Netscape Setup/Troubleshooting Guide

Table of Contents

Introduction
Setting up Netscape v3.x and lower
Setting up Netscape v4.x and higher
Server Information for Use with the Internet Service
Troubleshooting Section

Introduction

The following help guide is designed to assist in the Setup and troubleshooting of Netscape. If you are having a problem with Netscape Mail obtain the Netscape Mail guide. If you are unable to find the solution to your problem in this document see the technical notes at http://help.netscape.com. You can also visit the Unofficial Netscape FAQ at http://www.ufaq.org (links to Netscape help newsgroups are available).


Setting up Netscape v3.x and lower

1.Click Options, then General Preferences. All settings here are optional (your preferences). A couple items of concern include:

a.Appearance- The Browser Starts With: field is for your home page.

b.Helper Apps- Under this tab you can set up what programs will run with a particular file extension (ie an AU file can be setup to be played by NAPLAYER.EXE). If you misconfigure a application with a file extension you can edit the entry here.

2.Click Options, then Mail and News Preferences. Most settings are defaulted correctly except:

a.The Servers tab settings include:
1) Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server- Enter mail.asis.com
2) Incoming Mail (POP3) Server- Enter mail.asis.com
3) POP3 username- Enter your ASIS username.
4) Maximum Mail Message defaults to None.
5) Messages from the server should be Removed from the Server.
6) Check for Mail should be NONE or a high number (i.e. 99)
7) News (NNTP) Server- Leave blank

b.The Identity tab settings include:
1) Your Name should list your name as you wish it to appear.
2) Your E-mail should be your e-mail address.
3) Your Reply-to-Address should list your e-mail address.

c.The Organization tab settings are preferences. The most important setting is Remember Mail Password. When retrieving your mail a box will appear asking for the e-mail Password which is the same as your login password. If this box is checked, Netscape will store your Password if not it will ask for the Password again. You need to uncheck this anytime you have changed your login Password. We suggest leaving this checked.

3.Network Preferences are Advanced Settings. For advanced users there are a few items of interest:

a.Cache tab: allows you to specify and clear memory and disk cache.

b.Connections tab: allows you to specify the number of threads.

c.Proxy and Socks tab: these are not used, they should be disabled.

4.Security Preferences are all personal preferences.


Setting up Netscape v4.x and higher

1.Start the Netscape "Profile" you would like to configure. (You can create multiple profiles to maintain multiple settings using the User Profile Manager in the Communicator program group Utilities).

2.Choose Edit from the Netscape menu bar and then Preferences.

3.From the Category list, click the plus sign next to Mail & Groups.

4.Select Identity under Mail & Groups and enter the following:
a.Enter Your name as you wish it to appear.
b.Enter your E-mail address and the Reply to address if different.
c.Organization and Signature File settings are your preferences.

5.Select Messages under Mail & Groups and modify the settings as desired (all options here are preferences).

6.Select Mail Server under Mail & Groups and enter the following:
a.Mail server user name is your ASIS Username.
b.Outgoing mail (SMTP) server is mail.asis.com
c.Incoming mail server is mail.asis.com
d.Under the Mail Server Type choose POP3 (messages and folders are kept locally, on the hard disk). Do not check Leave messages on server after retrieval or your mailbox on the server may become full.
e.Click the button More Options.
f.The Local mail directory should default correctly.
g.It is best not to check the option to Check for mail every xx minutes to prevent password problems.
h.You should uncheck the Remember my mail password option anytime you change your password. Otherwise you can use this feature.
i.Click OK on the More Options window.

7.Select Groups Server under Mail & Groups and enter the following:
a.Enter the news server in the Discussion groups (news) server field.
b.Leave the port at the default of 119 and do not check Secure.
c.All other options here are preferences.

8.Select Directory under Mail & Groups and modify the settings as desired (all options here are preferences).

9.All other options in Netscape Communicator are preferences except make sure not to enable Proxies. Netscape will default to using a Direct connection to the Internet, which is what should be used. Click OK when completed with changing your settings.

Server Information for Use with the Internet Service

User name: All lowercase - you must append @asis to your username to logon, thus: username@asis
Password: Your password is case sensitive, upper and lower case are different.
Email: your Email address is username@asis.com
Your incoming mail or POP server is mail.asis.com
Your outgoing mail or SMTP server is mail.asis.com
Your DNS servers are:
Primary: 207.20.154.12
Secondary (for 943/923 numbers): 204.247.247.10
Secondary (for 56k numbers): 69.19.189.116

For access numbers throughout California, The United States, and parts of Canada please view our numbers page here.


Troubleshooting Section

Note: The following fixes list many common errors as seen in Netscape. You can try to search for more fixes at http://help.netscape.com or http://www.ufaq.org (The Unofficial Netscape FAQ which has links to Netscape help newsgroups as well). Fixes for the Yellow Exclamation at startup are located here too.

If you are Unable to View or Contact any Web Site:

1.Verify you have a valid Internet Connection by trying to Ping. With Windows 95 type: "ping www.asis.com" (without quotes) and hit enter from an MS-DOS Prompt. You should see replies. If you are unable to ping you have a connection problem (obtain the help guide for your operating system). If you are able to ping it is a browser related problem; continue with the below troubleshooting.

Go to your Network settings and verify Proxies are Disabled.

Verify you are NOT using the Windows 95 version of Netscape with a Windows 3.x Dialer. You can not use a 16-bit dialer with

32-bit Internet software (you must use 16-bit Internet software).

Search your harddrive for multiple copies of the file winsock.dll. Rename all extra copies of winsock.dll (in Windows 95 you should be using the Winsock in the Windows directory and in Windows 3.x the Winsock in the Dialer directory).

Try uninstalling and reinstalling the browser.

2.Try clearing your Browser Disk and Memory cache to resolve various viewing problems. This is located in the Network Preferences.

3.For Problems with Netscape Mail view the Netscape Mail help guide.

4.Resolving Netscape Font Problems ("Greek" fonts appear):

Netscape can use your Windows installed fonts. Some of these fonts cause conflicts with Netscape (unrecognizable "Greek" fonts or white text on white backgrounds). If you have this problem try disabling true type fonts in Win 3.x (if already disabled try enabling them). Also the following individual fonts have been found to cause problems: (phonetic.fon, Monotype Sorts, WPBoxDrawing, uspost.fon, mcsrack.fon) So if you have any of these try removing them. If you have Adobe Type Manager running, turn it off and reboot. You can also try searching the Netscape help sites (many users have had to remove fonts individually and reboot until finding the offending font).

5.Resolving GPF and Other Software Errors:

These fixes are directly from the Netscape site at http://help.netscape.com. GPF (General Protection Faults) and other software error messages are general system conflict errors. The first step is to uninstall Netscape completely (make sure to remove its directory) and then reinstall. Other fixes as recommended by Netscape include:

a.Run SCANDISK to verify you do not have any disk errors.

b.Edit your netscape.ini file with the following changes: Change the line "Use Asynch DNS" to "NO" and Max Connections to "1" Both of these are in the (NETWORK) section of the INI file.

c.Edit your config.sys file with the following changes:

FILES=40 (OR BETTER)

BUFFERS=40 (OR 10 IF YOU ARE USING SMARTDRV)

STACKS=9,256

SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /P /E:2048

d.You might need to update the Windows video driver. To test this change back to the windows standard VGA display (in Win 3.x go to Control Panel then Windows Setup). Run netscape to see if the problems remain. If resolved contact your video card provided for updates to your video driver software. There are known problems with older Cirrus Logic and ATI Mach 32 / Mach 64 video drivers.

e.Conflicts can occur with programs loaded by windows during startup. Check the LOAD= and RUN= lines in your win.ini file. Add a semi- colon ";" to the front of the line and retry.

f.Some Antivirus programs will cause problems with Netscape. Try to disable them and retry Netscape to test for this.

g.Occasionally, something you've loaded in your config.sys or autoexec.bat might interfere with Netscape. Try to temporarily remove some drivers loaded in these files and retry.

6.Resolving Win32s Error Messages when Installing Netscape:

If you cannot install Netscape because you are getting errors about Win32s files being out of date then you have out of date Win32s files that Netscape can not be used under. The Win32s files allow certain programs that can read them to operate at 32-bit. Netscape can run without the Win32s files but can NOT run under the older version. We suggest a. you upgrade your Win32s files to the latest version versus

b. disabling the Win32s files or even c. Deleting the Win32s files.

a.The latest version of Win32s can be obtained by doing the following

1) FTP to ftp.microsoft.com and retrieve file 'Softlib-MSLFILES-pw1118.exe

2) Dial into the Microsoft Download Service at 206-936-6735 and download pw1118.exe

This pw1118.exe file is 2+mb and self extracts into 3 files. Just run the expanded setup.exe from windows and win32s will be updated.

b.To disable the Win32s library do the following:

1) Edit the system.ini file in the Windows directory.

2) Place a semicolon ";" at the very beginning of the line. device=X:\windows\system\win32s\w32s.386 in the 386enh section.

3) Restart Windows and retry the installation.

c.To delete the WIN32S library do the following:

1) Remove the following lines in the X:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI file a) device=WINDOWS\SYSTEM\win32s\w32s.386 in the 386enh

section. b) drivers=mmsystem.dll winmm16.dll in the BOOT section.

2) Delete the following files from the harddrive: X:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\w32sys.dll and win32s16.dll and win32s.ini

3) Delete all the files from the following directory (and the directory itself): X:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\WIN32S

4) Restart Windows and retry the installation.