Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ICAEN.UIOWA.EDU!dbfunk
From: dbfunk@ICAEN.UIOWA.EDU (David B. Funk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Why I do not like SR10
Message-ID: <8812230754.AA11524@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Date: 23 Dec 88 07:33:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: Iowa Computer Aided Engineering Network, University of Iowa
Lines: 23

If SR10 wbak does do:

> ahead of my brain and I typed "go" a split second before the tape came online.
> 
> wbak's response?  "Unexpected error - tape offline"
> 
> OK fine.  Now any sane backup tool would surely say "Do you want
> to retry the open?" and give you another chance.  It's not
> as if "tape offline" is some sort of bizarre totally unexpected
> error condition.
> 
> But what does wbak do when it finds the tape offline?  It QUITS!

then what you've found is a bug, not a "feature". Pre-SR10 wbak
(SR9.0-SR9.7), in the same situation would have given an
error message like:

  ** Operator error:  The magtape unit is offline.
     Please place the unit online and type <return> to continue.

(Yes, I've see this more than once.) I've not encountered the
problem that you hit, but please call that in, it sounds like
a nasty bug that should be fixed.