topic VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE' in Operating System - OpenVMS

VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Jan van den Ende — Tue, 17 May 2005 04:36:57 GMT

At installation of the 732 UPDATE 4 patchkit we get

- the percent done series up to 90%

- and then, 5 times:
%CLI-F-SYNTAX, error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'
-CLI-E-ENTNF, specified entity not found in command tables
%DCL-W-SKPDAT, image data (records not beginning with "$") ignored

(Yes, the prerequisite PCSI kit WAS already intalled).

Any ideas what this is about?

And anybody any ideas which 5 of total 31 consolidated patches are affected?

Anybody know how PCSI (PROD command) can be made more verbose?

$ PROD SHOW HIST /SINCE only shows UPDATE V4, not the separate consolidated modules successfully installed.

TIA

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

David B Sneddon — Tue, 17 May 2005 05:11:19 GMT

Jan,

I think that kit includes the patch for COPY that adds the /BLOCK_SIZE qualifier. If you
redo the kit it will complete with no errors.
I encountered this when doing the COPY kit and
decided the reinstal it just to be sure.
The problem is a mismatch with the image and the
current DCLTABLES.

Dave

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Jan van den Ende — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:06:41 GMT

Dave:

Bingo!
We had already rebooted, so the new DCLTABLES were activated, and the second install had lots of Already Done (as it should), and no more BLOCK_SIZE errors.

But, what happened to the highly praised VMS Quality Assurance?

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

David B Sneddon — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:10:32 GMT

Jan,

I think it is one of the chicken'n'egg situations.
You use COPY to copy COPY.EXE, then any copies after
that use the new COPY but DCLTABLES doesn't yet
contain the new COPY stuff... dunno how you get
around that one. (But then it doesn't happen very
often.)

Relax and have another Duvel :-)

Dave

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Michael Kloth — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:17:29 GMT

I have also seen this kind of problem when installing a new system and installing all the VMS-patches.
To avoid this situation, I do a
SET COMMAND/TABL=SYSLIBRARY:DCLTABLES
after installing the PCSI-patch.
I agree with you that the problem lies in the PCSI-patchkit, which should include this command in the procedure.

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Jan van den Ende — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:36:32 GMT

David,

Michael already gave the answer.

Only, in this case, the problem is that UPDATE V4 is _ONE_ kit, that installs in _ONE_ pass. Therefore, one can not do SET COMMAND between two sub-kits.
Conclusion: in building the kit, after the COPY kit a SET COMMAND should have been issued, _OR_, the COPY kit should have been a prerequisite for UPDATE V4, like PCSI is.

Back to my previous statement: What happened to Quality Assurance? Has someone decided that *UX (or M$) level QA is sufficient for VMS also?????

Anyway, it s OK now.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

David B Sneddon — Tue, 17 May 2005 07:18:42 GMT

Jan,

My understanding of PCSI is that it can reorder
the sequence of events that you create in the
.PCSI$DESC file. So you cannot rely on things
happening in the same sequence that you decide
they should occur. I am not aware of any way to
enforce the sequence of events.

Dave

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Jan van den Ende — Tue, 17 May 2005 08:05:16 GMT

Dave,

in that case, I think only one option is left for what SHOULD have been done:

- do NOT include the COPY patch in the UPDATE patch
&
- declare the COPY patch a prerequisite for the UPDATE patch

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

David B Sneddon — Tue, 17 May 2005 08:31:12 GMT

Jan,

Even if the COPY kit is a prerequisite you would
still have to install it twice (as I mentioned
above)

Dave

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

John Gillings — Tue, 17 May 2005 22:22:49 GMT

Jan,

Engineering are aware of this. It's benign, so they're not planning on fixing it until the next update kit is released (planned for November).

You can avoid the condition by installing VMS732_COPY-V0100 before installing the update kit.

Here's the explanation:

"When the VMS732_UPDATE-V0400 kit is installed, if the VMS732_COPY-V0100 kit was not previously installed, a user may see the following error:

%CLI-F-SYNTAX, error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'
-CLI-E-ENTNF, specified entity not found in command tables
...100
%SKPDAT, image data (records not beginning with "$") ignored

This error occurs when a post-installation file runs, after the kit has completed installation of all images. The integrity of the installation is not affected.

The reason the error occurs is that the UPDATE kit provides a COPY.CLD update to DCLTABLES and also a new APB.EXE file. When DCLTABLES is updated, PCSI should install the new DCLTABLES and perform a SET COMMAND to make the new commands available to the installation process. A regression in PCSI (which will be corrected in the next PCSI kit) prevents this from happening. When a kit provides a new APB.EXE file, the post-installation file performs a COPY/CONTIGUOUS on the new APB.EXE before performing a WRITEBOOT. Since the new COPY commands gave not been made available to the process, it is this COPY that is failing. The WRITEBOOT is executed successfully."

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Guy Peleg — Wed, 18 May 2005 02:04:23 GMT

.....and we did not see the problem
in-house as all the systems tested
the update kit had the COPY kit already
installed.

In general we try to avoid shipping new
functionality in ECO to avoid situations
like this. The copy kit was an
exception as it provides significant
performance improvment for EVA controllers.

Guy

Re: VMS 732-UPDATE-V4 - error parsing 'BLOCK_SIZE'

Jan van den Ende — Wed, 18 May 2005 02:41:17 GMT

John, Guy,

thanks for your reactions.

So, our "repair" was an overkill: we re-applied the kit from a new process, and except for a lot of expected messages about already done, all went smooth.

Maybe an extra install instruction on the patch release site with this info can give more peace-of-mind to future "victims"?

So, with the explanation by John & Guy, I will close this thread.

Thanks again to all who reacted.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe