[comp.unix.i386] Esix console getty doesn't run.

mars@ixos.UUCP (mars) (07/25/90)

Hello,

I am running Esix Ref C. Everything ran fine, till i sold my VGA monitor
and hooked up a Sony CPD1402E multisync. Esix started up, ran. The next
day booting Esix didn't work any more. Init complained with
co: command respawning too rapidly: getty  (or similar)

the same for all the virtual terminals. But all the error messages still
go to the console. Next thing i tried was too boot from the boot floppy and do
a 'quick recovery'. That copied Unix, passwd, et al. to xx.SAV and copied
the defaults from the floppy. That didn't help either. What can be wrong?

Maybe the getty is broken, or the VGA console device driver. What can
i do? I have valuable software (not backed up, of course) in my account.

The hardware is: 386/25Mhz+cache, 150MB ESDI+UltraStore Controller,
VGA wonder VGA card with 512k - The Gateway 2000 system.

Can anybody help me?

Thanks

	Martin

Please reply to my adress in the header, or write to

stein@vax1.informatik.fh-regensburg.dbp.de


muito obrigado

gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) (07/26/90)

In article <1241@ixos.UUCP> mars@ixos.UUCP (mars) writes:
>Hello,
>
>I am running Esix Ref C. Everything ran fine, till i sold my VGA monitor
>and hooked up a Sony CPD1402E multisync. Esix started up, ran. The next
>day booting Esix didn't work any more. Init complained with
>co: command respawning too rapidly: getty  (or similar)

Sounds like you didn't reinstall a serial cable properly. This is
causing getty to respawn. Disconnect any serial devices, edit
etc/inittab changing "respawn" to "off" for your gettys and run
"init q". This should stop the messages. Then check each serial
connection one at a time until you find the problem.

Gary

jackv@turnkey.tcc.com (Jack F. Vogel) (07/31/90)

In article <1090@ke4zv.UUCP> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1241@ixos.UUCP> mars@ixos.UUCP (mars) writes:
>>I am running Esix Ref C. Everything ran fine, till i sold my VGA monitor
>>and hooked up a Sony CPD1402E multisync. Esix started up, ran. The next
>>day booting Esix didn't work any more. Init complained with
>>co: command respawning too rapidly: getty  (or similar)
 
>Sounds like you didn't reinstall a serial cable properly.

HUH??? WAAA?!? Sounds to me like you're posting with your eyes closed! Look
carefully at the subject line if not the message from init, what do you
see there, oh ya, console. Now ask yourself, what does that have to do with
serial cables, hmmmmm??? :-}.

Unfortunately, it sounds to me like some sort of hardware problem with the
video adapter (I don't remember from the original posting whether that was
changed or not). Might try and see if the installation boot diskette has
the same problem or not.

Disclaimer: Sarcasm such as this is my own responsibility, not LCC's :-}

-- 
Jack F. Vogel			jackv@locus.com
AIX370 Technical Support	       - or -
Locus Computing Corp.		jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM

pauld@tcom.stc.co.uk (Paul Davies) (08/02/90)

In article <1090@ke4zv.UUCP> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1241@ixos.UUCP> mars@ixos.UUCP (mars) writes:
>>Hello,
>>
>>I am running Esix Ref C. Everything ran fine, till i sold my VGA monitor
>>and hooked up a Sony CPD1402E multisync. Esix started up, ran. The next
>>day booting Esix didn't work any more. Init complained with
>>co: command respawning too rapidly: getty  (or similar)
>
>Sounds like you didn't reinstall a serial cable properly. This is
>causing getty to respawn. Disconnect any serial devices, edit
>etc/inittab changing "respawn" to "off" for your gettys and run
>"init q". This should stop the messages. Then check each serial
>connection one at a time until you find the problem.
>
>Gary

I had exactly the same problem on my 386 box running ESIX RevC.

I'm afraid I still can't be sure what the problem was  because
for me there were two possible sources and I solved it with a bit of
overkill. It may help you anyway.

I booted up my system and got the same message.

The day before I had done two things.

1. Extended the Multisync video lead, which involved playing around
with the cable.

2. Accidentally powered off without doing a 'shutdown' or
'sync'.


At first (like Gary) I suspected the cable as its the sort of thing you could
expect. I took it off, resoldered etc but still
the same problem. Because I also have a DOS partition I tried booting
into that. This worked fine, absolutely no problems in DOS so 
I was confident there was nothing wrong with the cable.

I then suspected the file system had been somehow corrupted by the
power down. I booted off the installation floppy disk which again
booted fine (confirming there was nothing wrong with the cable). Under
single user having booted off the installation disk I was able to
mount the hard disk and everything looked fine. 

Because it was a fairly new system with very little I needed to
save  I just copied what I wanted onto the boot floppy (I don't have 
any other backup device) reformatted and reinstalled from scratch.

The newly installed system works fine.

I now think something in /etc was corrupted (but can't be sure) and
think the cable was a total red herring.  If it happened again I 
would first try reinstalling /etc. 

If your problem is the same as mine then you should be able to save
any data on the disk by remounting under single user and backing off
onto whatever other devices you have.

Let us know if you pin it down.

			Regards
				Paul.



--
   ___  ___     
  /  / /  / /  / /	Paul Davies, STC Telecommunications,
 /__/ /__/ /  / /	Oakleigh Road South,New Southgate, London N11 1HB.
/    /  / /__/ /___	<pauld@tcom.stc.co.uk> Tel: +44 81 945 3605

mpl@pegasus.ATT.COM (Michael P. Lindner) (08/02/90)

In article <222@rhum.tcom.stc.co.uk> pauld@tcom.stc.co.uk (Paul Davies) writes:
>In article <1090@ke4zv.UUCP> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>In article <1241@ixos.UUCP> mars@ixos.UUCP (mars) writes:
>>>Hello,
>>>
>>>I am running Esix Ref C. Everything ran fine, till i sold my VGA monitor
>>>and hooked up a Sony CPD1402E multisync. Esix started up, ran. The next
>>>day booting Esix didn't work any more. Init complained with
>>>co: command respawning too rapidly: getty  (or similar)
>>
>>Sounds like you didn't reinstall a serial cable properly. This is
>
>I had exactly the same problem on my 386 box running ESIX RevC.
	deleted
>Because it was a fairly new system with very little I needed to
>save  I just copied what I wanted onto the boot floppy (I don't have 
>any other backup device) reformatted and reinstalled from scratch.

I had the same symptom under AT&T UNIX on an AT&T machine here at work.
The power had been flakey, so I suspect it may have been filesystem
damage.  Anyway, as the past few days' work had not been backed up,
I was hesitant to reinstall UNIX.  What I did was boot from the boot
floppy, mount the hard disk, then copy all the unbacked-up files to
another floppy (I borrowed a floppy drive from another machine for
this).  I then reinstalled UNIX as an update, rather than a full
installation.  I had to modify the install script slightly to get it
to update itself - there is an "if" statement that checks the version
it is installing over - your mileage may vary.  Just to make sure,
I reinstalled all the add-ons as well, after the machine was up and
running.  It's still going fine today, so I guess things turned out OK.

I didn't find anyone here at AT&T who could guess what the problem was,
hoewever (ie. what file was corrupted/missing).

Mike Lindner
attmail!mplindner

gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) (08/04/90)

In article <1990Jul30.204650.23133@turnkey.tcc.com> jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM (Jack F. Vogel) writes:
>HUH??? WAAA?!? Sounds to me like you're posting with your eyes closed! Look
>carefully at the subject line if not the message from init, what do you
>see there, oh ya, console. Now ask yourself, what does that have to do with
>serial cables, hmmmmm??? :-}.

Uhhh! Sorry net, I've been bitten by bad serial connections so often
I didn't read carefully enough. :-(

Gary