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Date:	Sun, 28 Jul 2002 13:17:17 PST7
From:	"J. R. Fox" <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Elusive ECS stability: Why I Can't Salute the Kernel

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I won't bother posting any of the register dumps from my many Trap E's
here, unless someone wants to see them. (However, I would welcome the
email address of someone appropriate at Serenity to send them to, in
case I can't flag Scott Garfinkle down on Usenet.) It is becoming
discouraging, though.

Choice of video drivers seems to have been a red herring. My latest
theory was that Ctrl-Alt-Delete Cmdr. might be responsible -- the
rules for something or other having changed in later fixpack levels,
to which this package (not updated since around '99), never adjusted.
I had high hopes for this theory, but it too has now been shot down.
(Unless a full uninstall is required, rather than just commenting its
activation line out of Config.Sys.)

Please tell me if any of the respective kernels do this on your
system. (See below.) If 'Yes', that would be quite useful to know.
If not, that would also be useful. It would mean that something else
is going on here. Maybe I need to replace some other modules as
well. PMSHELL ? PMMERGE ?

Kernel 14.088_W4. Open a Fullscreen DOS session. (Don't even bother
loading a DOS app.) Close it. Open one again. Trap E. Trap info is
consistent, from trial to trial. Launching a DOS program object from
the desktop (again, for the 2nd. consecutive time), does the same.
DOS Window sessions trap also, but with a colored background +
blinking screen. I did not run enough tests on Win-OS2 sessions,
prior to replacing 14.088, but on a small sample of them, they seemed
to be O.K.

Kernel 14.089c. 2nd. attempt at launch of a DOS f/s session yields
either a Trap E, or an unrecoverable black screen with no info
whatsoever. Ran a DOS f/s app. from desktop object 3 times in a row,
without a trap. Win-OS2 f/s session gives Trap E immediately.

Kernel 14.089e. On 3rd. consecutive invocation of same DOS app. (this
is *never* running multiple instances of the same program at the same
time), Trap E comes bleeding into the program's screen as soon as I
take a DIR. Probably would have happened, no matter what I did.
Still need to see if DOS session alone does this, but, based on
everything else, I'm assuming that it will. On one of these, I found
a Sys3170 error in Popuplog, concerning C-A-D Cmdr., the first and
only entry I've seen in Popuplog for ECS thus far. After this, I
disable C-A-D in Config.Sys, so it does not load. Similar Trap E,
though some of the register info is different. Haven't tested Win-OS2
sessions yet for this kernel.

System info: P-III / 850, 512 M. Ram, Asus mb with Award 6.0 Bios.,
Matrox G-400.
WSEB and W4 / FP-9 partitions are working fine, as is W2K. So this is
just _something like_ a kernel issue, right ? Or some nasty, as yet
undefined interaction ? Could the Warp Center be implicated here ?

At the moment, I have just a handful of things installed in this
partition: UniMaint, Graham, GTU-4, RSJ, the failed install of Mozilla
(these problems predate that), which I haven't even been using. Until
this serious ECS instability gets corrected, I see little point in
resuming with my long list of things to install or customize, or on
following up on Steven's instructions for how to fix my Mozilla. If I
can't have a DOS or Win-OS2 session without trapping, this boat is
starting to sink.

Jordan

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