gnome-help-browser is known to have a few "issues" to do
with random crashes (check out http://bugs.gnome.org :)) and I believe 
it's going away and being replaced by something better in the future.

Telsa