*** Troubleshooting the EZ-ROM CD-ROM Door by Mike Robinson *** May 31, 1995 (This document also applies to the SF-ROM Door) EZ-ROM writes error conditions to file ERROR.LOG in the current directory. Check this file. If it says that EZ-ROM cannot find or read a certain file, check your EZROM.MAS, EZROM.CFG, and batch files to locate where this file is specified. Change the path to the file or relocate the file. Check the spelling of the path and filename carefully. A single misplaced character will cause an error. Verify that the directories and files specified actually do exist. If you set Debug OFF, then errors will not be written to ERROR.LOG If you use EZROM.MAS make sure that the DISKS area begins and ENDS with the command word DISKS. If you leave out the second DISKS, then all the commands after the disks will be ignored. This can cause all sorts of problems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: EZ-ROM works on local end but the caller sees nothing. *** This is always caused by a failure to open the com port. Possible reasons: 1. The wrong port is being used. 2. The wrong EZ-ROM comm driver is being used or the comm driver is not loaded in memory. 3. The port is non-standard. 4. There is a conflict with other hardware/software on the system. EZ-ROM determines the port number to use by reading the door drop file: DOOR.SYS com port number is on line number 1 (EZ-ROM) DORINFOx.DEF com port number is on line number 4 (EZ-ROM) SFFILE.DAT com port number is on line number 6 (SF-ROM) In the batch file that runs EZ-ROM, the first parameter on the command line should be the full path and file name of one of these files. Check the door drop file to be sure that the correct com port number is specified on the indicated file line. You can also force EZ-ROM to use a certain port by using the ForceComPort command in EZROM.MAS or NODEx.CFG (multi-disk mode) or in EZROM.CFG (single-disk mode). This will override the port specified in the door drop file. If EZ-ROM starts, shows some of the initial displays, and then seems to halt, this is almost always an IRQ conflict with another device or software on the system. The most common such problem is an internal modem and IO card trying to use the same IRQ number. Make sure that nothing else on your system is using the IRQ and IO base address used by EZ-ROM. Other devices which could cause conflicts are a mouse, sound card, CD-ROM card, network card, tape backup card, scanner card, or just about any other piece of "extra" hardware plugged into the computer. SF-ROM uses the same IRQ and IO address as the Spitfire node. It automatically reads this information from the Spitfire SFNODE.DAT file. EZ-ROM uses the "standard" IBM PC clone com port settings which are: COM1 IRQ 4 $03F8 COM2 IRQ 3 $02F8 COM3 IRQ 4 $03E8 COM4 IRQ 3 $02E8 If your com port does not use these settings, then it is called non-standard. Which means that EZ-ROM does not know the correct settings, so you must "tell" EZ-ROM which settings to use. The commands to do this are: ForceComPort 2 ForceIrq 3 ForceBase $02F8 Put these commands in EZROM.MAS or NODEx.CFG (multi-disk mode) or in EZROM.CFG (single-disk mode). The settings shown above are for a standard COM2. You will have to adjust these to match the settings used on your com port. Note the $ in front of number in the ForceBase command. This $ indicates that it is a hexadecimal number (base16). Also note that if you use a "true blue" IBM PS/2 made by IBM then EZ-ROM detects the PS/2 and uses slightly different settings for COM3 and COM4 only. If you use a Fossil or DigiBoard driver, make sure it is properly loaded in memory and activated before running EZ-ROM. Check the local monitor status line to see if the comm driver used by EZ-ROM is the driver you set in EZROM.MAS. EZ-ROM should work OK with multiport IO cards that use a shared IRQ. For an intelligent DigiBoard (or compatible) set Driver DigiBoard. All other multiport IO cards should use Driver Uart. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: No tag letters displayed when viewing file lists. *** See the TagChar command in EZROM.DOC. If a line in a file list has a valid TagChar in the correct position, then that line is displayed in color and assigned a tag letter. So all you need to do is find a character that repeats in the same position on every line which has a file name. Then use the TagChar command to specify this character and position. Here are some examples: TagChar 26 - Lines which contain a dash(-) at position 26 will be colorized and assigned a tag letter. Lines which do NOT contain this character at this position are assumed to be header lines or extended description lines. TagChar ALL Every line will be colorized and assigned a tag letter no matter what is on the line. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: I registered EZ-ROM and now the ownload command no longer appears on the menu and callers cannot download. The caller is either over his daily download limit or the daily download limits are set too low. Now that EZ-ROM is registered, it will enforce daily limits on number of files and bytes downloaded. It gets these limits from DOOR.SYS lines 31 (kilobytes per day) and line 46 (files per day). If your BBS puts the correct values on these lines, then you are all set. Unfortunately, not all BBS systems do this. Some are known to put a 0 on one or both of these lines which causes EZ-ROM to enforce a limit of 0 and so it allows no downloads. Some other systems put a very large value on one or both of these lines, which causes the opposite problem of allowing too many downloads. You did not experience this problem with the unregistered version because EZ-ROM does not enforce any limits in the unregistered version. These is a solution to this problem. See the LIMIT command in EZROM.DOC. It will allow you to set your own limits in EZROM.MAS or EZROM.CFG. The limits you set with the LIMIT command will override the values in DOOR.SYS. Here is a brief example. If you put this line in your EZROM.MAS or EZROM.CFG LIMIT ALL 12 2000 this will limit all callers to 12 files per day and 2000 kilobytes per day. LIMIT 20 8 1000 this will limit only security level 20 to 8 files per day and 1000 kilobytes per day. If you use DORINFOx.DEF then EZ-ROM will use the default limits of 10 files and 2000K per day unless you use the LIMIT command. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: I just upgraded to Wildcat 4.0 and callers can not get into the disks. Wildcat 4.0 has a security level system where callers are assigned security level names and these names have assigned numbers. The default number for the names may be set to zero if you do not specifically set them for each name. So the solution is to assign security numbers in Wildcat which will allow access to EZ-ROM. EZ-ROM controls access to each disk by security level number. In the DISKS section of EZROM.MAS a disk might have an access control of >1. This means only callers with a security number of greater than 1 can get into that disk. These levels are only enforced when running in the BBS. They are not enforced when you run local from the DOS command line with the command EZROM LOCAL. When run in the BBS, EZ-ROM gets the callers security level number from line 15 of DOOR.SYS. So if the wrong number is put there by Wildcat, then the caller may be denied access to a disk. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: I registered EZ-ROM, but it is not writing a log file of the caller's activities in the door. Reasons why log may not be written: 1. Program running in local mode. Log not written in local mode. 2. Program not registered. 3. Log OFF command used. 4. LogName command is spelled wrong. 5. LogName command is preceded by a semicolon or it is not all the way up against the left margin of EZROM.MAS. 6. The directory specified for the log is spelled wrong and/or does not exist. 7. The name of the log file is spelled wrong and/or it is not a legal DOS file name. 8. Some other program is deleting the log. TriBBS uses a temporary log for each node. After a caller logs off, the temporary log is copied to the main log. The temporary log is then deleted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: Invalid Function Number error. *** This is usually caused by running EZ-ROM in Microsoft Windows. There is something unusual about the way Windows handles access to the DOS SHARE functions. Windows actually indicates thet SHARE is loaded when it is not. EZ-ROM tries to use a share function and since it is not there, DOS returns an Invalid Function Number error. There are 2 easy solutions: 1. Use the command SHARE OFF in EZROM.MAS. 2. Load DOS SHARE.EXE in your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------