Netscape Communicator 4.5 issues

Memory cache trick disappears? Remember the ResEdit tip we cited last May, explaining how to increase Netscape's Memory Cache size? Andy Costain noted a problem when trying to do this with the newly released Communicator 4.5. "If you open the 'allprefs' item, you'll notice the contents are invisible! The line has also been removed from the 'Netscape preferences' file."

I tried this out myself and confirmed it. However, I found the work-around. Simply go to ResEdit's Font menu, when the allprefs item is open, and select any font (Courier is good). Now all the text will reappear.

However, Steve Dagley (of Netscape) contends that the Mac versions of Netscape do not use the memory cache and the disk cache at the same time. You need to set the disk cache to zero to activate the memory cache. This is not consistent with previous reports from readers (although I would tend to trust Steve here!). I am still investigating this further and will hopefully report back soon.

URL Manager Pro conflict Two readers (Dave MacCarn and Peter Boehi ) both report that URL Manager Pro 2.0.5 does not work with Communicator 4.5. Dave writes that Communicator "bombs with a type 3 error after selecting 'Add Bookmark' from URL Manager Pro Menu." Peter echoes: "Each time I try to load the bookmarks from within URL Manager Pro 2.0.5, Communicator crashes with a type 2 or type 12 error. Additionally some items in the URL Manager Pro menu are not correctly displayed."

Update: Several readers report no problems with this combo.

Talkback Matt Banks writes: "Have you got Communicator 4.5 to crash yet? It did for me and I dropped in to MacsBug. I did the usual "es" to kill it and go back to the Finder. However, a Netscape feedback application came up instead. I had never seen one like it before. Apparently, it detects a crash and sends feedback (if you enable it) directly to Netscape regarding the crash. I was pretty impressed."

Yup. This is the new Talkback feature. It is a separate application in the Communicator folder. You can set the "agent" to be on or off. Try it out.