Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

3096.0. "Corrupt GEBDRIVER(?)" by TOWNS::KMOORE (NO Joe Weiders!!!) Wed Jul 18 1990 18:30

I have a customer who cannot log into his workstation through the
DECwindows login screen.  Here's what happens.  After the login window is
displayed, the customer types in SYSTEM and hits the RETURN key.  The cursor
moves to the password field and then the password is typed in.  After
hitting RETURN the cursor stays in the password field.  After hitting
RETURN again the cursor leaves the password field and DECwindows displays
the USER AUTHORIZATION FAILURE window.

After telling the customer how to stop the DECwindow server (btw, all
interaction was over the phone), he proceeded to log in to OPA0: just fine,
hitting RETURN only once after the password field, so I knew his password
was correct.  It seemed to me that the first RETURN at the DECwindows login
screen embedded some escape sequence(?) into the password string.  Then the
second RETURN responded correctly but the login failed because of the extra
character(s) at the end of the password due to the first RETURN stroke.

I instructed the customer to go into AUTHORIZE and set NOPASSWORD on the
SYSTEM account just for grins.  I had him manually restart DECwindows
from OPA0:.  The only thing that I noticed different from what I am used
to seeing is that before the server process was created VMS displayed
"%DECW-I-RELOAD, reloading GEBDRIVER.EXE".  I've never seen this message
before so I thought I would include it.

After the DECwindows login screen was displayed the customer logged in
successfully without having to type in a password.  The problem is that he
had to hit RETURN twice at the password prompt.  But then after leaving
the login window the system displayed the "watch" and then hung after
displaying the Icon Box.  The customer had no control over the mouse now
(i.e. the pointer would not move) and his only option was to reboot the
system.....back to where we started.

The only thing the customer said that happened was they took a power hit a
couple days ago while the system was rebooting.  He didn't know what stage
the system was in while rebooting, only that the system hasn't worked
correctly since then.  Swapping keyboards doesn't work.  My only guess is
that the graphics driver was corrupted during the power hit.

Any help would be appreciated.  I've listed the HW and SW below.

VAXstation 3100 SPX M48 w/ VRT19 monitor.
VMS V5.3-1.

Thanks,


Kevin Moore

Please post the contents of SYS$MANAGER:DECW$SERVER_O_ERROR.LOG.

I rather doubt escape sequences are being embedded in the password string.
You can certainly check this out by having the customer only use the
mouse to switch between fields, and clicking on the OK button when done.

If you suspect corrupted files, then have the customer tailor off and on
the DECwindows files from the VMS kit.  If you suspect the just the driver,
do a direct compare of the file with a copy restored from the kit.  I
doubt you'll find any problems, though.

Your comment about the power hit is interesting.  It wouldn't hurt to
have field service take a look at the hardware.  Lately I've noticed
a pattern of very strange, unreproducable DECwindows problems that
go away when the graphics board is replaced.  A power hit would be
much more likely to affect the graphics board than files on disk.

    I run DECwindows on an VS3100 Model 38 with SPX and VRT19 all of the
    time.  The message about RELOADING GEBDRIVER is always there on this
    hardware.  One other comment though.  I have seen DECwindows hang
    during login much like the one you described with the Icon Box if the
    system has run out of a resource.  When I hit it the other night the
    resource was disk space.  It couldn't create its error files so it just
    hung.
    
    Irene