> > Anytime I run Ethereal (version 0.8.14) on my Redhat 6.1 system
> > it locks up. I was running 0.8.9 which seemed to operate just fine.
> > However, when I upgraded to the latest version, it started locking up on
> > me. It seems to happen whenever my Win2000 laptop starts browsing
> > shares on other Windows boxes. The FAQ makes mention of this problem,
> > but doesn't say anything more than that the problem goes away
> > with versions greater than 0.8.2....any ideas?
>
> One idea is that there's more than one way in which Ethereal can lock
> up, and this may well be a different one from the one mentioned in the
> FAQ.
Another idea is that you're doing one of the latter two of these:
> When it locks up, is it *just* capturing, or is it also displaying
> packets as they arrive, or is it reading in a capture after you've
> clicked "Stop" on the capture packet count window?
and you just got unlucky, and ran into a packet containing an IP address
whose corresponding DNS server is being surly and unresponsive; that
happens irritatingly often - Ethereal tries to look up the host name,
calls "gethostbyname()" to look it up, the DNS resolver sends out a
request, and takes a Good Long Time to time out.
To avoid *that* problem, try turning off the "Enable name resolution"
option in the "Capture Preferences" dialog box, or, when reading a saved
capture file, specify "-n" on the command line or disable the "Enable
name resolution" option in the "Open Capture File" dialog box; that'll
cause Ethereal not to bother trying to look up host names for IP
addresses, which might make the display less meaningful, but will also
eliminate some of those long thoughtful pauses when trying to contact
Yet Another Damn Non-Functional DNS Server.