Ultrix 3.x/DILOG+Exabyte problem resolved

[Bob Warren]

In a previous posting we reported the following problem:

>We have a DILOG SQ703A tape controller with an Exabyte 8mm tape drive
>(prom 4$22) attached to VAXstation II running Ultrix 3.1.  Under Ultrix
>2.2, the Exabyte worked perfectly, but since we upgraded to Ultrix 3.x
>it has not worked very well.  It understands commands like "mt -f
>/dev/rmt1h rewind" or "mt -f /dev/rmt1h offline", but dd, tar, and dump
>all fail in a moderately strange way.  Tar will begin to write on the
>tape, but then will come back with:
>
>	/dev/rmt1h: Error 0
>	tar: Archive 1 write error
>
>Dd and dump also report "Error 0" and complain about write errors.

After numerous calls to both DEC and DILOG, we recently received
a new prom from DILOG which appears to have fixed the problem.
The new prom is labeled "SQ703ARWC1 #51BD3F 01-AUG-89".

As usual with our calls to DEC, the Ultrix TSC support people failed
to call back with status messages, even to say they could not solve
the problem.   Eventually (after calls from us) TSC said the problem
was being referred back to our local office.  In three weeks we never got
a call from a local support person, despite calls to local field service
management.

Admittedly this is a more difficult support case, with two vendors
involved.  But DEC claims to support this particular configuration
with hardware and software maintenance.  Unfortunately, our experience
with Ultrix support has always been very frustrating, especially compared
to the VMS support we get which is generally good.  We would be interested
to hear from others whose experiences have been better on non-obvious
Ultrix problems.

Bob Warren
Manager, UNIX Systems
   Research and Development
Research Triangle Institute