Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!mattd
From: mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: GS/OS errors
Message-ID: <38761@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 19 Feb 90 18:56:36 GMT
References: <1990Feb18.172221.10538@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 54

In article <1990Feb18.172221.10538@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> dcw@sun-bear.lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes:
>
>I'm wondering if anyone can point in the right direction here: ever
>since I first turned on my GS, I've had it bop into the error window
>only twice. The first time had unknown causes, but the second time
>happened while I was rebuilding Z-Link. The first error was:
>
>System Error 0
>Please reboot. I hit return and it crashed again with:
>
>GS/OS Error
>	address $00A516
>	code $02
>	LC bank 0
>(reboot)
>
The "GS/OS Error" window should only come up when some Apple-supplied component
of GS/OS (FST, Loader, or the OS kernel) determines that something really
incredibly catastrophic has happened and we can't safely proceed with
things.

This message above most normally means "totally out of memory".  It does show
up a little more often than that, though - GS/OS allocates memory to parse
pathnames in, with a current maximum of 8K per pathname.  If you pass a
Pascal string (length byte) to a GS/OS call that expects a GS/OS string (length
word), it normally starts with a slash and so GS/OS tries to allocate $2Fxx
bytes of memory with an 8K maximum.  This dialog then appears.  It's kind of
a warning to developers that they're doing something really wrong.  Other than
that instance, it should only appear when GS/OS needs to allocate memory for
a necessary operation and can't do it.

>Just the other day while I was recompiling everything:
>
>GS/OS Error
>	address $00DA3C
>	Code $43
>	LC bank 0
>
>OK... any ideas?
>
>Dave Whitney

I would guess here that the error (invalid reference number) was caused by
someone closing a file that the OS had open for it's own purposes (for a really
strange example, someone closing a directory while the OS was in the middle of
a GetDirEntry call).  This is pretty far-fetched, though, and can probably be
written off as a "fluke" unless it starts repeating.

-- 
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Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions represented here are
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