Problem getting "expect" to work...

[SDVICK1]

Hello.

I have a couple of new Itanium servers running 11.23 and I'm trying to install expect so that some of our standard scripts can run. I downloaded the latest version for ia64/11.23 from the HP porting site (hpux.cs.utah.edu) and installed the package on the servers (along w/ the run time dependencies - tcltk, make, etc).

Now when I attempt to run expect, I get the following error:

Tcl_InitNotifier: unable to start notifier thread
Abort(coredump)

I know someone has to have seen this error before but after spending about three unsuccessful hours looking around on google and the ITRC, I'm opening this thread in hopes that someone can help me out.

Thanx in advance.

[Dennis Handly]

Unfortunately you have the same unsolved problem as in:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1134253

Except you got there a lot faster. :-)

[SDVICK1]

Thanx for the response.

However, it doesn't help me because the first thread only describes the exact same problem with out a resolution and the link at the end only goes to a similar problem. I then took the advice and I tried to compile expect from source, which failed miserably. I then tried to compile tcl/tk from source which also failed miserably. So, at this point I'm no closer to a resolution but I have to get this working soon.

Anyone have any other ideas... Maybe an alternate location where I can download a package that actually works on ia64?

[Steven Schweda]

Along another axis, ...

I don't know what you're trying to do using
"expect", but you might find Kermit's
scripting capability a useful alternative.

It may not do what you want, but at least
it's self-contained, so it should be easier
to get built and made to run.

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ckscripts.html

(The forum seems to be working about as
reliably as usual today. Sorry if this
appears more than once.)

[SDVICK1]

We have a set of scripts that our helpdesk uses to do password resets, file transfers, etc. which uses expect. It is a corporate standard so utilizing something else is more or less out of the question.

Thanx for the info on Kermit though.

Anybody else have any ideas?

[Dennis Handly]

>it doesn't help me because the first thread only describes the exact same problem with out a resolution

Yes, that's why I said unsolved. :-(
I have a version of expect that doesn't get this error. But since I don't know how to run it, that may mean nothing.

So do you have a trivial script you can post that actually does something but produces your error message?

[SDVICK1]

It doesn't matter how I run expect. I get the error from the script or if I try to run it interactively.

/home/account> expect
Tcl_InitNotifier: unable to start notifier thread
Abort(coredump)

[Dennis Handly]

>I get the error from the script or if I try to run it interactively.

Ok, that part works for me. I'll try downloading it and see if it works again.

[Dennis Handly]

I had no problems downloading expect-5.43 and tcltk-8.4.15.

Since I can't change /usr/local/, I swinstalled them to an alternate root:
# swinstall -s $PWD/tcltk-8.4.15-ia64-11.23.depot \* @ \
$PWD/Expect_root
# swinstall -s $PWD/expect-5.43-ia64-11.23.depot \* @ \
$PWD/Expect_root

Then I checked for configure control scripts and I didn't find any.

So I then used ldd to see what shlib paths were needed:
$ ldd Expect_root/usr/local/bin/expect

This showed using /usr/local/lib/hpux32 for libexpect.so and libtcl.so.

So I then used:
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=Expect_root/usr/local/lib/hpux32 ldd \
Expect_root/usr/local/bin/expect

This showed the shlib paths ok.

Then I executed expect:
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=Expect_root/usr/local/lib/hpux32 \
Expect_root/usr/local/bin/expect

This gave me a prompt:
expect1.1>

So if you did something like this, it could be a problem in the other system libs?
/usr/lib/hpux32/libdl.so.1
/usr/lib/hpux32/libpthread.so.1
/usr/lib/hpux32/libxnet.so.1
/usr/lib/hpux32/libm.so.1
/usr/lib/hpux32/libc.so.1
/usr/lib/hpux32/libxti.so.1

[SDVICK1]

Dennis,
Thanx for all of your effort on this. I made sure to add points for all of your responses.

I have the issue fixed now. Because I was in a time crunch, I contacted the porting center directly and asked for assistance. They re-compiled a new version of the tcltk and expect packages using the HP ANSI C compiler. I downloaded and installed the new packages on my Itanium server and they worked perfectly.

Major kudos to Richard Lloyd at the porting center for the quick response.

For anyone else who has this problem, the new packages can be picked up here:

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Tcl/tcltk-8.4.15/
http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Tcl/expect-5.43/

Thanx again everyone for your help.

[SDVICK1]

Closed