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==== FS174 error: OS/2 2.0, Citrix 2.21, Arev 2.12, DOS 3.1 drv. (AREV Specific) ====
=== At 28 APR 2000 02:38:29PM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
{{tag>"AREV Specific"}}
Hi all!
I've got a customer with an Arev 2.12 system running on OS/2 2.0 Citrix multiuser version 2.21 with the DOS 3.1+ network driver 2.12 reporting an FS174 error on start-up. That's the error regarding "No network drive being found, etc.".
This only began after they migrated their entire system to a new PC after the old one died. They used Ghost to create exact duplicates of the system's hard drives on the new machine.
Previous messages here (back in 1996 and 1997) seem to indicate a relationship between the location of Arev (off the root, or on a virtual net drive, etc.) and the occurrence of this message, but there were no messages describing a resolution.
Based on the FS174 error text this makes some sense - Arev knows it's supposed to be on a network but it senses that the current drive (the one from which Arev was launched?) is "local or no network drive is configured". I'm not sure what Arev is checking to make this determination, and I'm not sure why it sould care as any DOS 3.1+ compatible drive should support byte-range locking (shouldn't it?). So, maybe this isn't a problem anyway?
I'd appreciate any insight you all might have about this.
Thanks in advance for your help!
ewb
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=== At 28 APR 2000 03:08PM Steve Smith wrote: ===
Eric,
I'm a little concerned that record locking may not be enabled if AREV does not sense a network drive (and hence assumes it's running local), so you should check that record locking is operational between workstations. The operating system should return a network drive status from DOS (int 21h function 4409h) if the AREV.EXE is resident on a true network server drive. Something else (ie. the location of AREV.EXE that is being run or the name of various drive mappings) must have changed somehow during your recent implementation.
Steve
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=== At 28 APR 2000 03:43PM rayc@symmetryinfo.com wrote: ===
Eric,
Hmmm don't know why you're getting your message. Is the system configuration exactly as before when it was working? How many workstations are on this network?
When you used GHOST to create your new PC, does that mean that you didn't re-install Citrix on the new-PC?, eg., creating profiles, workstations, users, setting securities, printer queues, etc.
Meanwhile, here are somethings you can check out.
1) Networking.
Under Citrix, Arev Dos should work with DOS 3.1+ network, IBM PC Lan, Lan Manager 1.0 Network and 3Com 3+ Network 1.2.
2) TSR programs. There are a couple of TSR that you may want if you're not aware of them. One is the YIELDDOS.COM, and the other is MSNET.COM. Run these programs before starting AREV, e.g., \OS2\MDOS\YEILDDOS.COM and \OS2\MDOS\MSNET.COM. YIELDDOS.COM is supposed to address the issue of AREV consumming a lot of CPU cycle (keyboard polling). MSNET.COM helps AREV find a Station ID (maybe this is why you're not getting any locks.
Good Luck,
rayc@symmetryinfo.com onmouseover=window.status=imagine ... ;return(true)"
[url=http://www.symmetryinfo.Com" onMouseOver=window.status=Imagine ... ' ;return(true)]Symmetry Info[/url]
Ray Chan ~ Symmetry Info
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=== At 28 APR 2000 04:16PM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
Ray - thanks for the reply.
The configuration should be exactly the same in terms of OS version, INI configuration, profiles, etc. The one thing that is different is the BIOS, as the old PC was *very* old. The ghost copy means nothing was reinstalled - it is an exact copy of the original.
Regarding the number of workstations, physically there's just the one - the server. Multiple users access the PC through a dial-up, each getting their own login session on the one box. No more than 2-3 sessions are ever active at a time (plus one session that's always up to do background indexing).
I'll check out the station ID issue and the TSR. I do recall there being some sort of issue with this a long time ago.
Thanks again!
ewb
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=== At 28 APR 2000 04:19PM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
Steve - thanks for the info regarding Arev's recognition of drives as belonging to a network or not. That gives me some possibilities for trying to determine why the new drives (in the new PC) aren't appearing to Arev in the same way. I'm fairly certain that Arev resides in the same directory as before, but perhaps the ghost process missed some OS-specific file/directory attributes?
Thanks again!
ewb
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=== At 29 APR 2000 11:51AM rayc@symmetryinfo.com wrote: ===
Eric,
Don't know much about GHOST. However, if the original system was formatted with HPFS, there are security settings and hidden attributes. Can GHOST handle HPFS? Citrix also made modification to its HPFS for security and performance reasons. If all else fails, you may want to do a complete reinstall. This is what I would have done especially if installing onto a new PC with different hardware configuration. Citrix picks up alot of stuff in setting up its config.sys. Is the new machine a SCSI or IDE? We've install Citrix on PC with newer Bios. Shouldn't be a problem.
The more I think about it. You may want to consider a complete reinstall of the operating system itself (no GHOST). You can keep the data as long as its on a separate partition.
rayc@symmetryinfo.com onmouseover=window.status=imagine ... ;return(true)"
[url=http://www.symmetryinfo.Com" onMouseOver=window.status=Imagine ... ' ;return(true)]Symmetry Info[/url]
Ray Chan ~ Symmetry Info
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=== At 29 APR 2000 11:54AM rayc@symmetryinfo.com wrote: ===
Eric,
Don't know much about GHOST. However, if the original system was formatted with HPFS, there are security settings and hidden attributes. Can GHOST handle HPFS? Citrix also made modification to its HPFS for security and performance reasons. If all else fails, you may want to do a complete reinstall. This is what I would have done especially if installing onto a new PC with different hardware configuration. Citrix picks up alot of stuff in setting up its config.sys. Is the new machine a SCSI or IDE? We've install Citrix on PC with newer Bios. Shouldn't be a problem.
The more I think about it. You may want to consider a complete reinstall of the operating system itself (no GHOST). You can keep the data as long as its on a separate partition.
rayc@symmetryinfo.com onmouseover=window.status=imagine ... ;return(true)"
[url=http://www.symmetryinfo.Com" onMouseOver=window.status=Imagine ... ' ;return(true)]Symmetry Info[/url]
Ray Chan ~ Symmetry Info
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=== At 30 APR 2000 01:51AM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
Ray - thanks for the reply. I'm this close (fingers together) to suggesting an OS/2 and Citrix reinstall, assuming they still have the disks. However, based on my rather long message below, I think it might be something else.
Steve Smith was right on the money when he wrote "The operating system should return a network drive status from DOS (int 21h function 4409h) if the AREV.EXE is resident on a true network server drive."
Apparently, the way Citrix makes the OS do this is by loading (via the config.sys) a series of NetBIOS drivers as follows:
DEVICE=C:\OS2\CTX\LOOPDRV.OS2
DEVICE=C:\OS2\CTX\NETHELP.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\CTX\VNET.SYS
RUN=C:\OS2\CTX\NETRUN.EXE
It also adds a LIBPATH to \OS2\DLL\CTXNET for in support of various NetBIOS functions. I confirmed that the CONFIG.SYS is correctly setup this way (and has been since 1994).
According to the Citrix documentation:
"This allows many network-aware applications to work without a network...The Citrix DOS NetBIOS support includes emulation of the NetBIOS related functions on Interrupts 5Ch, 2Ah, 2Fh and 21h. The Citrix OS/2 NetBIOS support includes emulation of the NetBiosSubmit API. The following DOS functions are supported on interrupt 21h. This list describes only those functions that are provided within the Citrix NetBIOS support. Most interrupt 21h functions are provided in the kernel.
Function Name AX value
Get Machine Name 5E00h
Set Machine Name 5E01h
Get Drive Status 4409h (see note below)
Note also that interrupt 21h function 44 subfunction 09 (IOCTL - check block device status) has been modified slightly. All drives, whether local drives, mapped network drives, or local drives mapped with the SUBST command in DOS will return a remote status (bit 12 of DX on return) in addition to a SUBST status (bit 15 of DX on return). This change has been made because many network-aware DOS applications check whether a drive is remote before performing network requests. Because the system emulates a physical network but has only local drives, these applications would fail without this modification. Note that the SUBST command is no longer required for making certain applications believe they are on a network; all drives look like network drives by default."
Per this description, Arev's polling of the OS should have no problem figuring out that Arev.exe is running from a "network" drive (in this case the physical drive D:). Here's another clue:
"The NetBIOS machine name returned in a DOS NetBIOS session defaults to the first fifteen characters of the user's name. The NetBIOS machine name can be changed by the DOS SETNAME command, and examined by the DOS GETNAME command."
This is consistent with the way Arev has been working on this system for years. In fact, I remember we had to change our code somewhat to deal with the fact that the Arev @STATION variable returned the user's Citrix login name (i.e., the NetBIOS name) rather than a customary NetWare-like unique NIC number.
Well, I just checked and none of my Arev sessions have an @STATION and, using the DOS GETNAME utility to check, I confirmed that none of my Citrix login sessions have NetBIOS names assigned to them either.
As a test, I tried setting the NetBIOS name directly using the DOS SETNAME utility. The name stuck, but it didn't solve Arev's problem.
So, I'm tentatively concluding that the Citrix native NetBIOS support (or some part of it) is not operating. This might be evident by watching the OS interpret the CONFIG.SYS on startup. However, I don't have access to the physical PC (I dial-in from 4 states away), so I'll have to get a rep on-site Monday to watch it boot.
As you described, Ray, the problem may still have to do with the GHOST process or some differences in the drivers loaded in support of the new PC. I confirmed that the drives are still formatted as HPFS (IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS) with an OS/2 CHKDSK. And, the CONFIG.SYS was only changed slightly, once to remove the OS/2 backup wizard (no longer used), and recently to remove the OS/2 SCSI driver (rem BASEDEV=OS2SCSI.DMD), which is apparently not needed on the new PC. I also swapped the log and reviewed it for any startup errors, but found none.
So what do you think - am I way off base? If not, what could be causing the NetBIOS failure?
Mucho thanks to all for all your help!
ewb
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=== At 30 APR 2000 07:03AM Steve Smith wrote: ===
I have just built a crude TSR to disable byte range locking on int 21h function 5Ch. When active, AREV (using the DOS 3.1 byte range network driver) will boot cleanly into SYSPROG with no FS174 error. @STATION is set OK. Locking does not operate between concurrent sessions, although the workstation (under NT 4.0 SP5) recognizes locks it has already asserted.
So the focus perhaps should be on the int 21h Function 5Ch
byte-range locking features of the OS with regard to FS174.
Apologies for the earlier misdirection.
Steve
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=== At 30 APR 2000 01:43PM rayc@symmetryinfo.com wrote: ===
Eric,
Being four states away is kind of a bummer, but thank goodness for Rlink . My personal opinion is to do a complete reinstall. You could be done already. You may try one other thing. Try booting the system into "maintainance mode". As the system boots up, when it displays 'citrix multiuser', "os2", or "winview" (depending on your version) hit the Alt-F1 or Ctrl-F1 key. This will put the system into maintainance. Under 'maintainance mode', the minimum config.sys statements are used. Because you're runnng AREV DOS, you should still be able to run it. Try it. You should also be able to change the various networking option under AREV DOS. See what happens.
Technically speaking, if you running on a single-user envirnonment, why are you using Citrix?
Good luck.
rayc@symmetryinfo.com onmouseover=window.status=imagine ... ;return(true)"
[url=http://www.symmetryinfo.Com" onMouseOver=window.status=Imagine ... ' ;return(true)]Symmetry Info[/url]
Ray Chan ~ Symmetry Info
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=== At 01 MAY 2000 12:08AM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
Ray - I think a reinstall is probably on the agenda. I may give the maintenance mode boot a try though, just to see what happens. I'm really interested in having someone in front of the PC during start-up to see if there are any problems reported during the NetBIOS load. The OS/2 log didn't report any problems - but who knows.
Regarding our use of the multi-user setup - the system is actually used by multiple simultaneous users who login via dial-up through an attached pool of modems. Each user gets a virtual DOS session, which (via the Citrix default NetBIOS setup) looks and operates like a separate network connection (or should, anyway).
Thanks for all your help. I'll let you know how all this turns out.
ewb
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=== At 01 MAY 2000 12:09AM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
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=== At 01 MAY 2000 12:16AM Eric W. Bachtal wrote: ===
oops - they probably shouldn't have made Enter the default "Submit this Topic" key - hence the empty reply - sorry!
No apologies for a "redirection" required. Even if your early prediction regarding the 21h 4409h was only part of the answer, it prompted a great deal of investigation and increased knowledge on my part. Much appreciated.
Regarding your recent finding, are you suggesting that Arev might actually place a byte range lock on something (say, AREV.EXE) during start-up to determine whether it resides on a network drive (as opposed to querying the OS for the AREV.EXE drive status)?
Also, I'm wondering how the @STATION variable is populated in the OS/2 Citric multiuser environment? Based on experience, I assumed it was getting the assigned NetBIOS name (as it has always matched in the past), and that the now blank @STATION was related to the fact that our sessions now have no default NetBIOS name (verified using GETNAME.EXE), which I also took to mean that the NetBIOS subsystem was not loading and/or initializing correctly.
Thanks again for all your help.
ewb
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