[comp.sys.alliant] Pnews test and non-zero ipl

jay@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu (Jay Liang) (03/07/90)

I suppose if you are running Concentrix 5.5, then the next system panic
message ought to be quite familiar: fbuserr: kernel non-zero ipl.  What
exactly does it mean?  What cause it?  I have seen this error at least 10
times since we installed 5.5 in Januray.  It happened twice in the last 24
hours, as a matter of fact. :-(  Any ideas as to preventing it from
happening?

Jay Liang (jay@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu)
Geosciences Computing Network
University of Oklahoma
-- 
 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
 \  Jay Liang                              Geosciences Computing Network  /
 /  jay@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu               University of Oklahoma  \
 \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

emcguire@cadfx.ccad.uiowa.edu (Ed McGuire) (03/12/90)

From article <1990Mar6.222236.7098@uokmax.uucp>, by jay@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu (Jay Liang):
> I suppose if you are running Concentrix 5.5, then the next system panic
> message ought to be quite familiar: fbuserr: kernel non-zero ipl.  What
> exactly does it mean?  What cause it?  I have seen this error at least 10
> times since we installed 5.5 in Januray.  It happened twice in the last 24
> hours, as a matter of fact. :-(  Any ideas as to preventing it from
> happening?

All the information below came from Customer Service.

There's a bug in 5.5.0.  I don't know the specific nature of the bug.
Customer Service told me that we can press [Esc] [p] at the console to
proceed past the panic.  They were very careful to warn us that the
ONLY panic message that this workaround applies to is `fbuserr: kernel
non-zero ipl'.  Proceeding past the panic leaves your system up as if
the panic never occurred.  THey also asked us to call each time the
problem occurred.

Under rare circumstances a second different panic can occur immediately
thereafter if a crucial page is not in memory.  Then you need to
reboot.  Note that it is a different panic message.  If the `fbuserr:
kernel non-zero ipl' appears again you can [Esc] [p] again.  This
happened to me a couple of times.

Also, if your system is hung up and there is nobody there to proceed
past the panic right away, a second panic occurs when you finally do
proceed when the system notices that the wall clock was not updated for
a long time.  We didn't know the consequences of proceeding past this
one so we rebooted.

Customer Service can patch 5.5.0 to avoid the problem.  They will
provide the patch only if you tell them that you're encountering the
problem at least once a week.  The patch is a simple branch past the
panic test.  So it's just like pressing [Esc] [p] at the console, and
the problem is not really fixed.  That means you could still get the
rare second different panic too.

A maintenance release with the problem corrected is available to
customers with this problem.  Customer Service put the patch in and
promised to ship the maintenance release to us when it is ready.  They
said they were delying the release for a bit longer until some bugs are
worked out of it.

peace.  -- Ed
From vn Mon Mar 12 09:38:30 1990
Subject: Re: Pnews test and non-zero ipl
Newsgroups: jay@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu
References: <1990Mar6.222236.7098@uokmax.uucp>

From article <1990Mar6.222236.7098@uokmax.uucp>, by jay@alliant.backbone.uoknor.edu (Jay Liang):
> I suppose if you are running Concentrix 5.5, then the next system panic
> message ought to be quite familiar: fbuserr: kernel non-zero ipl.  What
> exactly does it mean?  What cause it?  I have seen this error at least 10
> times since we installed 5.5 in Januray.  It happened twice in the last 24
> hours, as a matter of fact. :-(  Any ideas as to preventing it from
> happening?

All the information below came from Customer Service.

There's a bug in 5.5.0.  I don't know the specific nature of the bug.
Customer Service told me that we can press [Esc] [p] at the console to
proceed past the panic.  They were very careful to warn us that the
ONLY panic message that this workaround applies to is `fbuserr: kernel
non-zero ipl'.  Proceeding past the panic leaves your system up as if
the panic never occurred.  THey also asked us to call each time the
problem occurred.

Under rare circumstances a second different panic can occur immediately
thereafter if a crucial page is not in memory.  Then you need to
reboot.  Note that it is a different panic message.  If the `fbuserr:
kernel non-zero ipl' appears again you can [Esc] [p] again.  This
happened to me a couple of times.

Also, if your system is hung up and there is nobody there to proceed
past the panic right away, a second panic occurs when you finally do
proceed when the system notices that the wall clock was not updated for
a long time.  We didn't know the consequences of proceeding past this
one so we rebooted.

Customer Service can patch 5.5.0 to avoid the problem.  They will
provide the patch only if you tell them that you're encountering the
problem at least once a week.  The patch is a simple branch past the
panic test.  So it's just like pressing [Esc] [p] at the console, and
the problem is not really fixed.  That means you could still get the
rare second different panic too.

A maintenance release with the problem corrected is available to
customers with this problem.  Customer Service put the patch in and
promised to ship the maintenance release to us when it is ready.  They
said they were delying the release for a bit longer until some bugs are
worked out of it.

peace.  -- Ed