Conference iosg::all-in-1_v30

2845.0. "SMU & SO Corruption Problems?" by KAOFS::M_BARNEY (Formerly Ms.Fett) Thu Jun 10 1993 19:54

    I had the following faxed to me from a customer who is curious about
    the following - this was a message that a fellow member of Decus sent
    to him. He wants to know if we knew about this problem and when a fix
    will be  issued.

    The original sender (and caller to the US CSC) is from Ohio, but  I
    have deleted the headers to protect the guilty, and will procede with
    the  body of the message:

    (Further disclaimer: if this is in appropriate for this conference, do
    not hesitate to tell me and delete the note - I am merely posting the
    text of the message and wish to have some info on this issue)

              -----------------------

Just a quick note of warning; we are not quite ready to post to the list yet,
but I saw your note, so here is a sneak preview.

ALL-IN-1 V3.0 will happily corrupt individual's time management calendar
data files (events get mis-labeled, are at wrong times, etc., even unable
to Set Date to particular dates) and create un-deletable mail messages, etc.!
To avoid this problem, ALL uses of the calendar Set Owner command must also
be immediately preceded (or followed) by Set Mail User to the same person:
the two must be kept in synch.

Digital should not have released code in which the previously proper user
behaviour results in corruption!

The DSIN messages on this subject were misleading as of May 23.

We have escalated the problem, and are expecting a response of some sort
in early June. what we asked for was

1. Immediate modification of the SO and SMU scripts so that both commands
   execute the same script, which does both jobs. If either access is 
   forbidden, then we said we would accept fallback to the Login state for
   the username of the VMS session, or, if possible, fallback to the state
   prior to giving the command.

2. A future release of ALL-IN-1 to be designed so that SO can be done without
   SMU, and vice versa, without danger of corruption. We havce a number of
   situations where the calendar owership is appropriate but in which  mail
   access is not. I suspect, but have not yet encountered the individuals,
   that we also have situations where mail access is appropriate, but 
   calendar ownership is not. 

   At this point, my intention is to post to the ALL-IN-1 list after we
   get an initial reponse from Digital.

              -----------------------

    This note was dated 01-Jun-93. Could this be a site behaviour problem,
    as we have not heard of these anywhere else? What should we be telling
    the customer who got this mail message (he is very insistant about
    every little site problem - I suspect he is already somewhat hot and
    bothered since he got this little note.....)  ?


Monica
    

    Monica,
    
    Problems with SO and/or/not/SMU are known. We've had 3 CLD's to date
    including one from your 'friends' in Ohio.
    
    I'm not a TM expert (not this week anyway), but I do know that a
    workaround in named data has been issued. Some customers have found
    this unacceptable and I think [no commitment here!] that a patch might
    be in the wind to stop the various CALENDAR functions which can't work
    without both SO and SMU in effect.
    
    I think the chances are slim that it will be made to work without SMU or
    do the SMU automatically, but it should be made safe so corruptions
    wont occur. Customization would allow the SO/SMU fallback which they
    described.
    
    This is not official yet however, so you can't tell the customer
    anything other than the fact that it is being looked at.
    
    I'll see if I can get some more information.
    
    Paul.

    Monica,
    
    I and i'm sure my dead-products-consulant friend wherever he might be
    would i'm sure be interested in following up on this off-line unless
    of course he alreasy knows who the customer is... 
    
    regards,
    
    Andrew.D.Wicks