suntools dieing overnight - SUMMARY

From: sjh@helicon.math.purdue.edu
Date: Thu Feb 21 1991 - 10:45:46 CST


I appologize for the long delay in posting this summary. I actually
thought I had, but a recent letter indicates that I probably didn't.

My problem:

> Date: 02 Feb 90 14:57:04 EST
>
>
> From: "S. Holmes [Consulting Detective]" <sjh@helicon.math.purdue.edu>
> Subject: Suntools dying overnight
>
>
> Background: SunOS4.0 on 3/50s and 3/60s. Server is 3/280.
>
> Problem: On some of the clients, if suntools is left running overnight,
> the console is semi-locked up in the morning. the stop key (L1) doesn't
> seem to work. Sometimes the root menu can be popped and Exit Suntools
> selected. In our environment this automatically logs the user off.
> Re-logging in makes everything ok. Sometimes the menu can't be popped and
> a reboot is necessary. I have not been given the opportunity to examine
> things from an rlogin very often, but when I have it appears that cmdtool
> is in device wait. A Mailtool might also be in device wait.

Many thanks to all who responded. The correct answer in this case is
that a cron job was removing the vm_fonts file from /var/tmp (thanks
Dwight Mckay, among others).

Several suggested replacing the 4.1 suntools with the 3.4 version
claiming that is is more robust and faster.

Others suggested that there might be an intermittent memory error which
passes diagnostics but when memory is replaced the problem goes away.

Detailed responses available on request.

Thanks again to:

From: gfr@swift.mitre.org (Glenn Roberts)
From: dmc%cam.sri.com@warbucks.ai.sri.com (David Carter)
From: kensmith@cs.buffalo.edu (Ken Smith)
From: trinkle@cs.purdue.edu
From: "Dwight D. McKay" <mckay@ecn.purdue.edu>
From: hurless@cos.com (Brian Hurless)
From: shankar@ulysses.att.com
From: dudek@ksr.com
From: kevin@corp.sun.com (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
From: qll@cs.albany.edu (Quei-Len Lee)

Steve.



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