Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!att!codas!flnexus!pcsi!peora!rtmvax!bilver!bill
From: bill@bilver.UUCP (bill vermillion)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: SCO Xenix System Hang
Message-ID: <329@bilver.UUCP>
Date: 13 Dec 88 03:05:45 GMT
References: <766@wasatch.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@bilver.UUCP (bill vermillion)
Organization: W. J. Vermillion, Winter Park, FL
Lines: 32

In article <766@wasatch.UUCP> kessler%cons.utah.edu@wasatch.UUCP (Robert R. Kessler) writes:
>We are having problems with SCO 386 Xenix and are looking for some help.
>
>Here is the scenario:
>
...... (deleted much relating to system slowdown.)....
>         .  When a user runs our software, they all login with the
>same user id which starts executing our own user interface shell

I have seen this occur on older Xenix systems - Tandy 6000 comes to mind.
System would grind to a halt.  The problem was that someone decided all users
should have the same login id.  When everyone used their own logins things
became tolerable again. (As tolerable as 6mhz multiuser 68000k machine can
be.)

>hang is interesting.  If you have a terminal sitting at the regular sh
>prompt, you can type carriage returns and the prompt is echoed.  If
>you do any command (ps, shutdown, etc) then it just goes away and
>doesn't respond.  You can still type on the terminal, characters are
>echoed, but nothing happens.  You can also switch to a different
>screen and bring up the system prompt.  However, if you try to type on
>this screen, nothing is echoed.

Sounds like it might be being "swapped to death" and/or run out of processes.
Still can be related to "one user" loggin in multiple times.

>Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Just a thought.  It might not be applicable in your case.

-- 
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd}!peora!rtmvax!bilver!bill
                      : bill@bilver.UUCP