dennis@epson.UUCP (Dennis Chen) (06/21/85)
It's getting frustrated with the error message appended in the
/usr/lib/news/errlog EVERYday. We joined in the net just a few
weeks ago, the neighbor, turtlevax!spar feeds us news. I recompiled
the 2.10.2 from spar's source except some changes on the "Makefile",
"defs.h", "active" files, but the error still appear. Spar claimed
no problem on their machine.
I include part of errlog below. I would greatly appreciate to hear if
someone has some experience and cure on this problem.
Thanks for your time,
Dennis Chen
{sun, spar, wdl1}!epson!dennis
Note we are running VAX 11/780 vanila 4.2BSD.
=======================================================================
Jun 20 23:56 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 21 00:16 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 21 00:16 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 21 00:16 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 21 00:37 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 21 00:37 inews: Inbound news is garbled
Jun 21 00:39 <1006@trwatf.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/flame/461
Jun 21 00:39 <170@mot.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/sf-lovers/287
Jun 21 00:39 <170@mot.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/sf-lovers/288
Jun 21 00:39 <170@mot.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/tv/80
Jun 21 00:40 <396@olivee.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/audio/155
Jun 21 00:48 <1700@amdahl.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/micro/68k/99
Jun 21 00:48 <1701@amdahl.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/music/216
Jun 21 00:48 <464@grkermi.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/nlang/124
Jun 21 00:48 <464@grkermi.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/nlang/125
Jun 21 00:48 <283@azure.UUCP> inews: Unknown newsgroup 'or.general' removed
Jun 21 00:48 <1049@vax1.fluke.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/women/563
Jun 21 00:48 <1049@vax1.fluke.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/women/564
Jun 21 00:48 <1049@vax1.fluke.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/women/565
Jun 21 00:48 <859@mtgzz.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/movies/196
Jun 21 00:49 <1100@peora.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/singles/309
Jun 21 00:49 <1101@peora.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/arch/152
Jun 21 00:49 <1101@peora.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/arch/153
Jun 21 00:49 <979@ihuxk.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/poems/11
Jun 21 00:49 <2540@wateng.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/social/134
Jun 21 06:11 <28200015@inmet.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/politics/theory/53
Jun 21 06:11 <28200015@inmet.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/politics/theory/54
Jun 21 06:12 <57900001@inmet.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/cooks/125
Jun 21 06:13 <33900001@ima.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/motss/41
Jun 21 06:14 <726@masscomp.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/games/hack/88
Jun 21 06:21 <162@xanth.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/control/146
Jun 21 06:21 <162@xanth.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/control/147
Jun 21 06:21 inews: Inbound news is garbledgreg@ncr-tp.UUCP (Greg Noel) (06/26/85)
In article <162@epson.UUCP> dennis@epson.UUCP (Dennis Chen) writes: > >I include part of errlog below. I would greatly appreciate to hear if >someone has some experience and cure on this problem. > >======================================================================= >Jun 20 23:56 inews: Inbound news is garbled >Jun 20 23:57 inews: Inbound news is garbled > ......... >Jun 21 00:39 <1006@trwatf.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/flame/461 >Jun 21 00:39 <170@mot.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/sf-lovers/287 >Jun 21 00:39 <170@mot.UUCP> inews: Cannot install article as /usr/spool/news/net/sf-lovers/288 > .......... I, too, see these error messages and would appreciate the fix. I suspect that the first one ("garbled") is due to the recently-fixed bug in compress and hence will eventually go away. I do not know why articles would be randomly un-installable; the only thing I have been find for sure is that \small/ batches do not have the problem (I suspect that there is some path that does not close a file descriptor and eventually they run out.....). -- -- Greg Noel, NCR Torrey Pines Greg@ncr-tp.UUCP or Greg@nosc.ARPA
msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (06/29/85)
We, too, were getting a number of "inbound batch is garbled" messages at one time. Accordingly, I replaced the tiny shell script "cunbatch" by the following version. It does the same as "cunbatch" does, but in the event of failure, it keeps the file around and sends mail about it. PATH=/bin:/usr/bin export PATH N=/tmp/news$$ cat >$N if test ! -s $N || compress -d <$N | rnews then rm $N else (ls -l $N; file $N) | mail -s "Cunbatch failure!" news fi This runs under a V7 type system using sh, with compress and rnews in /usr/bin. Other systems will want to modify appropriately. Notice that it tests whether the file is nonempty before doing anything. Most of our garbled batches turned out to be simply empty files that shouldn't have been transmitted. The "inbound batch is garbled" message comes from inews (rnews), so this script is not applicable if you receive news without compression. However, I think you could break the inews-rnews link and install a similar script (without the compress -d) as rnews. Mark Brader P.S. We modified the "file" command locally so that it knows about compressed files, and even tells us how many bits, since we only accept <=13 bits here.
pilotti@telesoft.UUCP (Keith Pilotti @shine) (07/10/85)
In article <> msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader|LSUC|Toronto) writes: > >We, too, were getting a number of "inbound batch is garbled" messages >at one time. Accordingly, I replaced the tiny shell script "cunbatch" >... I've experienced a similar message ("inbound news is garbled") from rnews when reading from `uurec'. Let me explain... I am running News B 2.10.2 on Sun Workstations (M68K). There are several "bugs" in this release which I suspect are related to the infamous "VAX --> 68K NULL pointer dereferencing" conflicts present in many C programs written for VAX 4.2BSD. [See end of article for a summary of this pointer problem.] One of the problems I've had to work around is in `uurec'. `uurec' is supposed to receive articles via mail, and submit them directly to `rnews' for posting on the local machine. However, instead of piping to `rnews', it dumps the article on the standard-output. [Note, I do NOT have DEBUG set, and can `grep' "/usr/lib/news/recnews" in the executable `uurec' program.] OK, I says, I can klooj that by explicitly piping, ie (in my aliases file): netnews:"|/usr/lib/news/uurec | /usr/lib/news/rnews ; exit 0" Although the articles received via this mechanism ALWAYS get correctly posted, `rnews' also ALWAYS complains "inbound news is garbled" with the respective returned mail from every machine on my net. This brings us to the "exit 0" which shuts up `sendmail', but clearly might hide some REAL problem. I've only looked at the code cursorily and the problem wasn't immediately obvious. Maybe someone has made the appropriate modifications to the next news release (2.10.3) to account for 68K machines. (I'm afraid they're around to stay awhile...) {:-) Accordingly, if anyone has taken the time to weed these out in the current (2.10.2) release, please send them to me! Thanks... [A quick summary of the "68K NULL pointer problem":] VAX user process space starts at address 0 and therefore dereferencing a NULL pointer merely returns a value of 0, a side-effect which many programs rely on, eg: char *p = NULL ; if ( *p ) puts( "It's not NULL \n" ); else puts( "It sure is \n" ); returns "It sure is " on a VAX. On Suns (and probably other 68K's), this code dereferences into address space which is NEVER owned by the user program. A core dump is the usual result. This kind of code is easily fixed: char *p = NULL ; if ( p && *p ) puts( "It's not NULL \n" ); -->......^^^^ else puts( "It sure is \n" ); There are more subtle variations on this which one might imagine. [END Summary] /+\ Keith ________________________________________________________ KEITH F. PILOTTI -- TeleSoft (619) 457-2700 x172 10639 Roselle St, SanDiego, CA 92121 (UUCP) {decvax,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!telesoft!pilotti (ARPA) Pilotti@UCSD