[daip] aips - tape problem etc.

[Eric Greisen]

Hiroko Shinnaga writes:

 >   And the light of the tape driver keep blinking, 
 > looks like reading something.  But, although I
 > wait for a while, no file could be written on 
 > the disk.  So, first I tried the command 'dismount' 
 > from aips but I couldn't stop it because the tape is 
 > busy.  Then, since I though I'd better stop the process, 
 > I exited aips and kill the process 'FILLM' by 
 > kill command.  (I found the FILLM process by the command 
 > 'ps -ax. )  I think this is not a recommended  
 > way to do it.  

     FILLM can take a long time sometimes.  Try something faster until
you have the tape apparently working.  The verb TPHEAD will read only
a few records and then say something.  Firts I would do simply a MOUNT
and then a DISMOUNT.

    There is a verb in aips called ABORT as in ABORT FILLM that should
work.

 > 
 >   I guess my aips is not properly installed yet.  I 
 > faced the message window error, which I described 
 > in my previous mail, too.  So, could you please 
 > let me know how I can fix those problems?  

      Tapes are hard - the services simple.

 > 
 >   In addition to the above, should I prepare .cshrc 
 > or .alias files for running aips smoothly?  How do 
 > people usually do for running aips?

     My login files do

setenv AIPS_ROOT <whatever place you have>
source $AIPS_ROOT/LOGIN.CSH

which is enough to run AIPS by just saying aips or AIPS.  For
programming I add

$CDTST

which defines tons of variables you will probablty not need.

 > ps. As a reference, I'd like to write down one more 
 > thing.  When I try to check the tape drive 
 > via mt command, I get the following answer; 
 > 
 > [aips at ula AIPS]$ mt -f /dev/nst0 status
 > SCSI 2 tape drive:
 > File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
 > Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x25 (DDS-3).
 > Soft error count since last status=0
 > General status bits on (41010000):

    You should use nst0 - you do not want the tape rewinding every
file.  Things will work badly.  FILLM tapes are often many files and
this will cause many problems.

I will forward this on to my system advisors to see if they have any
suggestions.  Are you unable to get any help from people at CfA?
Shoshana Rosenthal is an expert aips system person and there are folks
helping Lyn Matthews too.

 > 
 > [aips at ula AIPS]$ mt -f /dev/st0 status
 > SCSI 2 tape drive:
 > File number=2, block number=7686, partition=0.
 > Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x25 (DDS-3).
 > Soft error count since last status=0
 > General status bits on (1010000):
 >  ONLINE IM_REP_EN
 > 
 > Those two dirs are for one tape drives; 
 > /dev/nst0 for no rewind 
 > /dev/st0 for rewind 
 > 
 > I tried to set both for the aips setting and both cases, 
 > I met the same problem.  C
 > 
 > 
 > 
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