SUMMARY (sort of): question marks in output from ps command

From: Eiler, James A. (James.Eiler_at_alcoa.com)
Date: 06/24/03

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    Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 10:14:19 -0400
To: "'tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov'" <tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov>

    Original question at the bottom....

    I received responses from the following:

    Robert Binkley
    Dr. Thomas Blinn
    John Pshyk
    Iain Barker

    THANKS!

    Bottom line: no firm solutions, and the problem just went away!

    Robert wanted to know if I was at the latest Patch Kit. Answer: no.

    Dr. Tom replied: "Without going and examining the "ps" code in detail,
    I can't be sure, but my expectation is that the code is getting back
    data from the kernel that it knows is wrong, so when it constructs
    the strings in memory that eventually get output to your display,
    it's putting in the question marks. But that's just a guess."

    John said he posted a similar problem several months ago and received
    no replies.

    Iain had two questions: Were you logged in non-root? Answer: both
    non-root and root logins saw the problem. Running C2 cert? No.

    In my UPDATE message that I submitted later in the day of the
    problem, I wrote:

       The same system has been running all day (no reboots, etc.)

       The ps command now works fine - no question marks.

       Bewildering.....

    Haven't seen the problem since then. I guess we'll follow Robert's
    advice and apply the latest Patch Kit.

    Seeing as though there are no firm solutions, I'll borrow some text
    from Dr. Tom's "trailer":

         "Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / UNIX is like that
                            -- apologies to Margaret Segall"

    Thanks again!

    Jim

    -----Original Message-----

    From: Eiler, James A. [mailto:James.Eiler@alcoa.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 10:18 AM
    To: 'tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov'
    Subject: question marks in output from ps command

    Hi All,

    Running a DS20, Tru64 5.1A, no Patch Kits.

    I issue the ps command and get:

    # ps
       PID TTY S TIME CMD
      1633 console ???+ ?? /usr/sbin/getty console console vt100
      2172 pts/1 ???+ ?? -ksh (ksh)
      2173 pts/2 ???+ ?? -ksh (ksh)
      2174 pts/3 ???+ ?? -ksh (ksh)
    490132 pts/5 ???+ ?? -ksh (ksh)
     63183 pts/7 ??? ?? ksh
     67142 pts/7 ???+ ?? ps

    I do a more elaborate ps and get:

    # ps -o time,state,psxpri,pgid,pid,command
           TIME S PPR PGID PID COMMAND
             ?? ???+ ? 1633 1633 /usr/sbin/getty console console vt100
             ?? ???+ ? 2172 2172 -ksh (ksh)
             ?? ???+ ? 2173 2173 -ksh (ksh)
             ?? ???+ ? 2174 2174 -ksh (ksh)
             ?? ???+ ? 490132 490132 -ksh (ksh)
             ?? ??? ? 63183 63183 ksh
             ?? ???+ ? 65084 65084 ps -o time,state,psxpri,pgid,pid,command

    Any idea(s) what all the question marks (?? and ???) indicate???

    Thanks!

    Jim

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