*** Troubleshooting the SF-ROM Door by Mike Robinson *** SF-ROM writes error conditions to file ERROR.LOG in the current directory. Check this file. If it says that SF-ROM cannot find or read a certain file, check your SFROM.MAS, SFROM.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 SFROM.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: SF-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 SF-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. SF-ROM determines the port number to use by reading line 6 of one of the following door drop files: SFFILE.DAT If you run SF-ROM on the Spitfire file menu extension. SFMAIN.DAT If you run SF-ROM on the Spitfire main menu extension. SFMESS.DAT If you run SF-ROM on the Spitfire message menu extension. SFDOORS.DAT If you run SF-ROM in the Spitfire doors section. In the batch file that runs SF-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 SF-ROM to use a certain port by using the ForceComPort command in SFROM.MAS or NODEx.CFG (multi-disk mode) or in SFROM.CFG (single-disk mode). This will override the port specified in the door drop file. If SF-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 SF-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. When running on Spitfire BBS, SF-ROM gets the IRQ number and IO base address from the Spitfire SFNODE.DAT file. So SF-ROM will use the same values for these as configured in Spitfire for the node. If run on a BBS other than Spitfire, then SF-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 SF-ROM does not know the correct settings, so you must "tell" SF-ROM which settings to use. The commands to do this are: ForceComPort 2 ForceIrq 3 ForceBase $02F8 Put these commands in SFROM.MAS or NODEx.CFG (multi-disk mode) or in SFROM.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 SF-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 SF-ROM. Check the local monitor status line to see if the comm driver used by SF-ROM is the driver you set in SFROM.MAS. SF-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 SFROM.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. TagChar 18 , Lines which contain a comma (,) at position 18 will be colorized and assigned a tag letter. The standard Spitfire SFFILES.BBS format has a comma in the file size at position 18. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: I registered SF-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 SF-ROM is registered it is enforcing the daily download limits. It gets these limits from the Spitfire DAILYLMT.DAT file. If there is no DAILYLMT.DAT file then it gets the limits from the door drop file SFFILE.DAT or equivalent. You may also set different limits for use in SF-ROM only by using the LIMIT command as described in SFROM.DOC. It will allow you to set your own limits in SFROM.MAS or SFROM.CFG. The limits you set with the LIMIT command will override the values in DAILYLMT.DAT. The default limits are 10 files or 2 meg per day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROBLEM: Invalid Function Number error. *** This is usually caused by running SF-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. SF-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 SFROM.MAS. 2. Load DOS SHARE.EXE in your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------