#Software Failure Help!
11 messages in this thread
Hi — Perhaps someone could give me some help with a program I downloaded
form the forum recently…. The program is called Morse3 (Morse Code
Tutor), and the odd thing is, it works fine if launched from the Shell,
but if I click on the Icon (I made the Icon for it) on Workbench, I get a
"Software Failure" requester with the message "Program Failed (error
#87000004). Wait for disk activity to finish." And it gives me Suspend or
Reboot gadgets. I have an Amiga 3000 with 6 Megs of mem and DOS 2.04.
I can't find any documentation on what the error number means, or why this
requester is coming up. Plus, I'm not sure why the program runs OK via
CLI, but not WorkBench. Any help anyone can give would be most
appreciated. Thanks!
— AutoPilot Engaged….
— Dave
Dave:
I'm still using Workbench 1.3, so this _may_ not be the same for WB 2.0x.
In 1.3 there are two things that would cause what you describe to happen.
One is that the program needs more "stack" space (i.e. a certain amount of
memory set aside for it called a stack). Usually, this can be fixed by
increasing the number in the "stack" requestor for the icon (select the
icon, go to the Workbench menu and then select "info". _If_ you created a
"tool" icon, there should be a requestor on the window which alows you to
set a number for the stack. Try 20000.)
The other problem in 1.3 is that some program just won't work with
workbench. There is a way around, however, and that is iconx, a program in
your "c" directory. To use iconx to run a program from the workbench that
normally can only be run from the shell, you create a script that is
identical to the command you would use to start the program from the shell.
Then you create a "project" icon that has the same name as the script.
Then, you select the icon, select the Workbench menu, select "info", and
put c:iconx in the box called "default tool".
Then, when you double click on the icon, it looks in the "c" directory, and
runs iconx. Iconx opens a little shell, feeds it the script, and the shell
sits around until you are finished using that program run by the script,
and then shuts down.
If this is not the same in AmigaDOS 2.0xx, others should jump in and
correct me!
– via Whap!
Ray:
Thanks for your advice on the software failure! I had thought of the stack
overflow, and tried different stack numbers ( I think I tried up to
100000), but I still got the requester. I usually get a specific "stack
overflow" message, if I remember correctly, when there is not enough stack
space.
I tried your suggestion about creating an iconx script to run the program,
and it worked perfectly! Basically, the iconx script is just the name of
the program (Morse3). I created a project icon (actually transferred the
one I made for the program itself, changing it to a project type via
IconEdit) and set c:iconx as the default tool. Presto! it worked on the
first try. I guess the program was written to run from the Shell only.
Thanks again for your help — maybe now I'll learn that code and get my
ham license! Talk to you later….
—-AutoPilot Engaged
— Dave
Dave,
3.HEARTOFGOLD.TRILLIAN:art/vista/t4m> guru 87000004
Alert Type: DEADEND
Generated by: DOS Library
Specific Cause: Unexpected packet received
Offhand, I'd say that the program wasn't designed to be 'launched' from
the WB. There are different requirements in a program depending on how it
gets started. I suspect you could do an IconX script for it with little
difficulty.
Vic, thanks for the info on the guru number… someone also suggested an
IconX script for the program… tried it and it worked perfectly!
BTW, what is that HEARTOFGOLD.TRILLIAN etc that seemed to give you the
guru definition…. Did you ask Marvin to tell you what the guru was
meditiating, since he as a brain the size of a planet? <g>
Thanks again for the info….
—- AutoPilot Engaged (and NOT deflating…)
— Dave
Nah, maybe I should have done it this way, eh?
12.HEARTOFGOLD.MARVIN:> guru 87000004
Alert Type: DEADEND
Generated by: DOS Library
Specific Cause: Unexpected packet received
As is pretty common (I guess) with networks, we have a server called
"HEARTOFGOLD". We currently have 6 partitions on the two disks:
ND5: 54M 105192 7248 94% 0 Read/Write HEARTOFGOLD.MARVIN
ND4: 255M 329040 193200 63% 0 Read/Write HEARTOFGOLD.ARTHUR
ND3: 255M 432552 89688 83% 0 Read/Write HEARTOFGOLD.FORD
ND2: 121M 224576 23320 91% 0 Read/Write HEARTOFGOLD.TRILLIAN
ND1: 255M 498768 23472 96% 0 Read/Write HEARTOFGOLD.ZAPHOD
ND0: 255M 340568 181672 65% 0 Read/Write HEARTOFGOLD.SYS
I know, I know, the last is a bit mundane. At any rate, my shell prompt
shows the current directory and that's where it came from in the original
'snap' I sent.
OH, OK that explains it…. I didn't know "Hitchhiker's Guide" names were
so popular on networks…. didn't recognize the line as a shell prompt.
I take it then, on HEARTOFGOLD.TRILLIAN you have a utility ("guru") that
tells you the meaning of those guru meditation numbers… is that
something that comes from the forum libraries, or is it a commercial
program?
—-AutoPilot Engaged
— Dave
Acutally, 'guru' is in one of the places I keep executable files and is in
the search 'path' (see the PATH command in the AmigaDOS docs). I just
happened to _be_ working there when I stopped to get/read messages.
I'm kinda partial to Addams Family names. There's just something about
working on a machine named "Fester". 🙂 🙂
Steve
Very strange, Vic. I named the main software engineering server at
Commodore heartofgold. Of course, that becomes HOG for short 🙂
(The other server I named ghostwheel. And, for awhile, I was naming all
the Suns after characters from Gilligan's Island. We ran out of
characters, though. We never did adopt a unified naming scheme for the
networked Amigas.)
The Amiga servers were named amiga and alcatraz. The Suns at Amiga were
named after characters from Rocky and Bullwinkle, with a couple exceptions.
Its amazing the kinds of trivia that one collects 🙂
andy
Andy,
Trvia????!???!?!? That's real important stuff we're discussing now.