Lisp stopped itself...

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

   Date: Sat, 14 Sep 91 22:05 PDT
   From: Scott_Busse%mindlink.bc.ca@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Scott Busse)

   3>
     Lisp stopped itself.
     Halt reason ("Disk Error ~D, operation ~D, ~
     <211><211><211> Unit ~D, cylinder ~D, head ~D, sector ~D,
	    continue to retry." " %DISK-ERROR-SEARCH 11(8) 0(8) 2402(8) 21(8))

This indicates that the system encountered a bad block while trying to
access a .load or .page file.  If this happens regularly, and the disk
address values that it prints are similar each time, it probably means that
your disk has developed a new bad spot.

Unfortunately, Genera 7.1 doesn't include some of the disk diagnostics that
can be used from Lisp to map out the bad blocks.

...

   - typing "continue" as above, (4 tries) gives the same error as 3>, but then
   returns the message (on the fifth "continue"):

     Lisp stopped itself.
     Halt reason ("Wired-wait timeout, predicate ~S false for over ~D. ms."
		 <DTP-6 36647> 72460(8))

This can be safely ignored, it's just a side effect of the fact that the
original error never cleared up, and eventually Lisp gave up trying and
reported it as a timeout.

   - so I tried Start again, which did error message 3> again, and Start
     again, which brought the error message

     >Emergency breakpoint Last chance: Lisp not initialized! Type <RETURN> to
      exit.

   - this left the cursor blinking a few lines down, and everthing else frozen.

You're misreading the message, it says, "Type (RETURN)".  You're supposed
to type open-parenthesis r e t u r n close-parenthesis.

   - I am about to upgrade the software to the current versions, (I'm working
     it out with Mike Western at Symbolics in Seattle) but in the
     meantime, can anyone shed some light on the problem? It seems more like
     a hardware problem to me, that ~D for everthing in the error message seems
     a bit strange (it was the day *after* friday the 13th!) and Hex "D" being
     13 is darn scary! :) :<

It's almost definitely a hardware problem.  The question is whether the
problem is the disk or the Lisp Machine; it's probably the disk.  If you're
on support, they should be able to replace the disk.  If there's no LMFS on
the disk and you were planning on upgrading, this would be the easiest fix;
the replacement disk will come with the current version of the software
already installed.

The ~D in the error message is just an artifact of the fact that the FEP
doesn't implement the Lisp FORMAT function.  Routines that crash the system
call a function that takes FORMAT-style arguments, and the FEP just prints
all these arguments separately instead of substituting into the string.

						barmar