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Conference iosg::all-in-1_v30

Title:*OLD* ALL-IN-1 (tm) Support Conference
Notice:Closed - See Note 4331.l to move to IOSG::ALL-IN-1
Moderator:IOSG::PYE
Created:Thu Jan 30 1992
Last Modified:Tue Jan 23 1996
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:4343
Total number of notes:18308

359.0. "PostScript printing to attached printer and WPS-PLUS V4.0?" by SHALOT::LANPHEAR (Test the water or turn the tide?) Mon Mar 30 1992 18:59

    Hi,

      We have a customer who wants to print mail messages from their PC to
    their attached HP printer.  The only problem is that they have
    standardized on the HP PostScript cartridge, and they hate to remove
    the cartridge and reboot the printer every time they want to print a
    mail message (and vice-versa to resume other work).  They thought that
    K604 & the WPS-PLUS V4.0 update would help them, but my understanding
    from 174.* indicates that it will _not_, because the update doesn't
    enable text, WPS-PLUS, etc. -> PostScript, but only PostScript -> sixel.
    The customer has ALL-IN-1 V2.4 and PC's with PathWorks.

      Has anyone created a customization to convert documents to PostScript
    and print them on attached PostScript printers?  The customer made one
    attempt using the CONVERT/DOCUMENT command, and using escape sequences
    to turn the printer on and off, but if somebody has something better...

      Also, I understand that we recommend all V2.4 sites upgrade to K604
    before running the FCVR...  The customer is reluctant to go to K604
    because of the potential impact on customizations with syntax errors,
    so they are wondering if there are any other options?

      Thanks in advance,

      				Cheers, regards, Dan'l @OPA
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359.1On the FCVR bit ..IOSG::MAURICEIOSG ain't a place to raise a kidMon Mar 30 1992 19:1715
>      Also, I understand that we recommend all V2.4 sites upgrade to K604
>    before running the FCVR...  The customer is reluctant to go to K604
>    because of the potential impact on customizations with syntax errors,
>    so they are wondering if there are any other options?

    If you can't go to K604 then I would recommend that the customer still
    tries to run FCVR. It's most likely to work, and if it doesn't there's
    nothing disastrous that will happen. 
    
    How far can the customer before getting syntax errors? (K601, K602,
    K603?) What are they?
    
    Cheers
    
    Stuart
359.2Should they run an unpatched V2.4 FCVR?SHALOT::LANPHEARTest the water or turn the tide?Mon Mar 30 1992 21:3914
    Hi Stuart,
    
      They are running an _unpatched_ system, and they don't want to
    install any patches if they don't have to.  They understand that one of
    the patches (603?) starts to evaluate syntax more carefully, and they
    don't want any nasty messages to show up in front of company Executives...
    
      And by the way, they have _never_ run the FCVR in over four years,
    the SDAF goes from 900K+ to over 1.3M in the two weeks they go between
    SDAF compression runs, and the janitor takes most of the weekend if
    they compress the file cabinets during the run.  They are worried that
    the FCVR won't make it through in one weekend, and I had heard that
    we don't recommend running the vanilla V2.4 FCVR...  Do you still think
    they should attempt an FCVR run?
359.3Go for itIOSG::MAURICEIOSG ain't a place to raise a kidTue Mar 31 1992 09:4843
    Judge for yourself - here are the FCVR fixes in the K60x series:
    
    1. FCVR can cause HIGH usage count. This can happen when the FCVR
       deletes an SDAF record with attachments. The problem gets corrected
       in the next FCVR run. In the meantime a HIGH usage count may cause 
       a file not to be deleted when it should. (The opposite problem of
       a LOW usage count is the potentially serious one - where a file gets
       deleted before it should). 
    
    2. FCVR can't handle search lists. This is a problem if your customer
       has defined the OA$SHARxnnnn logicals as search lists. In this case
       the FCVR will fail to delete files it should.
    
    3. FCVR loops w. usage count >32767. This is a problem if there are
       32767 references to a shared mail message or attachment. It's very
       unlikely to occur - but two sites did manage it! If it does then the
       FCVR loops - and does no repairs - but no corruptions.
    
    4. FCVR doesn't delete SDAF records for missing files. If a user has a
       DOCDB record pointing to a shared file that does not exist then the 
       DODCB record is not deleted.
    
    Your customer is not likely to hit any of the above problems, and even
    if they did the worst that can happen is that some files do not get 
    deleted when they should.
    
    As time to run is important to you, please read carefully the
    instructions. Two points in particular:
    
    1. Run TRM on a generic batch queue so that slave processes will fire.
    
    2. Observe the recommendations for memory usage - to achieve fast
       throughput a lot of memory is used, and so you want to avoid
       excessive paging.
    
    Given that, you can expect fast completion. On IOSG it used to take 
    about 14-15 hours to run - it now takes 1� hours.
    
    So please do run it, and also let us know how long it takes.
    
    Cheers
    
    Stuart
359.4We had to get rid of _lots_ of batch jobsSHALOT::LANPHEARTest the water or turn the tide?Thu Apr 02 1992 19:0427
    Well,  we tried it last night at 1am, and I had to remove about fifty
    batch jobs this morning at 8.  I selected the generic queue, but they
    didn't mention that the processor specific queues all had job limits of
    1.  So, we were running five at a time (1/processor), but they each
    took 1 - 1.5 hours to complete.  Phases one & two completed by 5am, but
    it looks as if all these batch jobs started at the same time.  Can you
    explain what all the slave processes do?  I know there's one per
    logical name found in the directory field of the profile, but how do
    they relate to the three FCVR phases?  SMLOG1.TMP contained:
    
     ALL-IN-1 File Cabinet Verification and Repair Program
     =====================================================
    
     Version 2.4
    
     Beginning Phase 1 at 01:08 AM -- scanning users' personal file cabinets
     =======================================================================
    
    and SMLOG2.TMP contained all the information from scanning the file
    cabinets, and the totals for phase 1 and phase 2.  
    SMLOG3,SMLOG4, and SMLOG5 were all empty.  
    
      We are going to try again tonight with job limits of four per
    processor, and see how far we get.  Can anybody tell if we're on the
    right track?  We're running it in read-only mode for now.
    
    					Cheers, Dan'l
359.5If time is short ...IOSG::MAURICEIOSG ain't a place to raise a kidThu Apr 02 1992 19:3533
    In 2.4 the FCVR goes the profile and looks at the disc name in the
    directory field. It then fires up one slave process for each different
    disc name it finds. I know it will be small consolation, but in V3 it
    is improved so that there is one slave process per real disc. 
    
    Each slave process does its share of Phase 1 processing, while the
    Master gets on with Phase 2. When the Master has finished Phase 2 it
    then waits for all slaves to complete. When that has happened it goes
    into Phase 3. Phase 3 can complete in less than a minute if there no
    repairs. In your case where there are is potentially a very large
    number of repairs so it can take hours.
    
    To improve Slave processing time I would recommend you turn off body
    file checking until you have got the FCVR to clear up all the other
    accumulated errors acquired over the years. 
    
    To improve Phase 3 consider:
    
    	a) Not bothering with a verify run. In verify mode it will print
           full details of each usage count discrepancy. In repair mode
           you just get a total. Reporting the discrepancies in detail may 
           take a long time.
    
    	b) There is an option of having messages that have no owner put
           in the RECOVERED SHARED DOCUMENTS folder of a user, usually
           the Manager. Creating an entry is expensive, and you may well
           have hundreds of these. By blanking the name of the user who
           will receive these (in the Master file record) they will instead
           be just deleted.
    
    Cheers
    
    Stuart
359.6Some problems with PORT PostScript printingWELCLU::63945::MASONBruce Mason @WLOFri Apr 03 1992 15:3827
Going back to your original question about WPS-PLUS V4.0 printing to an HP 
printer with PostScript cartridge.  Yes, it does it, but the WPS-PLUS group 
don't support it because the terminals group don't support attached 
PostScript printers (since most attached PostScript printers are probably 
attached to pc's rather than terminals, perhaps they asked the wrong people).

Things to watch for from my experience at a major ALL-IN-1 customer with 
hundreds (thousands?) of attached PostScript printers:

The SETPAPERTRAY sequence is wrong, so printing with tray set to REAR may 
print nothing, depending on how picky your printer is.  Fix is available 
from support centre or just set them all to null in the print table.

There are errors in the PostScript generated by WPS-PLUS.  If you send too 
many in too short a period, your printer may object and throw the rest of 
the printout away.  A good way to reproduce this is to use XP to print more 
than about 6 messages to PORT PS.  Most printers do an automatic reset 
after a timeout, hence the time-related nature of this one.  The only 
workaround we could find was to do a .TEXT "<ESC>[5i^D<ESC>[4i" (printer 
on, Control/D, printer off) between each document/attachment printed - we 
used a copy of WPPPORT.SCP renamed to WPPPORT_PS.SCP.

Alternatively, wait until WPS-PLUS V4.1 in ALL-IN-1 V3.0 - maybe it will 
all be fixed...

Have fun,
Bruce
359.7What about SDAF continuation record errors?SHALOT::LANPHEARTest the water or turn the tide?Mon Apr 13 1992 17:2529
    Hmm...  Looks like a net disconnect lost the last note.  Anyway...   
    
    Bruce, since we're both working with different ends of the same
    customer, I'll have Vid contact Mr. Carrier directly.
    
    Back to the FCVR questions...
    
      Phases 1 and 2 completed in 19 hours and 9 minutes.  Phase one
    complained about users logged in, since we were running it read-only on
    Saturday.  Phase 2, however, complained about:
    
     Processing USERDISK3:[ALLIN1.DATA_SHARE]OA$DAF_E.DAT file at 02:11 AM
     -----------------------------------------------    
     Error: continuation record not found when cont_flag set:
       First record-key =       OA$SHARE103:ZSTXP5J4D.WPL
       Continuation record-key =OA$SHARE103:ZSTYFZASP.WPL
    
    There were 29 such errors.
    
    Then it went on to say Phase 3 will not continue due to these errors. 
    Now I can understand about the users logged in, but isn't it going to
    fix the DAF for us?  Is there something we have to do to the DAF?
    
    For stats, it processed 1972 DOCDBs, in 19:09, with a total of 850767
    records.  That's 34 seconds per user (on five nodes (4 processor each)
    running three slaves per node).
    Number of records in OA$SHARE: 489648  - 03:59 AM
    
    				Thanks in advance, Dan'l
359.8IOSG::MAURICEIOSG ain&#039;t a place to raise a kidMon Apr 13 1992 19:1014
    The continuation record errors will not prevent Phase 3, but the users
    being logged in will. The log has been improved in V3 so that the
    errors that prevent Phase 3 are clearly marked.
    
    In earlier versions of the FCVR the continuation record errors did not
    get repaired (only reported), but they are now. I can't remember which
    patch introduced this capability.
    
    The time to complete seems excessive - have you checked the memory
    recommendation in the manual?
    
    Cheers
    
    Stuart
359.9Here's what they have...SHALOT::LANPHEARTest the water or turn the tide?Mon Apr 13 1992 19:5532
    Hi Stuart,
    
      One point to consider is that they have 99 logical names in use, so
    there are 99 slaves which have to run.
    
      The memory is as per the manual.  The VMS account is set to have
    a WSextent of 50,000, but the batch queues all have:    
    
     /BASE_PRIORITY=4 /CPUDEFAULT=INFINITE /CPUMAXIMUM=INFINITE /JOB_LIMIT=3
        /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /PROTECTION=(S:RWE,O:RD,G:W,W) /WSDEFAULT=4096
        /WSEXTENT=24000 /WSQUOTA=4096
    
    UAF has:
     Maxjobs:         0  Fillm:       500  Bytlm:        84000
     Maxacctjobs:     0  Shrfillm:      0  Pbytlm:           0
     Maxdetach:       0  BIOlm:       500  JTquota:       3072
     Prclm:          10  DIOlm:      4096  WSdef:         1024
     Prio:            4  ASTlm:       600  WSquo:         3072
     Queprio:         0  TQElm:       300  WSextent:     50000
     CPU:        (none)  Enqlm:      2000  Pgflquo:     150000
    
    WSMAX runs from 28,000 to 50,000 on the systems.  VIRTUALPAGECNT runs from
    300,000 to 460,000 on the systems.  There are digits on site who are
    managaging the systems, so if you can make any recommendations, I'll
    pass them along.
    
    We are running the unpatched FCVR, so it looks like the continuation
    record errors won't get fixed.  I didn't think that they would prevent
    the FCVR from entering phase 3, but I did wonder from the log file...
    
    					Cheers, Dan'l