#download troubles
16 messages in this thread
Hi, I wrote last night about download troubles I am having. I called
customerservice once and they told me it was local telco problems. I had my
line checked by the guys in the office where I work (Bell of Pa. Harrisburg,
Pa.) they said it should be fine
for data transfer. I don't get any garbage at any time except while
downloading. When I up/down load locally or on long distance boards around the
country I haven't had any problems. I am using either Maxicomm or Starterm
mostly. I have them set for 8-N-1 and I am using Xmodem protocol. Boy I wish I
could get this straightened out, this is costing me a fortune and I'm not
really getting anything out of it. Thanks for your concern, I realize that you,
in the forum, have little control over the operations of the service in general
but I hope something can be done to correct the situation. By the way, other
people I have talked to in the Central Pa. area have had similar problems with
CIS and have dropped the service. Not all of them call the same access number
that I do either. Anyway thanks again I'll be awaiting your reply.
Sincerely,
Paul Fegan
Paul, the only thing I can suggest at this point (if you want to) is to call a
CIS number outside of Central PA. try a short download and see what happens.
If you have a problem then it's got to be either your CIS settings and/or your
term pgm settings. BTW, don't uuse Maxicomm if you don't have to – it has lots
of problems.
Besides, 8-N-1 what are your EOL Send and Receive parms set to in Starterm?
Marlene
The only way we can help is if you give us the number you are dialing and the
node id number that is giving you trouble. To get the node id number log on
with a carriage return instead of a ^C then type CIS at the prompt. With that
info we can forward it to network services for them to check both the line and
the modem on the particular port for problems.
Hi, I checked last night and it said I was on node To1hap. I hope thats what
you need. Thanks for your interest. All in all I think I better try some other
Terminal programs too, though I haven't had much
luck with any of the other PD stuff. And I really haven't seen any commercial
programs that really impressed me either. Let me know if you come across any
problems with the network. I've got some people looking at the trunks in
Harrisburg for me. I work for Bell of Pa. I'll be looking forward to hearing
from you.
Paul,
I see other replies to your message…so this may be a repeat…but a
MAJOR problem with what you are doing is using MaxiComm….it has it's timing
parameters set too tight for use with a packet switched network like CIS and
will bomb almost every time. If you get no garbage during normal connect, and
only during transfers, the problem is not the phone lines, it is the terminal
program. Make sure you are using a later version of StarTerm as the early
versions had problems similar to MaxiComm. We have the latest version here in
the DL's as STERM.ARC….I realize this creates a Catch 22 type problem….but
if you attempt to do the download very late at night (after midnight Eastern
time) it should go successfully. Try it on small short files first, so you
don't waste any money trying a larger file.
Don
Don,
I never had any problems with using Starterm V2 to download from CIS.
Though it may be that I mostly did my downloading on weekend mornings when
most of you guys are sleeping 8).
It must have taken me three months to figure out that I had to have V3.01
set to relaxed timing before I could get it to download anything!! I kept
going back to V2 to download anything. Now if only V3.01 would recover from
a received error condition. Hopefully the next version will have this
fixed. (along with its many other problems)
73, Kelly
Kelly,
Humm….I've never had problems with uploading with the 3.01 version,
but lately have been trying a beta test version of the next step (now called
NovaComm) and it does have a few problems uploading…but then this is a test
version.
Don
Don,
The problem with uploading is not with StarTerm 3.01, but appears to be
beyond my modem!! I mean datapac, or something else down the line. I tried
a couple term programs on here, and have even tried my SeXy-64, but don't
seem to get anywhere. I will have to wait and see what iNet has to say
about the matter. I have a couple of printer drivers for the Star Micronics
SR-10/15 printers to upload.
73, Kelly
Kelly,
Have you read the file DATAPA.TXT in DL 1? It contains information on
setting your DataPac parameters so you can do up/downloading.
Don
Don, I have no problems downloading (yes I do the stuff the DATAPA.TXT
says), just uploading!
I will have to wait and see what iNet has to say about it.
73, Kelly
Paul,
After I left the last message to you, I thought a full explanation of
what is going on may be in order. The was CIS and the other network services
work is that "packets" of data are sent from CIS to your node. These packets
of data can contain data for not only you, but other users connected to the
same node as well. The frequency that the packets are sent to your node (how
often a packet is sent) depends on several things such as how much data is
waiting to go there, system usage (how may folks are on CIS in it's entirety)
and how much data is waiting to go to other nodes. In other words, all the
data doesn't come in a steady stream, although it may appear to on your screen.
When you connect to a BBS, even a long distance BBS, there is no such
packet switching…you have full use of that BBS, so the data comes to you in a
steady stream.
Xmodem timing requires that the data bits be received within a specific
amount of time. On a BBS, this is no problem, but on CIS (or other services)
it can be a problem. The answer to this is to relax the timing specifications
for how much time the terminal program will wait for a character to be received
during an Xmodem transfer. MaxiComm in particular does not relax the timing
near enough for it to work with network services, althou it seems to work fine
with a BBS. As a result, while normal communications with MaxiComm and CIS
look fine (since there is no timing involved), Xmodem transfers fail almost
every time. StarTerm, in it's early versions (ver 2.0 and earlier) had similar
problems..it's timing was relaxed, but not enough for use during busy times.
It also has a setting for STANDARD and RELAXED Xmodem transfers. Use the
RELAXED setting and do the transfer late at night and it should work.
Again…the problem is NOT in the phone lines, or CIS modems, etc. the
problem is the software used not having "loose" enough timing parameters.
Does that make a little more sense now?
Don
Paul,
If you are using Starterm V3.01, be sure to set the timing parameter (right
most menu) to relaxed instead of standard. And CRC instead of Checksum.
And then when you pick the menu item to download, pick Binary receive.
That is all I can think of. I used V2 of Starterm, and never ran into any
of the timing problems. It took me a long time to figure out with V3.01
that I was supposed to have it set to relaxed timing to get thru all this
datapac (AND MOSTLY CIS) delays. The only problem with V3.01 of Starterm on
doing XMODEM transfers is that it can't recover from an error if you get one
on receive.
My only real problem (other then it being so SLOW half the time), is I can't
upload!! No problems downloading.
73, Kelly
By using DataPac the slowness is not on the CIS end. DataPac connects to
TymNet (or TeleNet — I forget which) which then connects to CIS. So, by going
thru 2 different supplemental services things tend to get bogged down.
Absolutely right Steve. When we were forced to go through Datapac/Telenet
before they restored our local node, it was irritating in the extreme to press
a CTRL O to cancel a message and then have to sit through all the packets that
were already in the net on the way to me.
Regards, Larry.
Steve,
Then I still consider it a CIS problem. They should have a direct port to
Datapac.
This would result in higher throughput by not having to go through telenet,
and will also result in lower costs for Canadians to access CIS.
I got that one comment (not in them words) from iNet themselves when I was
asking them if they could interface to a direct CIS node in Toronto instead
of having to got thru datapac then telenet. They said there were too much
incompatibilities between the CIS node and datapac, but the whole problem
could be simplified if CIS would put in a direct datapac connection.
So, no matter what you say, the problem is still CIS, if not one way, then
another. And I still say that CIS is way too slow in the evening hours
(after 7PM eastern time). It is going to take an awful lot to convince me
otherwise. These are the only real problems I hold against CIS. (though
1200 bps access rates could be lowered to 300 bps! 8) )
73, Kelly
Hi Kelly, I've got a few questions for you. 1. why can't you upload with
Starterm? I do quite a bit of uploading the stuff I download to the boards in
the area. Also do you know if you can download a file with Xmodem that has been
uploaded to CIS with Bprotocol and vice versa. Thanks for the help.
Paul Fegan