I recently made a video showing off WinGogi (the Windows version of the preview build available at Opera Labs) scoring 100/100 on the Acid3 test and passing the Acid2 test. In that video I also mentioned that it was a lot more efficient on Google Maps. I said that current weekly and stable builds of Opera have a hard time with Google Maps. While I was testing out some stuff in a virtual machine running Vista x64 (the same version I made the video on, and the same version I normally browse on) I found that this was not entirely true. The latest weekly build at that time (Windows build 9864) of Opera 9.5 runs Google Maps much better than I thought.
With Opera, the most common cause of performance and stability issues (not only like the one I ran into, but crashing issues as well) are related to a single file. This file is opera6.ini and it is where Opera stores all of your settings. The issue is believed to be caused over time as you update from version to version of Opera (due to this reason, weekly build users like me tend to experience this issue much more frequently), or when system crashes and such cause corruption to the opera6.ini file. When there are discrepancies in this file, it tends to cause problems in Opera ranging from lowered performance and hang-ups to crashing.
Fortunately for those of us suffering from opera6.ini related issues, the fix is as simple as deleting/renaming the opera6.ini file. The down side is that you will have to reconfigure Opera as if it were brand-new, as Opera will create a new opera6.ini file with the default set of preferences the next time you launch it (note that just a re-install of Opera cannot fix this issue). The plus side is that you can simply rename opera6.ini to opera6.ini.bak (or any other name you want) so that your old opera6.ini file is still there in case generating a new opera6.ini didn’t fix your problems.
So, how do you go about deleting opera6.ini? It’s simple. Just follow these instruction:
- Open “About Opera” (click help, then click on “About Opera”).
- Find the path to the preferences file.
- Copy and paste that path into the address bar in “My Computer”.
- Make sure that Opera is no longer running at this point, otherwise this will not work.
- Find the file named opera6.ini (or a file called opera6 that Windows claims is a “Configuration Settings” file).
- Rename that file to something like opera6.ini.bak or backup_opera6 so that you keep a backup copy of it.
- Close “My Computer”, and open Opera.
- Now you just need to set Opera back up the way you like it.
To make it easier to assimilate these instructions, I’ve also made a short video detailing how this works. The video can also be downloaded in WMV (7.7M) and XviD (9.5M) formats. Both are 800×600 pixels in size, and were recorded in Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 running in VMWare.
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using
A while back I could not open widgets. I deleted all lines in the ini that referred to widgets, and widgets came back to life.
Delete the entire file?! So much customisation would be lost i think i’d cry
using
how about MapGuide
http://data.mapguide.com/mapguide/phpviewersample/ajaxviewersample.php??
http://mapguide.osgeo.org/livegallery.html
using
A small tip regarding screencasts: Use a much lower framerate (10fps is often enough) and a lower bitrate. You can get about half the filesize (or even less), and still maintain decent quality.
using
opera:about link is not working in OperaWatch. Replace it with Help → About Opera
using
Exactly what kind of customization will I have to redo if I delete opera6.ini?
Will I have to re-download my widgets? Skins? Toolbars? Key customizations?
using
Nice to see the new poster team revive the blog
using
@kftgr:
You have to set all your preferences (CTRL+F12).
You have to enable your skin, toolbar & keyboard setup in preference.
using
I’ll tell you the one file that has the most effect on Google Maps: urlfilter.ini. Google Maps HATES coexisting with it, so if you use one (and I don’t mean one that’s almost empty but one that’s substantial), edit site preferences for Google Maps and disable content blocker. There are no ads on that site anyway. Maps are several times faster without it.
using
GREAT tips! Thank you so much for this wonderful blog.
using
@rseiler
I can’t believe the content blocker urlfilter.ini impact. My Intel based Mac’s have gone from basically locking up and pegging CPU to 100% for almost a minute to immediate rendering.
Makes me wonder what other sites are suffering from similar impact.
Time to junk urlfilter? This is pretty dramatic step and I think without a viable alternative or a fix from Opera that prevents this sort of cross impact, I may not have a choice.
hartley231.
using
@WOFall:
Agreed, but that’s why my step-by-step instructions and video say to just rename the file to keep a backup. On the other hand, if there are stability or performance issues that you can’t pin to a specific feature then deleting the file itself might be the best course of action.
@Torbjorn:
My first attempt was at a lower framerate, but the cursor was jumping in the video (possibly due to the fact that it was being recorded out of VMWare), so I upped the framerate to 30fps to ensure smooth mouse movement. As far as bitrate, I always leave my encoders set for high quality, because when you screen cap at a low bitrate, it often makes the text too difficult to read.
@Tamil:
Thanks. It was working fine in the viewer while I was editing the post, and I didn’t think to check after posting to make sure that it was OK. I’m not used to cantankerous blog software that tries to edit my code.
@kftgr:
Any widgets, skins, toolbar setups, keyboard shortcut setups, and filter lists will still be there. All you need to do is go into the preferences/customization/etc, and select them again.
using
Good tip
using
@rseiler: performance on using urlfilter.ini has been heavily improved in the latest weekly, it should be several times faster now.
using
Yeah, I see why you did as you did. On the few screencasts I’ve done, I’ve reencoded the captured video in Virtualdub, using a 2-pass compression. While I’ve used x264, XviD can do a good job as well: I tried to reencode your XviD-version in Virtualdub, and got a good looking video at 3,3MB. (Converted the framerate to 10fps, XviD, 2-pass with target bitrate of 150kbps.)
But of course, it does take a little more time, and today most people won’t have any problem downloading a larger file anyway, so just do what works best for you.
using
I just fixed all my performance problems, and it took me one minute to do so. Thanks alot!
using
Can’t we just put some sort of button or option within preferences to just set opera6.ini to default? Personally, I have no problem renaming or deleting config files, but sometimes I like to be lazy and let some automated task do it for me. If this fix seems to be so effective, why not make it part of the standard package?
using
What about rss Feeds?
using
I don’t know about RSS feeds and bookmarks. I use Opera Link (available in Opera 9.5 weeklies), so the bookmarks restored automatically. I didn’t have any newsfeeds though, so I can only assume that you will have to set those back up yourself.