System crashing.. HELP!

[Ross Parker]

System:  Microvax-II with Emulex QD-32 disk controller and
         two Fujitsu Eagle disk drives. 13 Mb memory. Running
         Ultrix 3.0. System supports perhaps 15-20 interactive
         logins, and perhaps 20 PCs connected via Sun's PC-NFS.
         The PCs access files using standard NFS on the Microvax.

Symptom: One user on a PC can try to bring up a particular
         file under WordPerfect (version 5.0 or 5.1) on the
         PC, and, without fail, cause the Microvax to
         instantly crash. This problem just started happening.
         No system changes, either hardware or software, have
         taken place for a number of months. The user does
         not have a problem with any other files, nor does
         any other user cause the system to die. The system
         is also used for NFS operations from other Vaxen, and
         from some Sun systems, and no problems occur. The crash
         symptoms are (on the console):


Trap Type 9, code = 803771ff, pc = 80034ca0

panic: Protection fault


         and in the error log:


********************************* ENTRY    29.
*********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             ERROR EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE                  104.     CONTROLLER ERROR
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  0.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        ULTRIX 32
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar  5 13:44:28 1990 PST
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      waters
SYSTEM ID                 x08000000
SYSTYPE REG.              x01010000
                                        FIRMWARE REV = 1.
PROCESSOR TYPE                          KA630

----- UNIT INFORMATION -----

UNIT CLASS                              ADAPTER/CONTROLLER
UNIT TYPE                               UDA50A
CONTROLLER NO.
UNIT NO.                         0.
ERROR SYNDROME                          CONTROLLER ERROR

********************************* ENTRY    30.
*********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             ERROR EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE                  200.     PANIC
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  5.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        ULTRIX 32
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar  5 13:42:26 1990 PST
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      waters
SYSTEM ID                 x08000000
SYSTYPE REG.              x01010000
                                        FIRMWARE REV = 1.
PROCESSOR TYPE                          KA630
PANIC MESSAGE                           Protection fault

********************************* ENTRY    31.
*********************************
----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             ERROR EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE                  109.     EXCEPTION/FAULT
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  4.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        ULTRIX 32
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar  5 13:42:26 1990 PST
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      waters
SYSTEM ID                 x08000000
SYSTYPE REG.              x01010000
                                        FIRMWARE REV = 1.
PROCESSOR TYPE                          KA630

----- UNIT INFORMATION -----

ERROR SYNDROME                          PROTECTION FAULT

********************************* ENTRY    32.
*********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             OPERATIONAL EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE                  250.     ASCII MSG
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  7.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        ULTRIX 32
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar  5 13:42:40 1990 PST
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      waters
SYSTEM ID                 x08000000
SYSTYPE REG.              x01010000
                                        FIRMWARE REV = 1.
PROCESSOR TYPE                          KA630
MESSAGE                                 done

********************************* ENTRY    33.
*********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             OPERATIONAL EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE                  250.     ASCII MSG
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  6.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        ULTRIX 32
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar  5 13:42:39 1990 PST
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      waters
SYSTEM ID                 x08000000
SYSTYPE REG.              x01010000
                                        FIRMWARE REV = 1.
PROCESSOR TYPE                          KA630
MESSAGE                                 syncing disks...



         Now this certainly looks like a probable bad controller,
right? Well, we've replaced the controller with a new one, and
get an identical problem... down to identical register values in
the register dump. We've also run DEC diagnostics and the system
passes with no problems, other than (and this I'm mildly worried
about) the disk controller... however, I believe the controller
is failing because it's a non-DEC controller, and DEC's diags are
expecting a KDA50. The controller (the new one) passed the
vendor's diags, and the diags included scanning the disks. No
problems were found anywhere.

	In addition, we can read and write any file on both disks
locally (not via NFS) and no problems occur, so the problem is
possibly related to NFS rather than to disk driver code or
whatever.

	Perusing the resultant crash dumps has not given me
much enlightenment, however, I'm not an expert at that, and
have misplaced my list of magic incantations to have adb show
anything useful. Perhaps someone can enlighten me? Care to
bite, George? I'm sure you've done this numerous times.

	If anyone can shed any light on this, it'd be *much*
appreciated. This Monday, the system went down about 7 times
before this particular user called us to say that each crash
happened exactly when she tried to access this file!

Thanks,

Ross Parker				parker at mpre.mpr.ca
(604)293-5495				uunet!ubc-cs!mpre!parker