We have an Alphastation 600 266 rack model. That has been experiencing some
strange problems.
It is running as a video on demad server at a Cable company here on the
island. From time to time their schedule movies will experience black out
periods were they fail to run. I've attached a copy of some error messages
that may be pointing to the cause.
Can you render some assistance.
Below is a copy of an email received from the companies Sytem Adminstrator.
>Over the past couple months, I've seen error messages on Cable Bahamas'
iis2 >system, saying that the Astro controller (RAID disk controller)
stopped >responding. In some cases, a single error occurred which did not
disrupt >operations. But in at least two cases (since January) a large
number of >Astro Controller errors occurred in sequence, causing the
application to >fail, and disrupting service.
>
>I am _not_ a hardware person, but can provide you with background
>information and point you at the relevant system logs.
>
>Here is a summary of the errors since January 1:
>
>Feb 14 12:54 - 13:15 13 errors (service disrupted - all channels went
black)
>Feb 17 13:52 1 error
>Feb 18 10:28 1 error
>Feb 22 22:41 1 error
>Feb 23 20:33 1 error
>Feb 26 14:43 1 error
>Mar 09 03:29 1 error
>Mar 11 01:39 1 error
>Mar 12 20:43 1 error
>Mar 14 08:00 1 error
>Mar 15 21:50 1 error
>Mar 16 22:24 1 error
>Mar 23 07:23 1 error
>Mar 24 07:02 - 08:15 45 errors (service disrupted - all channels went
black)
>
>Attached is an example of the Astro Controller error message, from the
binary >error log.
>
>Bruce Taylor
>Digital Equipment Corporation
>Shrewsbury, MA
>
>----- EVENT INFORMATION -----
>
>EVENT CLASS ERROR EVENT
>OS EVENT TYPE 198. ASTRO CONTROLLER
>SEQUENCE NUMBER 112.
>OPERATING SYSTEM DEC OSF/1
>OCCURRED/LOGGED ON Mon Mar 24 07:17:19 1997
>OCCURRED ON SYSTEM iis2
>SYSTEM ID x0005000F
>SYSTYPE x00000000
>
>----- UNIT INFORMATION -----
>
>CLASS x0000 DISK
>SUBSYSTEM x0000 DISK
>BUS # x0000
>
>----- CAM STRING -----
>
>ROUTINE NAME xcr_cmd_timeout
>
>----- CAM STRING -----
>
> Controller has stopped responding
>
>----- CAM STRING -----
>
>ERROR TYPE Hard Error Detected
>
>----- CAM STRING -----
>
> Controller Softc at time of error
>
>----- ENT_XCR_SOFTC -----
>
>*SC_BUS_NAME xFFFFFC0000601B60
>SC_CNTRL_NUM x0000000000000000
>SC_CNTRL_TYPE x005F4A1000000000
>*SC_CTRL xFFFFFC00005F4A10
>SC_IOHANDLE x0005000000012100
>SC_FLAGS x00000002
>SC_REG_OFF x00000000
>SC_MAX_ACT x0000003C
>SC_SPEC_ACT x00000004
>SC_CMDS_ACT x0000002B
>*SC_ACT_FLINK xFFFFFC001BD936E0
>*SC_ACT_BLINK xFFFFFC001BD930F0
>SC_CMDS_PENDING x00000000
>*SC_PEND_FLINK xFFFFFC001BD93050
>*SC_PEND_BLINK xFFFFFC001BD93050
>*SC_FREE_FLINK xFFFFFC001BD93208
>*SC_FREE_BLINK xFFFFFC001BD93528
>SC_FREE_CMD_SLOTS x00000015
>
>
>
Thanks
Paul Petty
Digital Systems Bahamas Ltd.
Received on Tue Apr 08 1997 - 16:35:32 NZST