[Info-vax] SFF problem with VSI on Integrity?

[Richard Jordan]

On 8/6/24 2:49 PM, Richard Jordan wrote:
> I have contacted VSI but thought I'd ask here too.  If anyone can give 
> this a try and let me know if they experience the problem I'd appreciate 
> knowing.
> 
> Integrity server, VMS V8.4-2L1, TCPIP V5.7 eco 5 with any later hotfixes 
> as of June 2023 applied.
> 
> V8.4-2L3 is coming but I can't install it to check for a while.
> 
> We use the 'sendmail.com' freeware to send email with binary attachments 
> (mostly PDFs) with customized SMTP headers.  On this VSI system we get a 
> single error every time we run SFF from the command procedure.
> 
> Exact same procedure on a V8.3 Alpha and an HP V8.4 Integrity run 
> without error so we're tentatively calling it a VSI issue.
> 
> Every run using symbol form via
> 
>       sff :== $SYS$SYSTEM:TCPIP$SMTP_SFF.EXE
> 
> (as defined within sendmail.com)
> 
> generates the following error, but also still creates the email 
> successfully:
> 
>       %LIB-F-INVNBDS, invalid numeric byte data string
> 
> Happens with any normal or priv'd account, regardless of the body text 
> file, presence or absence of attachments, who the recipient is, presence 
> or absence of a subject line.
> 
> I don't have any other systems to test on (specifically no other VSI 
> systems).
> 
> Thanks for any info.

Problem identified.  There was an incorrect parameter in the 
TCPIP$SMTP.CONF file.  At some point in the past year someone had turned 
on SMTP debugging, including adding a SYMBIONT-DEBUG.  When they 
finished, instead of deleting or commenting that line out they set the 
parameter to FALSE.    But its supposed to be a bit map with a value of 
0 through 8.

That generated the error but without useful context.  We found it when 
booting their disaster recovery server with 6 month old system disk copy 
didn't produce the error until we specifically updated that .conf file 
to current.

VSI may take a look at the issue (of error message context) in their 6.0 
stack.

Thanks to all who replied.