WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

General chat not related to other community topics
Alan
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:49 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Alan »

OK guys I found some more bugs and this is what I'm troubleshootin. I really feel like I'm getting into the insides of this puppy. I used Major BBS a lot on the other stuff or at least I thought I did. MAN You guys got me going into places and seeing things I never seen before! LOL It's good I'm learning alot. I'm wondering if I should post these here in my WTB thread (I still want to buy Virecom working legal) or open a new thread on the Major BBS DOS section?

Anywho here's the two problems I see so far.

Major BBS GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT with ICO installed error (Prob #1):

Screen shot: https://i.imgur.com/41W3Xc0.png

In step 39 of Duckmans new instructions the last two things say:

Set continue after GP error to YES
Set reboot after GP error to NO

If I set continue after GP error to NO Major BBS writes out this in GP.OUT: https://pastebin.com/raw/1UMdpJyp

FTP Server crashes Major BBS with ICO (Prob #2):

I use the FTP server to upload files to Major BBS in the VM and get files from the VM (same with Virecom TCP) but with ICO the FTP server causes one of two crashes after I enter my password and press enter.

1st crash - Major BBS totally hangs and I have to reboot the VM for it to work again. When this happens it shows Fatal error 286:2140: Bad API call "MAJORBBS.975" at 2FBF:1FA2 at the BBS console and that makes it unresponsive.

2nd crash - Major BBS starts scrolling all kinds of errors on the screen raelly fast on the BBS console and I have to reboot the VM again to get it to stop.

Screen shot #1: https://i.imgur.com/tCAdYln.png
Screen shot #2: https://i.imgur.com/siInW3v.png

I would get Questman a GP.OUT for this but since I have to turn on continue on GP error to get the ICO to work Major BBS doesn't make one and if I turn off continue on GP error then I can't get threw prob #1.

Not sure what to do for that?

Thanks again for everything you guys are the BEST and with just a little more work I think we can get IOC working GREAT!! I used to write programs in vidual basic and I was thinking of maybe trying to make a Major BBS VGA game like DOOM but more RPG like if we can get this working good. It would be more of a winter project than right now but it is something I think I might want to do. I need to work more on the programming side of Major BBS so I downloaded all of the programmer information from the website. Thanks for giving that out too!

Kracken
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 1:12 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Kracken »

Duckula wrote:
> Worldgroup looks just like the major bbs v6 when connecting via telnet. We
> are offering frew 32 user versions of wg3 (the next version from wg2
> obviously).
>
> It runs on Windows and has all the networking baked in.
>
> As Questman said, he is testing infinity complex for this.
>
> Regardless I will also put out a guide for the DOS major bbs free edition
> in the coming days.

Just to let you know, it also works fine under Dosbox for whoever prefer that avenue.

Apparently the default GALICO sets up an NDIS drivers then uses the NDIS to PKT shim (DIS_PKT.DOS) to exposes the packet driver interface as "pk0".
In DOSBOX, you cannot load devicedrivers (at least not without booting/mounting external img), and the "deviceload.exe" workaround crashes with PROTMAN.DOS.

For kicks, I just skipped the NDIS part and just load my packet driver (ne2000.com) prior to running the PIPERUP.BAT and all loads fine.
PING, APR, DNS works.
Seems the Piper stack expects only a packet driver prior to xpiper.exe.

Majorbbs 6.25 then works fine with multiple TCP/IP channels.

Alan
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:49 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Alan »

Kraken do you get the ERROR: GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT message in pink when the BBS loads and if you try to ftp in as sysop with the default password of sysop does Major BBS FTP server crash like mine does when ICO is running?

Can you check and see?

Alan
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:49 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Alan »

Hi everyone theres a lot of troubleshootin going on in this thread but if your still reading it I just want to reaffirm my intent to purchase a legal copy of Major BBS v6.25 and Virecom TCP as per the terms in my 1st message.

Duckula and Questman are doing a great job of the Major BBS Free Edition but I don't mind paying some money to get a good legal Virecom TCP and matching Major BBS. I still plan to help work out the bugs in the Free Edition just want to have a good backup though.

So please contact me if yoy have one to sell.

Kracken
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 1:12 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Kracken »

Alan wrote:
> Kraken do you get the ERROR: GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT message in pink when
> the BBS loads and if you try to ftp in as sysop with the default password
> of sysop does Major BBS FTP server crash like mine does when ICO is
> running?
>
> Can you check and see?

I didn't had issue because I only left the TelnetD module enabled.
I re-enabled the FTP server module, and tried connecting to it.. and yes it crashes.
I tried FTP with both sysop and my user, and it crashes. Looks like that FTP Server module is buggy
(tested with linux ftpclient and rfc auth and it crashes, so not reliable. Better leave it disabled :)

Alan
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:49 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Alan »

OK thank you for checking and I'm glad its not just me. I wonder if we can change some settings to get ICO to work with The Major BBS FTP server. Maybe it's more problems with the dang PIPER/IP. That thing has caused a lot of grief so far. I use the FTP server to get files to the VM it makes is really easy otherwise its hard to copy lots of big files on there because of DOS.

The other thing I'm wondering is how to enable the Major BBS IRC client. On the other one I used it was just there as a module and you added it to the menu but I'm not sure what they did to turn it on because it's not showing up for me in the Free Edition. Man this stuff can be pretty touchy some times!

Alan
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:49 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Alan »

Kraken

I disabled the FTP server but mine still crashes unless I do like step 39 of Duckulas new instructions say and set continue after GP error to YES and set reboot after GP error to NO. Then it just prints the ERROR: GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT like here: https://i.imgur.com/41W3Xc0.png

The module thats doing it is GALTNTD and I can see that if I set continue after GP error to NO like here: https://i.imgur.com/H76o4TG.png

If I set contunue after GP errot to YES like Duckula says in the new instructions it just prints the ERROR: GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT message but TELNET does work afterwards and I can telnet in.

Either way I try the Major BBS FTP server crashes with ICO though.

Bloodrock
Posts: 31
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 4:27 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Bloodrock »

silly question but exactly is the ico stuff for on wg2 doesn't wg2 already have the telnet included in it unlike mbbs 6.5 that did not have telnet??

Alan
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:49 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Alan »

Hey Bloodrock where can I get Major BBS 6.5? I've only got 6.25 any maybe that newer version fixes some of these problems we're having with ICO and the failures. Too bad somebody cant figure out how to use parts from Virecom to fix ICO so that we can use the Major BBS FTP server or not get those ERROR messages when galtelnetd loads.

Thanks!

Kracken
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 1:12 pm

Re: WTB: Major BBS v6.25 and Major BBS TCP

Post by Kracken »

Bloodrock wrote:
> silly question but exactly is the ico stuff for on wg2 doesn't wg2 already
> have the telnet included in it unlike mbbs 6.5 that did not have telnet??

MBBS6/WG1, as-is doesn't have any TCP/IP layer integrated. You need either MajorTCP or GALICO(1) to enable TCP channels. For galico you also have to install + setup the PIPER tcp/ip stack.

In WG2 the BBS already come with GALICO(2) shipped.
You load your packet driver, run GALICOIN.EXE to setup the TCP stuff then run the BBS. It works upon the HPAC stack and not PIPER.

Shipped modules are not the same as well; I noticed there are a Rlogin server on GALICO2, along a "ISP SLIP/PPP" module..
Of course both have Telnet daemon.

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