Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!philmtl!philabs!linus!sdl
From: sdl@linus.UUCP (Steven D. Litvintchouk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Guru explanation needed
Message-ID: <64480@linus.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 89 20:57:03 GMT
References: <3142@bucsb.UUCP>
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
Lines: 42
In-reply-to: bear@bucsb.UUCP's message of 19 Aug 89 17:50:03 GMT


In article <3142@bucsb.UUCP> bear@bucsb.UUCP (Blair M. Burtan) writes:

> Here's the scenario:  I'm playing w/ my 2 meg A1000 shuffling
> 	   between CLI and WB to look at the several dozen
> 	   PD disks I have.  I'd pop in a disk in df1:
> 	   look at it in WB for nifty things, then in CLI
> 	   for non-WB programs, eject the disk, put in a new
> 	   one and double-click it.  POOF.  The power light
> 	   flashes.  I reset the machine and I get a guru
> 	   number like 00000004.002292A0 or 9030 or 9250.
> 
> Now, I'm running GOMF3.0.  I'm assuming that GOMF doesn't
> catch these because I've got low-vector checking off.  But
> what I want to know is why the system crashes in the first
> place and why I get a guru AFTER a reset.

When you are looking at one of your PD disks, are you by any chance
running Less v1.3 to view some text file(s)?  (The more recent Fish
disks use Less v1.3 as the default tool to run when a doc file icon is
double-clicked.)  The fact that Less v1.3 when used together with GOMF
3.0 can cause a Guru crash has been known by Bob Leivian (the author
of Less v1.3) for some time, but (so far) he hasn't been able to
isolate the exact nature of the problem.

If that is what's happening to you, then you have two choices:

	1.  Always run GOMF 3.0 with low-vector checking enabled.
	2.  Don't run GOMF 3.0 at all.


Steven Litvintchouk
MITRE Corporation
Burlington Road
Bedford, MA  01730

Fone:  (617)271-7753
ARPA:  sdl@mitre-bedford.arpa
UUCP:  ...{att,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl

	"Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to
	 conquer the world."  -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp.