[Info-vax] 8.4 and DECwindows CDE login box not coming up

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Wednesday, 20 May 2015 23:23:32 UTC+1, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)  wrote:
> In article <35eb8989-01ff-438e-873b-04ddbe47dcef at googlegroups.com>,
> Steven Schweda <sms.antinode at gmail.com> writes: 
> 
> >    Mods in DECW$PRIVATE_SERVER_SETUP.COM:
> 
> Since I haven't touched this since well before the upgrade, surely it 
> can't be responsible?!
> 
> > MIN_CHANNELCNT = 4096
> > MIN_GBLPAGES = 440000
> > MIN_GBLSECTIONS = 1300
> > MIN_MAXPROCESSCNT = 512
> > MIN_WSMAX = 512000
> 
> OK, my GBLSECTIONS had dropped as a result of the AUTOGEN.  I moved it 
> up to 1500.  The others are at your values or larger.  Still the same
> problem. 
>  
> >    User quotas shouldn't matter, but for SYSTEM:
> 
> But the problem occurs during startup, which is presumably running with 
> the quotas of the SYSTEM account, right?  (Restarting DECwindows causes 
> the problem---the screen going grey, then black with the hourglass, 
> etc---to show up again, so presumably it is the DECwindows startup 
> during the startup sequence after boot which used to work and now longer 
> does.)  Surely the quotas must matter?
> 
> > 
> > Maxjobs:         0  Fillm:      4096  Bytlm:       524288
> > Maxacctjobs:     0  Shrfillm:      0  Pbytlm:           0
> > Maxdetach:       0  BIOlm:       150  JTquota:      16384
> > Prclm:          32  DIOlm:       150  WSdef:        10240
> > Prio:            4  ASTlm:       512  WSquo:        16384
> > Queprio:         0  TQElm:       128  WSextent:    262144
> > CPU:        (none)  Enqlm:      4096  Pgflquo:    2097152
> 
> I increased a few which were substantially lower.  Does anyone think 
> that this could be a quota problem?  If so, what minimum values do you 
> suggest?
> 
> >    You're getting no clues in any log files?
> 
> None!
> 
> I take it you are running 8.4 on an XP1000 and CDE starts up fine.
> 
> This is a real bummer, as there is no way I can go to 8.4 on all nodes 
> unless DECwindows works.
> 
> Has anyone else seen this?
> 
> A couple of days ago, someone mentioned an issue of DECwindows looping 
> after an 8.4 upgrade, which sounds like what I have (though it does stop 
> looping after a few minutes), but I couldn't find any other information 
> on this.
> 
> What could possibly have changed on 8.4 which could have caused this?

Given that the problem is reproducible on demand, have you tried logging
on to the problematic system via network and, from that network session,
using your favourite system tools to watch what's happening as you
attempt to start DECwindows?

Also, VMS has a handy thing called Accounting, which doesn't have an
equivalent on many other allegedly 'modern' OSes.

A well-informed VMS admin can use Accounting to help diagnose issues
which potentially involve things like unexpected process termination,
quota problems, and such like.

Is accounting enabled on the system in question? Have you looked at
the accounting records of the relevant processes, specifically at
the process' final status, and perhaps also at the quotas (anything
at or near its limits may be of interest).

See where I'm headed here? I know nothing about the specifics of the
problem but these are some of the tactics I would be thinking about if
I had this particular kind of problem. 

Best of luck!