Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!brchs1!bnr.ca!rice.edu!sun-spots-request
From: carey@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Robert Carey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Sparcstation panic while reading /dev/ttyb
Keywords: No Digest Subjects in Unmoderated Mode
Message-ID: <3644@brchh104.bnr.ca>
Date: 5 Jun 91 14:17:00 GMT
Sender: news@brchh104.bnr.ca
Organization: Sunspots, Pseudo-Unmoderated
Lines: 32
Approved: sun-spots@rice.edu
X-Original-Date:    29 May 91 20:15:53 GMT

We have a Sun which crashes regularly while reading a 9600 baud feed
connected to /dev/ttyb. The machine is a Sparcstation 1 with 32
megabytes of memory.   At first I thought that the problem might be
specifically related to the program which reads and parses the feed.
Since then I have found that it can be crashed just as reliably by
running "/bin/cat /dev/ttyb" and waiting for about 2 minutes.
(We have also run "cat /dev/ttyb > /dev/null" with the same effect,
if that makes any difference.)

The only unusual thing about the system is that the console has been
replaced with a Wyse terminal (not my idea) in order to make it fit
better on a shelf of consoles.

Before it crashes I typically see one or more of the following messages on
the console:

     zs1: silo overflow
     xmballoc: out of mblks
     BAD TRAP
     panic: Data fault

Other times when I cat /dev/ttyb the system simply hangs.

Has anyone seen anything like this?  Any idea what is happening?

                                Robert Carey
                                Susquehanna Investment Group
                                carey@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
                                carey@deadlock.uucp