Solution to DECWindows login problem

[Robert Gill]

In article <5355 at m2c.M2C.ORG> I wrote about a I was having with a vs2000
running Ultrix 3.1/UWS 2.1 and DECWindows.  When ever a user tried to 
log in the system would look like it was starting DECWindows and then came
back with the login prompter instead.

I received a bunch of suggestions, for which I am thankfull.  If I didn't 
send you a note saying thanks please accept my gratitude now.

The solution to this problem, it turns out, was hardware, not software.  One
of the other system managers here noticed while perusing the error log for 
the system in questions (goofy) that it was only coming up with 4 meg of 
memory.  Further investigation showed it only had 4 meg configed in the 
kernel, and even when the kernel was rebuilt with 6 meg in the conf file
the system only came up with 4 meg.

We had our hardware tech take the machine apart and what did we find, we found
only 4 meg of memory.  We swapped the disk from that vs2000 to another vs2000
that had 6 meg and everything is working fine.  Of course we didn't find this
out until after we had spent 3 days doing everything imaginable to this machine,
including a full reinstallation.

The only explaination of why it work one day and not the next is that over the
previous weekend we had upgraded our 2 8530s to UWS 2.2 and maybe some 
application that was run on the vs2000 using the new executables in 2.2 wasn't
releasing memory properly.  (Or maybe we upset a god or two... :-)

Again, thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions.

Bob Gill, System Operator
Mass. Microelectronics Center

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Robert W. Gill (gill at odin.m2c.org) -- Massachusetts Microelectronics Center