commons@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Peter Commons) (03/19/90)
I tried running Versaterm from my Mac SE at home the other day- to connect via modem to the campus network and got a "sorry- the communications port is busy" error. No matter what I tried, Versaterm refused to try to dial out. The same problem occurred when I ran another piece of communications software. Not knowing what was wrong, I tried all the typical things- restarting the mac, then booting off of a floppy... I even reset the PRAM. Nothing worked, though. What does this mean and how do I clear the communications port? My most typical modem port functions are modem communications and MIDI, but recently I got Prodigy. Does anyone know what might have caused this? -- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Peter Commons "Zut, alors! I have meesed one!!!" / / commons@cs.stanford.edu / / Computer Science Department, Stanford University /
andyp@gvgpvd.GVG.TEK.COM (Andy Peterman) (03/19/90)
In article <1990Mar18.233326.29903@Neon.Stanford.EDU> commons@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Peter Commons) writes: >I tried running Versaterm from my Mac SE at home the other day- to connect via >modem to the campus network and got a "sorry- the communications port is busy" >error. No matter what I tried, Versaterm refused to try to dial out. The >same problem occurred when I ran another piece of communications software. > >Not knowing what was wrong, I tried all the typical things- restarting the mac, >then booting off of a floppy... I even reset the PRAM. Nothing worked, though. > >What does this mean and how do I clear the communications port? My most typical >modem port functions are modem communications and MIDI, but recently I got >Prodigy. Does anyone know what might have caused this? You got bit by the MIDI/Chooser bug. This problem occurs most often with the MIDI Manager, although I've seen it occur with older MIDI programs. To fix things, start up your MIDI program (or any MIDI Manager program) and then quit from it. Then, open and close the Chooser. You should then be able to run your other communications programs. To avoid this happening again, do not open the Chooser while running MIDI programs. Apple seems to know about this problem and has said that "...future versions of the Chooser may correct this problem." Gosh!! Andy Peterman
rmg@ultra.com (Rich Geiger) (03/19/90)
commons@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Peter Commons) writes: >I tried running Versaterm from my Mac SE at home the other day- to >connect via modem to the campus network and got a "sorry- the >communications port is busy" error. No matter what I tried, Versaterm >refused to try to dial out. The same problem occurred when I ran >another piece of communications software. Not knowing what was >wrong, I tried all the typical things- restarting the mac, then >booting off of a floppy... I even reset the PRAM. Nothing worked, >though. >What does this mean and how do I clear the communications port? My >most typical modem port functions are modem communications and MIDI, >but recently I got Prodigy. Does anyone know what might have caused >this? I saw the same thing for the first (and so far, only) time last Thursday. First showed up with a beta-test version of communications program I am testing; then Red Ryder: same thing, though slightly different message. I, too, did all the usual recovery stuff- pulled all INITs, new copy of the system file, nothing. Finally, just piddling around, I tried yet another comms program (UW), and *it* connected to the modem... after that, the other comms programs worked fine. Coincidentally (?), I also use the modem port for modem & MIDI, selactable via an "A B" switch box. I have recently started using OpCode Galaxy, and had at first thought it had something to do with the problem, but now am discounting that possibility. The comms program I first saw this with recently had the following bug reported, which shifted my suspicion back to it: - Bug fix: Files weren't closed if Quit chosen on Serial port unavailable situation. This would cause them to be corrupted and abort MacXxxxxx next time they were used. But since you saw it with VersaTerm, I have to wonder whether MacXxxxxx really had anything to do with triggering the problem. I'm left with that awful "I'm not sure what caused it- or fixed it" feeling... -- - Rich Geiger Ultra Network Technologies / 101 Daggett Drive / San Jose CA 95134 rmg@ultra.com ...!ames!ultra!rmg (408) 922-0100 [w] (408) 739-7911 [h]