Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!datapg!com50!pai!erc From: erc@pai.UUCP (Eric Johnson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Problems with hpterm Keywords: HP-UX 6.5, X11 R2 Message-ID: <772@pai.UUCP> Date: 4 Dec 89 17:54:20 GMT Organization: Prime Automation, Inc., Burnsville, MN Lines: 68 A colleague asked me to post a message requesting more information on some strange behavior we have noticed on an HP 370, running X11R2 (actually, HP's implementation of X that came with the 370) under HP-UX 6.5: The problem: Hpterms, if left alone for a period of time, just seem to "die". a) The hpterm window disappears. b) The process listing in "ps -ef" shows the process as . c) The ps -ef listing shows no trace of the process (a short while after the entry is seen). (Note: Hpterm is an Hp program that acts much like xterm, but acts as an HP terminal instead of a pseudo-vt100.) The term "left alone for a period of time" means that the window has no input (nor output) for a period of about an hour. The window in question is usually a "console" window (e.g., the hpterm is called with the -C option to capture console output). This window is usually 5 or so lines long and exists mainly to display console messages. (At other times, larger hpterms "die" as well.) We first noticed this when a demo was set up. We went away, and when we came back--much to our surprise--we were missing an hpterm window. This problem does occur also when a knowledgeable user is sitting at the console (eliminating my first suspicion of accidental removal of the hpterm). We are running a stock HP 370, with an HP SCSI disk (300 MB), the HP colour monitor and 8 MB RAM, under HP-UX 6.5, HP/NS-ARPA Services and HP X Window System (all stock that we purchased together with HP-UX 6.5). All equipment in use on this machine is stock HP equipment, so I don't think any third-party compatibility issues are involved here. Does anyone have any information about this? I'm assuming either the client (hpterm) or the server (the X server) side is deciding (wrongly) that communication has broken down, and is cutting the still live connection. Is this a known bug? (Please don't tell me to read those terrible bulletins from HP--the information is in a form that makes them essentially worthless--I gave up on them back when I was still using the HP-1000.) Is there anything we can do locally to work around this problem? (I would prefer that the hpterms remain live until terminated.) We do not have the HP X11R2 sources (as HP made a number of changes, I assume). We do have X11R3 (which is much better than R2 in my opinion) from MIT, but would prefer to use an HP-supported product (I'm hoping that an HP-version of X11R3 will appear sometime soon--with HP-UX 7.0, but since Minnesota seems to be in the boonies as far as HP is concerned, I suspect it won't come in time for us to be able to use it on this project). If you have any information on this, I would certainly appreciated it. If I receive a number of replies by email, I will post a summary. Thanks, -Eric -- Eric F. Johnson, Boulware Technologies, Inc. 415 W. Travelers Trail, Burnsville, MN 55337 USA. Phone: +1 612-894-0313. erc@pai.mn.org - or - bungia!pai!erc (We have a very dumb mailer, so please send a bang-!-style return address.)