OVMS 7.3-2 (Alpha) X login fails

[Chris Smith_23]

Hi

I don't suppose this will cause you guys too much of a problem but its got me baffled.

I have an old AlphaStation 4/233 running OpenVMS 7.3-2 which I use to provide me with a 'proof of concept' facility so I can support a customer. The system was working fine until the system disk failed and I reloaded from the distribution CD. I don't think I did anything different when I realoded, but since then I have been unable to log in using X in anything but failsafe mode.

The default CDE login hangs for many minutes with the white bordered blue announcement screen before eventually dropping into a patterned grey screen with a simple mouse pointer (arrow) which I can move around. There it stays ad infinitum - or at least for a few hours or until I get bored and do a field service reboot!

I can log in via the network using telnet so I can see what processes are running (or not as the case may be). In failsafe mode I have a single DECTerm which has limited use.

Can anyone suggest why I can't complete log in with CDE or DECWindows?

Cheers

Chris Smith

[Steven Schweda]

How many times have you run AUTOGEN since the
most recent installation? Some parameters
typically need a boost for DECwindows+ Motif+
CDE.

I seem to recall some circumstance a long
time ago where the automatic AUTOGEN which
was done as part of the installation did not
do the job, but the details are lost in the
mists.

Is there anything in any log files? For
example:

SYS$MANAGER:DECW$SERVER_0_ERROR.LOG

[Steven Schweda]

Also, do you have any page file space now?

SHOW MEMORY /FILES

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Check your disk with
$ anal/dis/read
and check for bad blocks. Did you replace the disk or just tried the failed one again ?

I already had cases were X was blocking because of bad blocks in exe files.

I init my disks with init/erase before loading it. If you are lucky, the bad blocks are detected and moved away.

Wim

[Chris Smith_23]

Hi Steven

I don't think I've run AUTOGEN manually since the system was rebuilt.

Attached are the latest decw$server_0_error.log file and a console capture of show memory /files.

Cheers

Chris

[Chris Smith_23]

Hi Wim

The original system disk died spectacularly. It was resting on top of the system unit and was hit by a falling hack-saw! The drive had to be replaced completely. However, I have just run ana/disk/read on the replacement drive. This only comes up with the usual informational message about QUOTA.SYS and several warnings about files marked for delete and the odd access conflict. Thanks for the suggestion.

Chris

[Steven Schweda]

No bets, but a 70MB page file does not sound
large to me. If you can, you might Telnet
in, and run MONITOR SYSTEM while you try to
do the X log-in. And/or, REPLY /ENABLE, and
look for nasty out-of-something messages.
And/or periodic SHOW MEMO /FILE, and watch
the "Free" page file number. (I suspect that
it heads for zero pretty fast, but what do I
know?)

Did you have a secondary page file before,
which is not being installed now?

How much physical memory is in there?

SHOW MEMO /PHYS

On my old AlpSta 200 4/233, I had the full
768MB, and about 1GB or so of page file.

[Chris Smith_23]

Hi Steven

How I would like some more memory and I guess its probably pretty cheap these days. However, this system only has 64MB.

I have increased the pagefile by a factor of 4. I've also run autogen getdata reboot without any discernable changes. The sho memo/files doesn't indicate the free pages heading for zero - far from it.

Curious!

Chris

[Martin Vorlaender]

Chris,

as a workaround, you could switch from CDE to the much less resource intensive old session manager:

Edit SYS$MANAGER:DECW$PRIVATE_APPS_SETUP.COM (copy from the .TEMPLATE file if not there), and set

decw$start_new_desktop == "false"

Then restart DECwindows:

$ @SYS$MANAGER:DECW$STARTUP RESTART

cu,
Martin

[Steven Schweda]

Well, I may know nothing, but the "many
minutes" part of the original complaint sure
sounds (to me) like a resource shortage (and,
apparently, a fatal one). Note that the SPD,
cd:[DWMOTIF_ALPHA0131.DOCUMENTATION]DW_V131_SPD.TXT
says:

Memory Requirements

The minimum required to install, boot, and log in is 64 MB; 128 MB is
highly recommended for more robust performance. [...]

So it should work, but you're close.

Have you looked at
Table_1-5_Minimum_Required_System_Parameter_Values_
in the DW_V131_INSTAL_GD.TXT?

MCR SYSGEN SHOW WSMAX

My DECW$PRIVATE_SERVER_SETUP.COM includes
some resource boosters:

$ decw$server_wsdef == "10240"
$ decw$server_wsquota == "16384"
$ decw$server_wsextent == "65536"
$ decw$server_page_file == "1572864"

Of course, that's on an XP1000 with 2GB of
memory, so I have more to spare than you do.
(I give my X server several times your whole
page file, for example.)

I guess that this'll learn you to have a
good image backup when you plan to wreck a
system disk.

72-pin, fast page mode, (true) parity, 60- or
70-ns, as I recall. 128MB modules are the
big ones.