Tar(1) somtimes hangs 1/4" tape drive

[Charlie Dennett]

I have a 3/260 running 4.0.1.  The system also has a 1/4 inch SCSI tape
drive.  Sometimes when using tar(1) to extract files from a tar tape, the
tar process will hang.  The tar(1) process is still there and I've tried
killing it but it does not die.  The only way to free up the tape drive is
to reboot the system.  Even the reboot process complains a little bit
about "some processes would not die" or words to that effect.

I called the Hotline and the engineer suggested purging the directory in
which the kernal is built (/usr/sys/sun3/SYSTEMNAME) and to rebuild the
kernal.  I did this and it seemed to help somewhat.  Some tar tapes that
used to hang the tape drive now work, but there are others that still
cause the problem.

Has anyone else seen this problem?  Does anyone have a solution?  I will
summarize any information received by e-mail.

Thanks for any information.


-- 
Charlie Dennett - Eastman Kodak Company
UUCP: ...rutgers!rochester!kodak!dennett 
      ...rutgers!rochester!kodak!cygnus!dennett
Might also work: dennett at cygnus.kodak.com