Re: PC's Locking up when in BPCS -- BPCS-L

Hello,

Our official recommendation is what I (and Mike Sassman of the SSA PC
HelpLine) posted previously on this thread last week. There is an open BMR
on this, BMR44360 that we are actively trying to fix. The problem is quite
elusive, but several intermediate patches (called OPS Runtime Service Packs)
are available that help to reduce the incidence of the problem. In addition,
the SSA PC Helpline should be contacted so that they can go over your set-up
to optimize it as regards the information we currently have on what seems to
make the problem happen most often. My other posts were to help people
understand the difference between the complete lock up, which you and the
BMR43360 describe, and the more common application hang, which users
sometimes confuse with a true lock up.

The only thing at this point known for certain is that the problem is
related to the interaction between the BPCS runtime on the PC (called OPS or
Newi) and the Win95 (and possibly Win98) operating system kernel. The server
is irrelevant to this problem. Several memory leaks and other problems have
been corrected in each release of the Service Pack, but the problem is not
completely gone. Some sites will put on a new Service Pack and go for a week
or more without lock up, and we will think that it is resolved, but then
suddenly it will again recur. After a few OPS service packs were released,
we were unable to reproduce it here, and thought it was resolved, but again,
eventually it recurred.

When the crash occurs, it totally destroys the Win95 program stack, so it is
very difficult for us to find out afterwards exactly what has happened,
because absolutely no trace remains for us to analyze (the program stack is
already corrupted by the time advanced Windows debugging utilities catch it,
and the original problem betwen BPCS and the OS, which is causing the error
is already lost). We are working on it with these Windows debugging
utilities at the moment but this is not a simple problem to resolve, as it
lies very close to the Win95 OS. Originally we could not duplicate the
problem in-house, but now have dedicated some of our testing resources to
reproducing this and finally have come up with a set of interactions which
reproduce it "almost-at-will" - as you likely know it is an unpredictable
and intermittent problem - the same set of keystrokes that lead to it on one
day may not produce it the next day. It also seems to affect the heaviest
users of BPCS who are keying in information the most often or the fastest.

This same problem you described does not happen on the Win NT operating
system, which is why the discussion thread here wandered off in that
direction - that is our only known and proven resolution at the present
time. In the meantime, we want as many clients as possible to log in their
calls to HelpLine so that when the next Service Pack is released, you can be
notified and so that we have a better idea as to how many clients this is
affecting. This problem has very high visibility and priority to R&D at SSA
right now.

Thanks

Genyphyr Novak
SSA

-----Original Message-----
From: ANTHONY_JACKSON@dcsgroup.co.uk <ANTHONY_JACKSON@dcsgroup.co.uk>
To: BPCS-L@midrange.com <BPCS-L@midrange.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: PC's Locking up when in BPCS


>
>What is SSA's official recomendation for high spec machines..ie 300 + with
64 +
>meg ram,2 gig +disk space
>locking up when in bpcs....IE...total lock-up...no
mouse...ctl/alt/del....not
>available.
>I have seen it happen very often....no msg on qsysopr....AS400 BPCS  pgm
waiting
>for user input.
>no msg wait on job.....only bpcs apps running on PC...even when only in
inquiry
>screens..ie inv300.
>anti/virus disabled..no email apps open.
>all objects locked by user profile...now msgs...ie...mwi
jobs.......everthing on
>as400 is ok.
>But pc is just dead...totally.......then reboot the machine ect...can all
user
>jobs on as400.
>go back to same bpcs screens...check win95 resources...all ok....
>
>
>
>
>
>"Genyphyr Novak" <novakg@ssax.com> on 22022000 15:40:20
>
>Please respond to BPCS-L@midrange.com
>
>To:   BPCS-L@midrange.com
>cc:    (bcc: Anthony Jackson/North/CSI)
>
>Subject:  Re: PC's Locking up when in BPCS
>
>
>
>
>Hi Dean,
>
>The reason NT is better has nothing to do with the Task Manager allowing
you
>to kill the BPCS job. NT simply does not lock up in BPCS. Please read prior
>threads defining what a 'lock up' is versus what is a simple application
>'hang' on the PC. I still have found no reports of a real 'lock up' on the
>NT platform. If you had a true lock up, the task manager would not even be
>available because the keyboard does not respond. The PC lock up as
described
>on BMR43360 is non-application related, whereas a hang can always be traced
>to some sort of application problem, usually on the server job.
>
>Because hangs are caused generally by application errors on the server, and
>if you end the server job, the PC will free up. You should always check the
>server if the PC is hanging and see if a job is sitting in MSGW or is
>looping for that user profile. The Task Manager is NOT the reason that NT
>does not lock up or works better with BPCS. It is the operating system
>kernel of NT that makes it more stable, and apparently is either correcting
>whatever our code does poorly on WIN95, or is not allowing our code to do
>what it does on WIN95 or is missing the code that conflicts with ours on
>WIN95.
>
>Thanks
>
>Genyphyr Novak
>SSA
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: DAsmussen@aol.com <DAsmussen@aol.com>
>To: BPCS-L@midrange.com <BPCS-L@midrange.com>
>Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 12:41 AM
>Subject: Re: PC's Locking up when in BPCS
>
>
>>Terry,
>>
>>In a message dated 2/17/00 5:20:07 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>>terry.gilligan@duval.co.uk writes:
>>
>>> We are running BPCS 6.1 C/S on AS/400 , from day 1 we have experienced
>>>  unusually high PC crashes when in BPCS .  Would be interested to here
if
>>>  anyone else is experiencing the same problems, all our PC's are high
>spec
>>>  machines with 64Mb ram, running office 97 + Microsoft outlook. It was
>>>  suggested that we turn off our anti-virus protection on our PC's ???
>>
>>My current client is in the same boat, but was told that they wouldn't
have
>>that problem under NT.  Just left a client with NT, the reason the
machines
>>didn't lock is that the task manager works better and allows you to kill
>the
>>BPCS job when it dies.  Perhaps someone out there has a better solution
>than
>>"get NT"?  SSA certainly isn't offering to pay for it as quickly as they
>>offer it as a solution...
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Dean Asmussen
>>Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
>>Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
>>E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com
>>
>>"Never use an axe to remove a fly from your friend's forehead." -- Chinese
>>Proverb
>>+---
>
>
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>Tony Jackson.
>BPCS Support.
>DCS Industry Solutions
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>Email :   ANTHONY_JACKSON@dcsgroup.co.uk
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Site
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>United Kingdom.
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