[comp.sys.amiga] Major bug in AmigaDOS!

danbabcock@eklektik.UUCP (/dev/tty000) (04/10/90)

F. Michael Theilig wrote (Message-ID: <16054@snow-white.udel.EDU>)
the following (in part):

>     I kick the disk back out.  "Gimme it back!!!"  <Cancel!> <Cancel!>
> <Cancel!> <Cancel!> <Cancel!>  "I'm not kidding!  You had better do as
> I say!"  <Cancel!> <Cancel!> <Cancel!>  "I warned you!"
>
>     I am then greeted by MR. Guru.  I really don't think a bad disk
> should bring down the system.  When this occurs, is there anything I
> can do about it?

The same happened to me not long ago. It appears to be a *major* bug in
AmigaDOS (sure, it could be intuition, trackdisk.device, or the ARP1.3
commands that I was using - but who believes that?). I hope someone at
Commodore is reading this. When this happened to me, I literally screamed
in frustration (because of the guru, not so much because of the crazy
requesters). Next time, I'm going to coolly drop into ROMWack and gather
clues. Again, people at Commodore: please investigate this one; your
users will be much happier!

-- Dan Babcock / voice: (412)-373-1753

martint@altitude.CAM.ORG (Martin Taillefer) (04/12/90)

In article <6701@wehi.dn.mu.oz> BAXTER_A@wehi.dn.mu.oz writes:
>In article <1655@eklektik.UUCP>, danbabcock@eklektik.UUCP (/dev/tty000) writes:
>> F. Michael Theilig wrote (Message-ID: <16054@snow-white.udel.EDU>)
>> the following (in part):
>> 
>>>     I kick the disk back out.  "Gimme it back!!!"  <Cancel!> <Cancel!>
>>> <Cancel!> <Cancel!> <Cancel!>  "I'm not kidding!  You had better do as
>>> I say!"  <Cancel!> <Cancel!> <Cancel!>  "I warned you!"
>>>
>
>I get this only three times, then it gives up.
>> 

You guys are not experiencing the same problem. This has nothing to do with
ARP. When you get a RW error while reading a file, the system will
indeed give up quickly. A bug-free program should cause a RW error message
to be presented to you only once. A lot of them though (like COPY) will
give you the error a few times before quiting.

The endless error problem is related to overlays. The standard overlay
manager written by Metacomco will enter an infinite loop when there's a
read/write error while reading an overlay. According to the source of the
overlay manager, this is done because they assume that if there was a
problem reading the overlay, it must've been because the user didn't insert
the correct disk.

The problem is, what to do when reading in an overlay fails? You can't
terminate the program, all its resources would still be allocated. Obviously,
a system crash is not the correct solution though.



-- 
----------------------------------------
Martin Taillefer   INTERNET: martin@pnt.CAM.ORG
UUCP: uunet!philmtl!altitude!martint   TEL: 514/640-5734   BIX: vertex

BAXTER_A@wehi.dn.mu.oz (04/12/90)

In article <1655@eklektik.UUCP>, danbabcock@eklektik.UUCP (/dev/tty000) writes:
> F. Michael Theilig wrote (Message-ID: <16054@snow-white.udel.EDU>)
> the following (in part):
> 
>>     I kick the disk back out.  "Gimme it back!!!"  <Cancel!> <Cancel!>
>> <Cancel!> <Cancel!> <Cancel!>  "I'm not kidding!  You had better do as
>> I say!"  <Cancel!> <Cancel!> <Cancel!>  "I warned you!"
>>

I get this only three times, then it gives up.
> 
> The same happened to me not long ago. It appears to be a *major* bug in
> AmigaDOS (sure, it could be intuition, trackdisk.device, or the ARP1.3
> commands that I was using - but who believes that?). I hope someone at
> Commodore is reading this. When this happened to me, I literally screamed
> in frustration (because of the guru, not so much because of the crazy
> requesters). Next time, I'm going to coolly drop into ROMWack and gather
> clues. Again, people at Commodore: please investigate this one; your
> users will be much happier!

I don't use arp. I strongly suspect this is the cause of your troubles.
Like I say, I get a very similar problem, but after 3 cancels, the os
wanders off and finds something else to do.

Regards Alan

> 
> -- Dan Babcock / voice: (412)-373-1753

GWO110%URIACC.BITNET@brownvm.brown.edu (F. Michael Theilig) (04/13/90)

On 12 Apr 90 15:40:20 GMT you said:
>
>I don't use arp. I strongly suspect this is the cause of your troubles.
>Like I say, I get a very similar problem, but after 3 cancels, the os
>wanders off and finds something else to do.
>
 [Stuff about the Requestor bug deleted. ]

     I had the problem using both ARP's copy command, and Zoo 2.00.
 Also, I'm using INCREDABLY cheap disks.

>Regards Alan
>

      F. Michael Theilig  -  The University of Rhode Island at Little Rest
                            GWO110 at URIACC.Bitnet

I am an expert on all subjects, and as long as you
don't ask me any questions, you will remain convinced.