From:	SMTP%"RELAY-INFO-VAX@CRVAX.SRI.COM" 20-JUL-1994 10:27:25.90
To:	EVERHART
CC:	
Subj:	Re: Mail Sharable Routines

From: vandenheuvel@eps.enet.dec.com (Hein RMS van den Heuvel)
X-Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Mail Sharable Routines
Date: 19 JUL 94 09:21:35
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <30gkkh$imi@jac.zko.dec.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: AMUZED
To: Info-VAX@CRVAX.SRI.COM
X-Gateway-Source-Info: USENET


In article <30g216$5b5@barnacle.iol.ie>, elrd@iol.ie (Eurologics Research Elrd Development) writes...
>Matt Madison (madison@tgv.com) wrote:
>: Who were you sending mail to?  If it was SYSTEM or some other account
>: that has a search list logical name as its login device, you will get
>: this dangling-channel behavior.  It's not your fault; it's the fault
>: of the MAILSHR routines not cleaning up the search list context created
>: by RMS when it's looking up the mail file.

Right Matt, That is propably the problem. Now MAIL _knows_ how to do this
as witnessed by its (internal) MAIL$$DEL_RMS_WCC function. It just did not
do it rigourously all over the place. I know I helped fix a reported
occurance for V6.1. This seems to point to yet one more to fix.

>In case anyone is interested, my workaround is to have the following 
>(pseudo-code only):
>	int saved_channel; int *arg = &saved_channel;
>	assign("NL:",dummy_channel)
>	saved_channel = dummy_channel
>	dassgn(dummy_channel)
>	mail$send_message(...)
>	cmkrnl(routine_to_deassign_channel_again,&arg)
> 
>This appears to work OK and not to barf if dummy_channel is not open.  I 
>realise that this will only work if the zombie channel is the next 
>available one, but this does appear to be the case.

Cute. That should do it. However, it will NOT release the VM that
is allocated along with the channel, so yo uwill still run out of
resources after a while. Perhaps sending (forwarding) via the 
network or some store and forward mechanisme (internally we use Nmail)
will porve a workaround? (I did not try).

Anyway, as this appears to be a previously unknown occurance reproducable
under the latests released versions (V6.1) please report this officially
to Digital. Feel free to submit an SPR, QAR or whatever formal problem 
reporting mechanism at your disposal to allow us to gauge the priority 
and to track the problem.

Hope this helps,               +--------------------------------------+
                               | All opinions expressed are mine, and |
Hein van den Heuvel            | may not reflect those of my employer |
vandenheuvel@eps.enet.dec.com  +--------------------------------------+