Subject: Re: who uses the build-in uucp with a modem?
To: David Wetzel <dave@turbocat.de>
From: Jim Bernard <jbernard@tater.mines.edu>
List: current-users
Date: 11/29/1997 07:48:03
On 11 28, David Wetzel wrote:
> I do not get what I expect with my UUCP connection.
> 
> uucico harvey - (...) Calling system harvey (port tty01)
> uucico harvey - (...) Login successful
> uucico harvey - (...) Handshake successful (protocol 'i' sending packet/window  
> 1024/16 receiving 1024/16)
> uucico harvey dave (...) Sending rmail dave@harvey.aball.de (D.000F) (13980 bytes)
> uucico harvey root (...) Receiving rmail nexttoyou (1106 bytes)
> uucico harvey news (...) Receiving rnews (34326 bytes resume at 4096)
> uucico harvey - (...) ERROR: Too many 'i' protocol errors
> uucico harvey - (...) Protocol 'i' packets: sent 22, resent 0, received 18
> uucico harvey - (...) Errors: header 201, checksum 188, order 13, remote rejects 0
> uucico harvey - (...) Call complete (28 seconds 7250 bytes 258 bps)
> 
> 
> The modem is a external ISDN Device that is acessed with 115200 Baud.

  I've been having the same problem on all kernels since early April.  I
suspect the problem was introduced when the com driver was substantially
modified some time before that (prior to that I was using a kernel from
December, so I can't pin it down precisely).  I reported the problem in
PR 3518, where I noted that uucico was losing 3-byte sequences every now
and then, eventually causing the connection to fail after the number of
errors builds up.  The problem is less severe at lower speeds, so I've had
to resort to using a DTE speed of 19,200 to get the error rate down to a
level that lets my mail get through.  Curiously, there's no problem running
ppp at 38,400, even with the same uucico transfers running over tcp.

  I wish I had a solution, but I just haven't had the time to try to figure
out what's wrong, and nobody else seems to have figured it out either.  I
suspect that very few people these days appreciate the convenience of uucp
for mail transfer (or maybe most folks just don't use configurations for
which uucp really is the most convenient option).