_DDEDIT Troubleshooting

config.tpm

The config.tpm is a configuration file that the _ddedit.utl uses to find the location of the DATA and DICTIONARY files. It may be created with any text editor. The DATA and DICTIONARY variables are case sensitive and need to be in all capital letters. The path after these two variables may or may not be case sensitive; this is dependent on the operating system. The slashes may be forward or backward; BBx will resolve this issue regardless of the operating system. The config.tpm file should be located in the directory where BBx is located.

Sample config.tpm file:

DICTIONARY=c:\mypath\bbdict\
DATA=c:\mypath\data\

BBx will search all drives that do not have a dsksyn in the config.bbx file including local floppy drives, such as A or B, for the standard and extended utilities. Verify that all unavailable drives, such as the A drive all the way through the Z drive, are being dsksyn'd in the config.bbx file. Also verify that any valid drives that you want BBx to search, are not dsksyn'd. Occasionally, BBx will report and ERROR=60 (GENERAL I/O ERROR) with TCB(10) of -21, ERROR 17 (INVALID PARAMETER), or ERROR 49 (STBL ERROR) for the same reasons stated above. Verify that the paths being defined in the config.tpm file are not being dsksyn'd in the config.bbx file.

You will receive this error when BBx cannot find the BBx utilities. The Data Dictionary relies on the extended utilities to load. Verify that the PREFIX in BBx is being set to find the extended and standard utilities. Also check the config.tpm file if you are using the BBEXT and BBSTD variables to point to the standard or extended utilities. These should be pointing to the same path that the PREFIX is using to find the utilities.

This utility calls a number of other utilities, which may also be damaged. Reload from original media all the standard and extended utilities. If the ERROR= 30 persists, the utilities that were originally shipped may also be damaged. These utilities are available for download from our forum on CompuServe or our FTP site.

Viewing records under field maintenance will give an Error 47 - substring out of range, in the following situation. They have defined their fields as fixed length and it encounters a field that does not fill the required fixed definition.

Also, as a side note, typically you should define fields as variable length when they are written with field terminators, as when using "write". What can happen is that all will be okay when viewing fixed fields until it encounters the first field defined as variable, then it appears to start displaying the record over in the remaining fields.

This has happened when a required drive was dsksyn'd. The original error 17 snowballs and eventually a String Table entry isn't set correctly and you get an error 49. Check for dsksyns in the config.bbx, and compare against paths in the config.tpm.

All TAOS applications generate an internal error of 200 whenever any error occurs. The error 200 is trapped and TAOS attempts to call _warn.utl which will display a warning box as well as the actual BBx error that occurred and what program it happened in.

A common problem that happens with the 286 version of BBx is that TAOS will stop at the line that tries to call _warn.utl. Under the 286 version of BBx, _ddedit.utl can easily run so short of memory that it can't call _warn.utl. The maximum start size is 255 under the 286 versions of BBx . You may need to upgrade to PRO/5® product to run this utility, if the error persists after increasing the start size to the maximum.

Typing DUMP at the console prompt will display the actual error that occurred. It will be at the beginning of the dump.