Imagen and 4.0.1 (cras

[Brian Glendenning]

We recently upgraded our machine (Sun 3/180 with lots of filled slots)
from SunOS 3.4 to 4.0.1, and the OS is patched with the patch tape YAPT
5.4. We are running an Imagen off a serial port on an ALM (Systech/MTI)
board.

Almost every time someone tried to print anything using the default serial
packet protocol the system crashes. It's fine using straight byte-stream.
Still, I'd much rather use the packet protocol for its robustness.

Has anyone else run into this problem? Fixes?  Someone more knowledgeable
than me who looked at the crash dump says:

      The trap occurs in the middle of a rather benign instruction.  It
      indicates that another board (say the mti?) is DMAing to or from a
      misaligned address and causing the problem.  I have no corroborating
      evidence, though.

(The running process is always ips - the serial packet protocol
communication program; it dies - bus error - while doing an ioctl).

It is not caused by the bug (improper times after tar) in the 4.0.1
upgrade process, and the problem also seems to exist with the generic 4.0
kernel. The imagen "hostsoft" software is version 3.0, dated 1-Mar-1988.

Thanks.
--
	  Brian Glendenning - Radio astronomy, University of Toronto
brian at radio.astro.utoronto.ca uunet!utai!radio!brian  glendenn at utorphys.bitnet