URL Snooper - WIN98/ME Crashes - possible workaround

[mouser]

someone just posted on another forum a workaround they found for url snooper crashing on win98:

It involved deleting this registry entry:

[Select]

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borland\Locales\C:\Program Files\URLSnooper2\URLSnooper.exe

If anyone with the win98/me crashes wants to try that and let us know if it works it would be nice..
meanwhile ill try to find out why and a more official fix.

[dotdot]

on win98SE:

I wanted to try out url snooper about 6 months ago, but never really got it working. I think I managed to get one or two urls, but only while reinstalling  or somesuch all the while. I discarded it as extremely flakey (despite the gui and menu making a good impression).

Having forgotten these old problems, I tried again recently, with similar frustration; but this new Borland tip saved the day. I can run the (rather undiscerning) .reg file
____________________________
REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borland\Locales]
____________________________
before starting urlsnooper.

With this preamble it starts up ok, running as task "URL Snooper".

Without this preamble all I get is an hourglass for about 10s: no error messages, no window, and task "Urlsnooper" is left running. After lots of such hourglass failures there are lots of "Urlsnooper"s still running.

[mouser]

Ok great!!
Now that I have this confirmed to fix the problem I can figure out why and make it a permanent fix that doesnt need the registry hack.  Thanks for the info and soon there will be a version that doesn't need this.

[dotdot]

Your'e welcome.

It would be better to delete only the data item whose name is the urlsnooper path.
To do this you have to know to double up the backslashes.

However, having stumbled upon this at lingobit I tried changing the value instead.

Replacing "EXE with "" had no effect; it gets reinstated.

But replacing "EXE" with "DLL" provokes an error message on startup:
  title: 'Localizer Error'  text: 'Language "German" is not found'  button: 'OK'
On pressing 'OK' the normal url snooper window appears (using English).
The registry entry retains the "DLL" value, so this modification doesn't need repeating.

It probably imagines I want  "German"  because my LCID in ControlPanel/International is 807.
But my win98SE is 409 and I expect English.

[JonBoy]

...I can figure out why and make it a permanent fix that doesnt need the registry hack.  Thanks for the info and soon there will be a version that doesn't need this.

-mouser (March 01, 2007, 06:56 AM)

Ermmm, I'm sure it'll be released WIR (When It's Ready) but might that be anytime soon? (Looking for a version that runs on WinME.)

Thanks.

[rjam]

I too, noticed that entry for Borland in my registry, when I was manually cleaning up before trying to reinstalld urlsnooper.

I deleted one of the 2 entries.  The 2nd one skipped out of view before I noticed.

I got back to it now & removed.

My urlsnooper in windows Me is now opening okay, without my having to uninstall, clean up, reboot and reinstall each time.

Thanks for the reminder/tip.

[rjam]

Your'e welcome.

It would be better to delete only the data item whose name is the urlsnooper path.
To do this you have to know to double up the backslashes.

However, having stumbled upon this at lingobit I tried changing the value instead.

Replacing "EXE with "" had no effect; it gets reinstated.

But replacing "EXE" with "DLL" provokes an error message on startup:
  title: 'Localizer Error'  text: 'Language "German" is not found'  button: 'OK'
On pressing 'OK' the normal url snooper window appears (using English).
The registry entry retains the "DLL" value, so this modification doesn't need repeating.

It probably imagines I want  "German"  because my LCID in ControlPanel/International is 807.
But my win98SE is 409 and I expect English.

-dotdot (March 01, 2007, 03:41 PM)

Well, I didn't understand the undiscerning Regedit file in your earlier post.

However I was able to guess at what you were indicating in this post, re. replacement of "EXE" with "DLL".

I did not understand the issue of the double backslashes.  But didn't need to, I guess.

The DLL replacement for EXE in the Data field modifyer worked so nice, I can't help smiling, at a solution after about 30 hours of intermittent and mostly unsuccessful work.  I LOVE clicking on the button to tell the machine "English is not found."  A human confusing a computer program into doing a mistake, that results in what the human needs, is a very pleasing role reversal.

So now urlsnooper opens and closes reliably on my windows millenium machine, thanks to
this rube goldberg misdirect of a dysfunction.

Now I have to figure out how to get urlsnooper to find anything useful in it's packet sniffing.

Thousands of packets eventually mount up, but nothing shows, except for a partial url the very first time packets were sniffed.  Now no urls or even partial urls, even from multimedia sites, with streaming audio-video.

[onerudyard]

A new workaround for Win98 and WinME users.

I am using URLSnooper under Win98SE and finding the same problems as other earlier posters. Whilst the workaround described previously will get URLSnooper working, it generates a Localiser Error message each time the program is started. This new workaround avoids this problem and gives an error-free startup each time.

The problem only arises when the program starts using the "native" english language. If the Translation Pack is downloaded and, say, the french or german language files are placed in the URLSnooper2 directory, then the program will start correctly, albeit in either french or german, provided one of these additional languages is selected from the Languages menu (which will appear automatically when a language file is present).

To get the program to start correctly in english it is neccessary, then, to create an english "translation" file. Download the Translator Kit (link is on URLSnooper homepage) and use this to create a new language file. I chose English(United States) but you could choose any that are on the list. DO NOT simply select English as this will produce confusion with the "native" (english) language file. It it probably not neccessary to actually edit anything (although being a pedant who needs to get a life, I did correct a few typos), simply save the new language file, URLSnooper.ENU.lng, to the URLSnooper2 directory.

Next use REGEDIT to delete the value
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borland\Locales\"C:\Program Files\URLSnooper2\URLSnooper.exe"

Now start URLSnooper. A new menu item - Languages will be present. There should be two options on the drop down menu. English (which will have been automatically selected) and English(United States), the new language. Select this. The registry key will now be set to "enu" and when URLSnooper is started on any subsequent occasion it will automatically start with English(United States) as the language.

I would be glad to post the file "URLSnooper.ENU.lng" on this forum to save you all the bother of going through the above, but as it is a binary file and I am new to boards like this, I have no idea how to do that or even whether it is feasible.

I will also make a separate posting that will detail a series of observations on what is happening when the program starts/refuses to start that may prove useful in diagnosing the cause of the problem and aid in resolving it.

[onerudyard]

Observations on running URLSnooper 2.17.01 on Win98SE

I have recently posted a suggested workaround that avoids error messages and problems when running URLSnooper under Win98 and WinME. This post contains more detailed observations of the program's behavior which may prove useful in finding a permanent solution.

Like the above posters, I find that URLSnooper will start correctly on installation but that subsequent startups produce 3 error messages.

This behavior is determined by the registry value
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borland\Locales\"C:\Program Files\URLSnooper2\URLSnooper.exe"
and is related to the Localiser.

When the program is first installed this key does not exist. The program will start OK. However, as soon as it starts it writes the data "EXE" to the value. On subsequent startup the program fails and these error messages are generated

URLSNOOPER caused an invalid page fault in
module URLSNOOPER.EXE at 0177:00405119.
Registers:
EAX=00a1fdcc CS=0177 EIP=00405119 EFLGS=00010213
EBX=00000000 SS=017f ESP=00a1fd78 EBP=00a1fdb4
ECX=00a1fe00 DS=017f ESI=00000010 FS=3fef
EDX=00000000 ES=017f EDI=00a1f838 GS=4b26
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 93 f0 02 00 00 52 e8 d7 0d 09 00 59 ba e3 16
Stack dump:
00000010 00a1fdc0 00a1fdcc 005a381b 006022e8 00a1fd78 00000000 00a1fdb8 0056a0b0 00000000 005395df 00a1fdb8 00000000 00601034 8189c116 00a1fe00

URLSNOOPER caused an invalid page fault in
module URLSNOOPER.EXE at 0177:00405119.
Registers:
EAX=00a1fdcc CS=0177 EIP=00405119 EFLGS=00010213
EBX=00000000 SS=017f ESP=00a1fd78 EBP=00a1fdb4
ECX=00a1fe00 DS=017f ESI=00000010 FS=3fef
EDX=00000000 ES=017f EDI=00a1f838 GS=4b26
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 93 f0 02 00 00 52 e8 d7 0d 09 00 59 ba e3 16
Stack dump:
00000010 00a1fdc0 00a1fdcc 005a381b 006022e8 00a1fd78 00000000 00a1fdb8 0056a0b0 00000000 005395df 00a1fdb8 00000000 00601034 8189c116 00a1fe00

URLSNOOPER caused an exception c0000026H in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0177:bffc04d4.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0177 EIP=bffc04d4 EFLGS=00000202
EBX=00000000 SS=017f ESP=00a1fb7c EBP=00a1fb8c
ECX=00a1fbc8 DS=017f ESI=00a1fab8 FS=3fef
EDX=00a1fc80 ES=017f EDI=8185ec28 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
5d 5f 5e 5b 8b e5 5d c3 8b 4c 24 04 f7 41 04 06
Stack dump:
00a1fb8c bff79138 00000000 00a1ff68 00a1fbb0 bffc0613 00a1ff68 00a1fbb0 00a1fc80 8185ec28 00a1ff68 00a1fc80 00a1fc9c 00a1fbd4 bff76849 00a1fc80


Using REGEDIT the data in the value can be altered, as earlier posters have suggested. In fact almost any string can be used and the program will then on startup generate this error message

Localiser Error - Language "English" is not found

but then go on to start correctly.

If the string used in the value is a code for a language - for example "enu" or "fr" or "it" - then the error message changes to

Localiser Error - Language "English(United States)" is not found

or "French" or "Italian" or whatever.

However if the string "en" or "ntv" or an empty string "" is used, the program will start correctly without error message at all, but immediately overwrites the data "EXE" to the value and subsequent restarts fail and generate the 3 error messages detailed above.

This testing was all done on URLSnooper 2.17.01, but a brief test on the previous version, URLSnooper 2.14.02, showed the same behavior.

The Language Manager langmngr.exe also uses the same type of localiser routines, writing the data "EXE" to the value
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borland\Locales\"C:\[installation dir]\langmngr.exe"
but this program works correctly and generates no errors.

[onerudyard]

I have now posted a zip of URLSnooper.ENU.lng   You will find it under a different, but closely related, thread "URLsnooper refuses to start". (See my first posting of 23 May 2007 for explanation.)

[etalmar]

I have now posted a zip of URLSnooper.ENU.lng   You will find it under a different, but closely related, thread "URLsnooper refuses to start". (See my first posting of 23 May 2007 for explanation.)

-onerudyard (May 24, 2007, 12:22 PM)

Hello onerudyard,

I too experienced similar problems with my Win98SE system when trying to get URL Snooper (v2.14.02) to work consistently.

Where is the zip file located that you mentioned in your previous posts - (i.e. URLSnooper.ENU.lng) and after I download it, does that fix the problem?

Thank you very much for helping me with this frustrating problem.

[mouser]

I've uploaded a new build (v2.20.01) here:
https://www.donation.../URLSnooperSetup.exe

I'd really like to know if this solves the problem that win9x users have been reporting.  Please someone let me know?