Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

1486.0. "UWS2.2 BL5 upgrade seems to have "undocumented features"" by VMSDEV::BALLOU (It's not slow, it's careful!) Tue Sep 26 1989 02:15

Let me open by stating that I realize this should be a QAR.  The reason I have
chosen to describe my experiences here is that I don't think I can supply
enough information to submit a helpful QAR.  (I don't think simply saying
"It's broken" is helpful, even though I say those very words often :-)

Here is the scenario.  The hardware is a VAXstation 2000/GPX system running
ULTRIX V3.1 with BL5 of UWS V2.2.  Most of the problems I'm seeing involve a
small application:  GNU emacs :-)  Since I like to be different (odd :-), I am
not using dxsession/dxwm/dxterm.  Instead, I start DECwindows by running xdm
at the end of /etc/rc.local. I also have remote applications running on a VMS
node.  I'm using xterm as my local terminal emulator and uwm as my window
manager.  (Yes, I'm sure it's all terribly unsupported :-)

1.  The upgrade from UWS2.1 to BL5 of UWS2.2 broke emacs and xlock under
ULTRIX.  The symptoms were that the emacs window would never appear and xlock
would never blank the display.  Both continued running quite happily; there
was just no window.  Both resumed working normally once I recompiled and
relinked.

2.  The upgrade caused a VMS GNU emacs image which was linked against VMS
DECwindows V1 DECW$XLIBSHR to stop working.  However, in this case recompiling
and relinking only pseudo-fixed the problem.  I get an emacs window, but the
only keystroke it appears to recognize is control-g, in response to which it
dutifully beeps and displays the message "Quit" in the minibuffer.  I have
observed that this same image works correctly when it is displaying to a VMS
workstation running the "latest and greatest" VMS/DECwindows combination.

3.  How to make friends and influence VMS engineers: I really impressed
someone with this party trick.  Did you know that running emacs on ULTRIX
displaying to a VMS workstation crashes the VMS DECwindows server?  (I'm
sorry, but at the moment I'm snickering at the realization that this is a
perversion on the slogan "reach out and touch someone" -- "reach out and crash
someone's server."  I believe this thought proves that I'm up entirely too
late right now :-)

4.  More often than not, in an unpredictable manner, I will get munged icons.
It seems to happen most often when I run a command procedure on the VMS node
to create DECterms.  I create three, of which two will have garbage for icons.

5.  I'm noticing that notes on the VMS node is not redrawing its main window
properly when an occluding window is iconified.  In particular, there is (for
want of a better word) junk left where the border of the occluding window lay.

Comments?  Suggestions?  Has anyone else had similar experiences?  I'd like to
turn this into a QAR, but it really does involve a lot of unsupported-isms :-)

					- Ken

Personally, I would submit about 3 QARs.  One for UWS, one for VMS, and
one for notes.  It sounds like your point number 3 is reproducible.

In any case even if you can't supply enough info, a QAR will insure that
it is one the back of someone's mind until they happen to see it again.

I would feel justified in waiting a few days before submitting it to see
if someone responds "oh yeah, I saw something like that too and here is
what I thought...)

Burns

    I would also suggest that if you are seeing the problem using
    unsupported software that you try to reproduce it using
    DECwindows. If you cannot then you are still free to submit
    a QAR against the unsupported software, however you shouldn't
    be suprised if your QAR gets closed without being fixed.
    That, after all, is what unsupported means!
    
    Dan

Yes, I am concerned about this being unsupported software.  Normally, I would
not consider entering a QAR about unsupported components.  However, I am con-
cerned that these might be server bugs (excuse me, "features" :-), in which case
they would merit further investigation even if it requires unsupported software
to trigger them.

                                           - Ken

    Even "unsupported" software isn't supposed to be able to crash
    the VMS server. Please QAR this in the DECWINDOWS-IFT database.