Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!ukma!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cwlim!trier
From: trier@cwlim.INS.CWRU.Edu (Stephen C. Trier)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: Intermittent Novell+BYU+PD+CUTCP hangups
Message-ID: <1990Dec8.061321.11400@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
Date: 8 Dec 90 06:13:21 GMT
References: <660597854@lear.cs.duke.edu>
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Organization: Case Western Reserve Univ. Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
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In article <660597854@lear.cs.duke.edu> djc@duke.cs.duke.edu (David J. Cherveny) writes:
>Intermittently, a workstation will loose touch with the server and give
>the good ole  IGNORE, RETRY, ABORT message.  Retrying does not help.

I know that bug!!!  We're having exactly the same problems here.  They
started happening in August, about the time we started widespread use
of the packet drivers.

I spent a week watching our network analyzer for traces of what was going
on and found nothing.  We've been swapping cards, changing cables for the
servers, and everything else we could think of.

The problem seems to affect only computers that haven't sent network
packets for ten minutes or so, which leads me to suspect that the server
keep-alive packets are somehow getting dropped.

Hardware used: Just about anything that runs MS-DOS 3.0 or higher.  Many
machines are AT&T 6386's, but we have bunches of Zeniths and PS/2's, too.
The file servers are all AT&T 6386's.  Ethernet cards are mostly AT&T
Starlan-10 Fiber NAU's, but we've also got bunches of 3c503's, 3c523's,
and Cabletron 1020 and 1040 cards.  The servers use 3c505's.

Software: CWRU-PC/IP (local PC/IP descendant) and BYU's packet driver
IPX, version 2.1.  The servers are running Advanced Netware 2.15 rev C,
2.15 rev A, and 2.15 rev 0.

It's nice to know that we aren't imagining this.  Does anyone have any
ideas where to start looking?  The failures are random, which makes
watching with the net. analyzer a little difficult.

-- 
Stephen Trier                              Case Western Reserve University
Work: trier@cwlim.ins.cwru.edu             Information Network Services
Home: sct@seldon.clv.oh.us               %% Any opinions above are my own. %%