UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) (07/25/90)
We are having a problem where a
tar cv dirname
commands "seems" to start working, but then freezes up. The
default in /etc/default/tar seems right. The tape /dev/rct0 starts
to whir, and tar prints out the first 6 or 7 files being added to the
archive, but then the tape and the tar output just come to a halt.
Nothing seems to kill it except removing the tape cartridge, which causes
a tar: write error message.
Reading with $ tar xv just produces some more whirring of the tape
drive, followed after 10 seconds or so by a tar: cannot read and a
read: i/o error.
Details: SCO Unix 3.2 on Compaq 386/33 with Compaq 150/250 drive.
tape rewind; tape reset seem to function but do not cure problem.
/etc/default/tar sets block to 20 and size to 100000.
tar works when output goes to an ordinary file.
We are currently looking around for another Drive to swap, to see if
it is a hardware problem. SCO is thinking. We are thinking. I hope
somebody out there has already seen and fixed this one.
Thanks. leeclewis@eci386.uucp (Chris Lewis) (07/31/90)
In article <90206.103115UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes: > We are having a problem where a > tar cv dirname > commands "seems" to start working, but then freezes up. > Details: SCO Unix 3.2 on Compaq 386/33 with Compaq 150/250 drive. Is that a tape drive? Early Wangtek 60Mb streamers had some sort of bug in the controller that caused them to hang when used with UNIX or Xenix. Wangtek was shipping 150's for a while for no extra charge. -- Chris Lewis, Elegant Communications Inc, {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis Ferret mailing list: eci386!ferret-list, psroff mailing list: eci386!psroff-list
mason@oct1.UUCP (David Mason) (08/02/90)
In article <1990Jul30.210437.17290@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes: >Is that a tape drive? Early Wangtek 60Mb streamers had some sort of >bug in the controller that caused them to hang when used with UNIX >or Xenix. Wangtek was shipping 150's for a while for no extra charge. Please, tell me more. We have installed a large number of the Wangtek 60 Mb tape drives over the last few years, and every now and then one hangs. The tape stops, the light on the cartridge drive stays on and the associated cpio process hangs. Only a reboot clears it. We usually find that by replacing the controller (Wangtek Assy 30850) the problem is fixed. Our supplier hates honouring his warranty, because it "works fine when I try it". Of course, he tests it under Dos. Does anyone know if this problem has definitely been fixed in later revisions? The controllers are marked with revision letters, so something must have changed. Thanks. -------------------- David | mason@oct1 (David M Mason) | olsa99!oct1!mason@ddsw1.mcs.com
kevin@utekza.UUCP (Kevin Gribble) (08/03/90)
In article <1990Aug2.074751.4386@oct1.UUCP> mason@oct1.UUCP (David Mason) writes: >In article <1990Jul30.210437.17290@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) >writes: %>Is that a tape drive? Early Wangtek 60Mb streamers had some sort of %>bug in the controller that caused them to hang when used with UNIX %>or Xenix. Wangtek was shipping 150's for a while for no extra charge. % %Please, tell me more. We have installed a large number of the Wangtek %60 Mb tape drives over the last few years, and every now and then one %hangs. The tape stops, the light on the cartridge drive stays on and %the associated cpio process hangs. Only a reboot clears it. % %We usually find that by replacing the controller (Wangtek Assy 30850) %the problem is fixed. Our supplier hates honouring his warranty, because %it "works fine when I try it". Of course, he tests it under Dos. % %Does anyone know if this problem has definitely been fixed in later %revisions? The controllers are marked with revision letters, so something %must have changed. % %Thanks. %-------------------- %David | mason@oct1 (David M Mason) % | olsa99!oct1!mason@ddsw1.mcs.com The reason for having to reboot your system hanging is that if try and kill the process it causes a 'defunk' process, apparently you can kill process like 'tar' or 'cpio'. I must admit I have had some customers with the same problem. I have seen on the BBS that SCO are now working on a fix for Wangtek. It did not say for which tape drive (60 MB or 150 MB), but was due for release soon. Kevin Gribble kevin@utekza.UUCP
tmh@prosun.first.gmd.de (Thomas Hoberg) (08/14/90)
I have an Archive Viper QIC02 60MB streamer with an Archive controller that will hang, too, sometimes. I am under the impression though, that this will only occur when a couple of tape accesses come within a short time (e.g. rewind, status, cartridge change, rewind, cpio -itvc, *BREAK*, cpio ivxdmc ....). If I leave it alone for a minute after three operations or so, it won't hang. Whenever it hangs, there is no way to kill the offending process: it seems to be blocked on a read in the kernel and no amount of signalling will wake it up. This is especially nasty when the offending command was run on the console, because uadmin 2 0, init 0 or shutdown can only be executed from the console (going single user takes care of that), still that leaves a file system busy. I have had this bug consistently with ISC 1.06, 2.0.0 and 2.0.2.
clewis@eci386.uucp (Chris Lewis) (08/15/90)
In article <8@utekza.UUCP> kevin@utekza.UUCP (Kevin Gribble) writes: > In article <1990Aug2.074751.4386@oct1.UUCP> mason@oct1.UUCP (David Mason) writes: > >In article <1990Jul30.210437.17290@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) > >writes: > %>Is that a tape drive? Early Wangtek 60Mb streamers had some sort of > %>bug in the controller that caused them to hang when used with UNIX > %>or Xenix. Wangtek was shipping 150's for a while for no extra charge. > %Please, tell me more. We have installed a large number of the Wangtek > %60 Mb tape drives over the last few years, and every now and then one > %hangs. The tape stops, the light on the cartridge drive stays on and > %the associated cpio process hangs. Only a reboot clears it. I heard this verbally from the support people for our 386 motherboard (SCI), and since they were quite reliable on other things, I can only assume that this was true. Unfortunately, they didn't isssue a Engineering note on the subject, so I can't give you any other details than that. This was about 1 1/2 years ago, so one would assume that if Wangtek was going to do anything about it, it would have been done by now. Which would explain why replacing your controller with a new one usually fixes the problem. In our case, the whole system locks up. But we waited too long to persue it with our tape vendor, and we still have the one that hangs. Scenario: we do automated nightly backups, designed to write as close to 60Mb as possible. The chance of system lockup appears to be approximately 1 night in 5. If we try doing any substantial tape activity during normal daily loading, the chances of lockup are considerably higher. Since the whole system locks up, there's no way of killing it, so it ain't a defunct process per-se. Further, the exact symptoms of the problem would differ depending on your tape device driver, so I'd imagine our 'ix (1.0.6) would differ from ix 2+ or SCO Xenix/UNIX. -- Chris Lewis, Elegant Communications Inc, {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis Ferret mailing list: eci386!ferret-list, psroff mailing list: eci386!psroff-list Psroff information/questions: psroff-request@eci386
john@argmsd.UUCP (john) (08/17/90)
We recently experienced tape hang problems using Wangtek 150mb drive on 386 and 486 machines with SCO Unix 3.2.0. Many of our tape operations required a tape reset command before attempting to execute say a TAR or CPIO command. If the system was pretty active you would find that the tape operation would hang and you would have difficulty in killing the process. The real bad part about this situation is that we found that after one of the tape hangs had occurred, the subsequents tape writes would be CORRUPTED. We found this out the hard way when trying to restore one of our backups! The problem has been resolved by installing SCO Unix 3.2.1. John Lindenberg Argus Newspapers Media Systems Development
duncan@unisup1.UUCP (Duncan Anderson) (08/27/90)
From article <8@utekza.UUCP>, by kevin@utekza.UUCP (Kevin Gribble): > I must admit I have had some customers with the same problem. I have seen > on the BBS that SCO are now working on a fix for Wangtek. It did not say > for which tape drive (60 MB or 150 MB), but was due for release soon. The fix in question is apparently unx200, which hasn't come out yet. SCO reckons it is currently in preparation. regards Duncan Anderson email: unisup1!duncan