On 10/7/97 at 8:45 AM -0700, you wrote:

> The system works fine most of the time, save for getting "ERROR: Timed out
> waiting for packet" occasionally on large news downloads.

What protocol are you using? I've had this problem occasionally in the
past... You can be cruel to your uplink and:

protocol-parameter g timeout 1
protocol-parameter g retries 1000

or

protocol-parameter i ack-frequency 1
protocol-parameter i timeout 1
protocol-parameter i retries 120

or something like that. Also, don't send huge amounts of data per packet or
use a huge window size, as the machine on the other end can choke if it's
loaded enough.

> -uucico legends - (1997-10-02 22:05:00.50 13087) ERROR: System already locked
>
> Re-Boot initiated "shutdown -r now"

In this case, how about "kill -9 13087"? Then look in
/var/spool/uucp/.Status and perhaps rip out the file corresponding to the
system you're calling. Also, if you're running uucico manually, you might
try -Ssystem to force a call, instead of -ssystem.

Also, before rebooting, can you talk to your modem with any other software?
If you can, then I'd definitely recommend deleting the offending
/var/spool/uucp/.Status/foo and resetting your modem manually, if you need
to, even if you must use cat to do it, or something.

foo# cat > /dev/tty0x
atz
at&f
at&f1
...    (whatever is appropriate)
^D
foo#

Maybe I'm missing something, but being forced to cold-reboot just seems
rather extreme. Verifying whether or not you can actually talk to your
modem after experiencing this problem would be quite useful.

Also, note that I'm assuming the use of Taylor UUCP. If you're using
something different, my suggestions regarding .../.Status/foo and -Ssystem
may not apply at all.

Another thing to consider is not using hardware handshaking, error
correction, data compression, or any of that mess. The 'g' (and 'i')
protocols handle all of this nicely without modemic intervention. (Well,
maybe not compression, but the default 'g' protocol packet size of 64
doesn't lend itself well to lots of compression anyway. Stability over
speed!)

Here's an init string I used when I was having problems with stability:

AT&f1l0s11=50f8%c0%e1%e2&k3\\g1m1    <- \\ == '\'

The interesting bits, IIRC:

f8 limits speed to 9600 baud
%c0 turns off error correction
%e1 and %e2 either eliminate speed retraining or lock in the initial speed
or something - I forget
&k3... \g1... Um... Wow. Total blank. An AltaVista search ought to turn 'em
up, though.

This is on a SupraFAXmodem 144LC, FWIW.

I hope something in this helps! :)

--
Mason Loring Bliss   mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us   www.webtrek.com/mason
awake ? sleep() : dream();  If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?