sin and ps errors: text file busy

We have a flakey PC running QNX 4.24, Photon 1.13, TCP/IP of about the same
pedigree.

It crashed the other day, so we rebooted it. I telnetted in immediately
after reboot, and tried to run sin and ps. They both returned the error
“text file busy”, and nothing more. Eventually it looked like Fsys crashed,
because I started getting “not found” errors from the shell when I tried to
run things.

My guess is that we have a hardware problem, possibly a bad hard drive. What
I’d like to know is what the “text file busy” message really means. Any help
would be appreciated.

Kevin Miller <kevin.miller@transcore.com> wrote:

We have a flakey PC running QNX 4.24, Photon 1.13, TCP/IP of about the same
pedigree.

It crashed the other day, so we rebooted it. I telnetted in immediately
after reboot, and tried to run sin and ps. They both returned the error
“text file busy”, and nothing more. Eventually it looked like Fsys crashed,
because I started getting “not found” errors from the shell when I tried to
run things.

My guess is that we have a hardware problem, possibly a bad hard drive. What
I’d like to know is what the “text file busy” message really means. Any help
would be appreciated.

Did you run a chkfsys after rebooting? Have you tried a dcheck on the
drive?

-David

“David Gibbs” <dagibbs@qnx.com> wrote in message
news:91dl4c$nts$2@nntp.qnx.com

Kevin Miller <> kevin.miller@transcore.com> > wrote:
We have a flakey PC running QNX 4.24, Photon 1.13, TCP/IP of about the
same
pedigree.

It crashed the other day, so we rebooted it. I telnetted in immediately
after reboot, and tried to run sin and ps. They both returned the error
“text file busy”, and nothing more. Eventually it looked like Fsys
crashed,
because I started getting “not found” errors from the shell when I tried
to
run things.

My guess is that we have a hardware problem, possibly a bad hard drive.
What
I’d like to know is what the “text file busy” message really means. Any
help
would be appreciated.

Did you run a chkfsys after rebooting? Have you tried a dcheck on the
drive?

-David

We brought the pc back to the shop, where I ran chkfsys. There appeared to
be nothing substantially wrong; no severe errors turned up, at least. I did
not run dcheck. The system ran perfectly in the shop, even before I ran
chkfsys, and was needed in the field, so we put it back out there. It has
been running ok now for the better part of a day.

The pc runs in a “pit” beneath a tollbooth in Manila, the Philippines, where
it is subject to all sorts of stresses. We re-seated all of the disk drive
cables, cleaned filters, etc., before re-installing, so the root cause may
have been something fairly benign.

In any event, I would still like to know what the “text file busy” message
from sin and ps meant or implied. I would be surprised if it was the result
of a system or application software bug, as we have 140+ identical such
systems in the field right now, and this is the only time that I have
experienced this particular problem.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin Miller <kevin.miller@transcore.com> wrote:

In any event, I would still like to know what the “text file busy” message
from sin and ps meant or implied. I would be surprised if it was the result
of a system or application software bug, as we have 140+ identical such
systems in the field right now, and this is the only time that I have
experienced this particular problem.

The text file busy was probably not returned by ps or sin – but probably
by the shell trying to load those executables. It corresponds to the
errno ETXTBSY, and, from what I can tell, is set/returned by Fsys if you
try to run a program (file) that is open for write.

Sounds like something got very confused.

-David

QNX Training Services
dagibbs@qnx.com

We get that when we copy a executable onto a QNX from a WinNT, and then try to run the executable.
Sometimes the WinNT seems to hold onto the file for a while after the copy. Might be a Samba204/207
thing for us, but I suspect its a WinNT thing…
-Paul

David Gibbs <dagibbs@qnx.com> wrote in message news:91lbu3$954$1@nntp.qnx.com

Kevin Miller <> kevin.miller@transcore.com> > wrote:

In any event, I would still like to know what the “text file busy” message
from sin and ps meant or implied. I would be surprised if it was the result
of a system or application software bug, as we have 140+ identical such
systems in the field right now, and this is the only time that I have
experienced this particular problem.

The text file busy was probably not returned by ps or sin – but probably
by the shell trying to load those executables. It corresponds to the
errno ETXTBSY, and, from what I can tell, is set/returned by Fsys if you
try to run a program (file) that is open for write.

Sounds like something got very confused.

-David

QNX Training Services
dagibbs@qnx.com