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From: guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.micro.att
Subject: Re: More error message woes (more help please)
Message-ID: <2236@sun.uucp>
Date: Mon, 27-May-85 21:57:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.2236
Posted: Mon May 27 21:57:35 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 30-May-85 02:21:44 EDT
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Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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> I received the customary "Files Damaged - Being Repaired" (how reassuring
> in a clinical research environment) when I rebooted.  Recall my previous
> news posting about:
> swap: rmap ovflo, lost [653,661]
> (incidently, responses to that panic cry have been 0)
> 
> Now folks, I'm just a dumb physician using these here computers for research
> purposes.  I bought the 7300 so I wouldn't have to speak hexadecimal too
> often.  Forgive me if I am violating the news group with stupid questions,
> but I don't know what's going on and I don't know who to ask.  Looks like
> this OS is over my head after all, despite the elegent window interface.

Few, if any, OSes give clear diagnostics under all circumstances; if the
system is badly wedged, there is a good chance that things that "should not
happen" will, and that the diagnostics for that situation won't be
intelligible to a naive user.  The "rmap ovflo" message indicates that the
table that the system uses to keep track of which places on the disk can be
used to hold swapped-out or paged-out programs has no room for new entries;
this may have happened because the system is trying to run zillions of
processes.  The "panic trap" message you got could also be due to a bug in
the system which only occurs when the system is severely loaded.

In short, there's probably a bug somewhere in the system; write down all the
message it displays and call up your account representative (or whomever
you're supposed to send bug reports to) and give them the information.  The
OS isn't over your head; it's just trying to give a full report of problems
it's having.  Those reports won't, of course, be comprehensible to the naive
user; they're not intended to be.  They're intended for service and support
people.  Just about any machine out there (Mac, IBM PC, Star, ...) will, if
it gets stuck, give diagnostics of similar detail and incomprehensibility
(the detail is what contributes to the incomprehensibility).  The System V
Interface Definition mentions an error message standard being worked on;
presumably, such "panic" messages and the like will either say "write this
stuff down and call your service representative" or will contain a code
which refers you to a message in a manual which says "write this stuff down
and call your service representative".

As for the "Files Damaged - Being Repaired" message, well, I'd rather be
told that the files were damaged and being repaired than have the system not
inform me that it's repairing the files; I'd find the latter far less
reassuring...

	Guy Harris