TECH: trouble with the'cat?

Subject: trouble with the'cat?
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 27 Apr 02 - 10:58 PM

I have been unable (until now, obviously) to reach mudcat for two days. My child Molly has also had trouble with reaching the 'cat. Was something amiss?

I also had a strange message the other day (Thursday) which told me I was out of "stack pages" whatever THOSE are. After that I had a hard time shutting down. Once on Friday and once, earlier today (Saturday)?

Anyone else? Is there some nasty bug going about?

youth wants to know!

CB

Subject: RE: trouble with the'cat?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Apr 02 - 11:04 PM

I couldn't pull the cat out of the bag for a day, meself. My cookie expired too, but they gae me a new one.

Jerry

Subject: RE: trouble with the'cat?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Apr 02 - 11:11 PM

See FAQ, re: different servers and routes in.

~S~

Subject: RE: trouble with the'cat?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Apr 02 - 11:36 PM

Yeah, the "shorty" server was down for a while and gave a "wait named pipe returned false" message (or something like that). As Susan says, the Help forum has links to different ways into Mudcat. "Shorty" is the computer that runs www.mudcat.org and shorty.mudcat.org. If Shordy's down, try loki.mudcat.org or ragtime.mudcat.org

Dharma and Jah are dead. If you wish to discuss the theological implications of the death of dharma and jah, feel free.

I dunno about the "stack" thing. I've encountered it a few times, but didn't think it had to do with Mudcat. Anybody got an explanation?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: artbrooks
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 12:57 AM

Well, I got "WaitPipe" messages on loki and shorty as well as mudcat, but it fixed itself after a while. Being in the Southwest as I am, I generally figure that a router is down somewhere, and it always comes back up again eventually...at least so far.

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: hesperis
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 02:23 AM

I liked Dharma the best. Probably because not many people knew about that one, it was always fast. *Sigh*
The last couple of days I've had trouble with reaching shorty and loki, ragtime was usually ok.

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 08:49 AM

I also had the Wait Pipe message yesterday & missed my daily dose of Mudcat (withdrawal symptoms, but I'm feeling better now). Being technically unschooled I went to 2 Australian folk sites that have links to Mudcat & tried them, to no avail. Fortunately my bookmark worked tonight.

Sandra

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the 'cat?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 09:00 AM

Jah? I never tried that one. Ragtime seems the most reliable in my experience.

The thing to do is keep all of them available, either on a home page or in favourites (or whatever you call it on your browser), and try the others. And the help one as well - that often works even when the others don't (though of course it doesn't get you to the forum, just to the help forum where you can lament that you can't get through to the normal one.)

"Wait pipes", "stack pages" - what strange jargon they have come up with, the magicians who set this whole world up.

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 10:54 AM

FYI: A stack is usually a memory buffer and a page is a pre-determined size for the buffer [ie 1024B or whatever] The easiest way to understand a pipe, in this context, is to think of it as a pipe.

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 11:47 AM

Most of the time I log in via Netscape-Ragtime but sometimes when things are jammed up for whatever reason I can still access Mudcat via Microsoft Internet Explorer; when I do so I'm again a "guest" but that permits me to make even more outrageous comments anonymously.;~)

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 02 - 08:39 PM

A segment of memory gets put aside for storing data in that will be needed in a process. The dfata can be anything depending on the process. The segment of memory is called a stack (just like a stack of plates or anything else). The stack is divided into sections of uniform size called pages. If you are trying to manage a LOT of memory, it can be faster to tell the computer to find something on the third line of page thirteen, than to tell ti to find it at row X column Y or a number indicating the sequential location of that memory location. Being out of pages means that some process has loaded up your memory until there are no more allocated places to store anymore data into.

A pipe is a _logical_ connection between two processes -- for example a process of getting all the data your enquiry calls for, and another process of assembling that data into an HTML page, and another process for translating that HTML into packets of data with headers as required by the communication protocol, and another process for taking those packets off the stack and sending them. If th logical pipe is broken then the first process has no way to send the data to the second process and everything grinds to a halt.

Functionally a pipe works like a pipe does physically -- a stream going in one end goes straight to the other end and comes out there.

A

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 12:44 AM

OK Amos, makes some sense.

I was working on a PhotoShop file for about two hours so that is where the memory began to get used up and saving the process (like saving the data on a clipboard for use with another application - Illustrator in this case) just added to the whole mess. Even with 512 megs of RAM!

So the 'cat WAS down a bit also and everything now makes perfect sense.

Thanks all and especially amos and misophist.

CB

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 01:14 AM

Bookmark stopped working---but Google never fails!

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 01:15 AM

I had the same problem. I got the "returned false" message and after about an hour get the troble shooter page. After about six tries i managed to get in through on of the mirror sites.

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 09:11 AM

Aaaar at last I discover what that perplexing "shorty" at the bottom of the thread list means. It might sound a bit thick, but do I just enter one of these alternative servers in the URL before mudcat? I'm using MS explorer at the local library here in the Peoples Free Democratic Republic of Eccles UK and got that "pipe" thing. All the best PP.

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Snuffy
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 09:20 AM

That's right, PP. enter "ragtime" instead of "www" in the address.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: TECH: trouble with the'cat?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 05:10 PM

I have just done a search on the running out of stack pages. I'm not sure what browsers and OS are getting the problems here but the first 2 pages I found involve Internet Explorer 5 and Windows 98.

Apparrently, the problem can be resolved by adding the line

MinSps=4

to the [386Enh] section of System.ini and rebooting. Both sites suggest increasing the number of pages in increments of 4 if problems persist. Each stack page uses 4 Kb of system memory.

Jon