rec.autos.simulators

OK, what the hell is up? First I am forced to do another
download of another version, then after I exit and unzip,
when I dial back up, I am instructed that 1.36M is the
required release.  Huh, OK, that is the release I have, I
just downloaded it and unzipped it. I am told then that
my hawaii zip is up to date (like always), and that my
multi zip is up to date.  So why can I not go to the
race scheduler?  I am oly given the options of
MOTD, files archive, or abort to Term.

What gives?  Is there some screw-up at the server
end where the versions are checked? How am I
supposed to know?I wish that the whole process
was better defined.

Possibly a better day could have been chosen for the
forced download, huh?

If there is a problem, the latest & greatest is also available at
www.sierra.com/papyrus.  The HAWAII.EXE there contains everything you
need.

Ed Martin
Producer, Series Director
NASCAR Racing League
Papyrus / Sierra On-Line, Inc.

I just downloaded the new version this morning but can't get into the
server, I get booted at the logging in status.  Says timed out at server.
Is this at my end or at Boston?

I suggest you check this newsgroup, there are others who are
also reporting the same problem.

As you do not provide a phone number to alert you that there is a
PROBLEM AT YOUR END, I feel the need to post this here, to let others
who may also be experiencing problems know that they are not doing
anything wrong, the PROBLEM IS AT YOUR END.

Thank you.
Robin Tice

Hmmm no problem here maybe you should check your work  again   :)

No offense, but I would be hard-pressed to "check this newsgroup" any
more than I do now.

There was a problem with logging in Thursday morning -- early.  That
may have been what you ran into.  You would not have been able to
connect at all -- time-out at login.

If you are not seeing the "Race Scheduler" option on the menu when you
do log in, the problem is on your end.  You didn't install the updates
(both of them).

Ed Martin
Producer, Series Director
NASCAR Racing League
Papyrus / Sierra On-Line, Inc.

No offense taken, however I would recommend that you DO check this
newsgroup more frequently, as the problem I have been experiencing
was addressed by Mike Young.  In his follow-up (repeated here so
you can pass it on to your Papyrus tech support) he addresses the
cause of the problem.  I followed Mike's suggestion, and it now works.
Before I repeat his information, I include here the file data from the
Papyrus downloaded file - note the time stamp on the zippped file in
the archive: 8:18PM. When I changed the time attribute using Norton,
everything began to work.

MULTI136.ZIP -
    MULTI.EXE 1055263 07/01/96  8:18:26PM

Mike Young, my appreciation for fixing my problem.

**** Begin Fix Information from Mike Young ****

========
Newsgroups: rec.autos.simulators
Subject: Hawaii MULTI 1.36M time stamp fix

Date: Fri, 05 Jul 1996 00:29:04 -0500

For all the others out there suffering over MULTI 1.36-M versions,
here's a fix I found. The server apparently checks time stamps on
files to confirm correctness. You can confirm this by looking at
error.log in your NASCAR directory. You should see a number of lines
such as the following:   FTR DELTA DATE 31d878e2 31d86ad2

The numbers are hex values of timestamps, actual and expected, for a
number of files. The following list is the expected value and
translation for each file:

  MULTI.EXE     0x31d86ad2 =====> 07/01/96 19:18:26
  SCHED.HLP     0x31826488 =====> 04/27/96 13:16:40
  AGREE.TXT     0x3198ee94 =====> 05/14/96 15:35:32
  TERM.EXE      0x31d063b2 =====> 06/25/96 17:09:54
  DBITERM.EXE   0x31d063b8 =====> 06/25/96 17:10:00
  SCHDCLI.EXE   0x31d063b6 =====> 06/25/96 17:09:58

The problem is apparently with Daylight Savings time in one of the
executables, either pkunzip, pkzip, term.exe, or dbiterm.exe. MS link
libraries have a known bug with daylight savings time on some systems.
We've apparently just been bit by that.

To workaround the problem, you'll need a program that can change file
dates for you. I used touch.com, included with Borland C++ compilers.
Use the following command to change the file date on MULTI.EXE, for
example:  touch -c -t19:18:26 multi.exe

I can't send you the program to do this; you can probably find a
shareware version someplace. A DOS port of GNU's UNIX utilities might
be a good place to start looking, or maybe browse through programmer's
utilities on your local shareware site.

Good luck.
Mike.

**** End Fix information from Mike Young ****

Mr. Martin, please clarify where I made a mistake.
Robin Tice

Ed,

I've positively identified the problem as having to do with file
timestamps. Attached is the error.log file in my NASCAR directory. the
FTR DELTA DATE entries show actual and expected timestamps. They differ
by exactly one hour (3600 seconds). After changing the time stamps on
the updated files, my problem disappeared. For example, touch'ing
multi.exe to change the create time to 19:18:26 solved the problem; the
file is dated 20:18:26 in the zip file, and on disk after unzipping.

I suspect the problem may have to do with daylight savings time, or
perhaps simply timezone.

I realize how difficult it must be to accept that this is a real
problem. I worked around it for myself here, and also let your tech
support people know the details via email. However, I only heard back
that your tech support person has a difficult time believing that there
is a problem not caused by stupid users. This is especially
disconcerting, as it means I can expect similar problems in the future.

Mike.

===================

: I suggest you check this newsgroup, there are others who are
: also reporting the same problem.

Ed and Robin,
My system has worked fine since I got 1.36M and the latest HAWAII.EXE.
No problems at all. In fact, since going to the latest files even my
"drops" have gone away (boy did I take a beating in HAL for those drops).

: As you do not provide a phone number to alert you that there is a
: PROBLEM AT YOUR END, I feel the need to post this here, to let others
: who may also be experiencing problems know that they are not doing
: anything wrong, the PROBLEM IS AT YOUR END.
Well... it's working for me and a ton of others who've been on the system
since those two new files came out.

bill

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robino

In the mean time, we have disabled the statement which was requiring exact
time match to allow you to proceed beyond the message of the day screen, so
I don't believe anyone should be experiencing the problem any more until
we've had a chance to work out what's broken.

Charlie Heath
Papyrus Design Group

You might want to set this up in a batch file "myeterm.bat", adding the
statement "SET TZ=" to the beginning of the ETERM batch file so the
variable will not be set while you run Hawaii, then adding another "SET
TZ=......." statement to match what you had configured in autoexec.bat.
(Make sure to name it something other than  ETERM.BAT, or it will be
auto-downloaded and you'll be back to the original ETERM.BAT!)  I'll
appreciate a reply if this does ( or doesn't ) solve you problem, thanks.

Charlie Heath
Papyrus Design Group