Re: Emergemcy Chunks Offline

Ed certainly does have a point. There are a number fo facilities which need INFORMIX personnel to dial-in in order to fix. However, INFORMIX do not make such a decision lightly. INFORMIX do not want the hassles of out of hours working or the need to dail-in to secure sites. The problem is that utilities such as tbzero cure one cause of a symptom, not all causes. And, if utilities such as this are run indsicriminately then INFORMIX could get a lot of negative feedback. I think we should all understand the INFORMIX position and try to work with them on it. As to the potential problems of secure systems I can only recommend that if the data is as secure as to forbid dial-in access then users will have to accept the alternative of reverting to backup. > Ed Kelley writes: > > |My INFORMIX 7.1 engine will not come up and indicates that 29 chunks > |are bad. This was caused by the database being started BEFORE the > |scsi disks were available. The chunks are actually good. Is there a > |way to flag the chunks as OK? I can't even get the engine up now. > |The root dbspace is fine. It's just that so many chunks are marked > |as bad (I assume) that the engine can't come up. > |HELP! > > We have had this problem a number of times, and, after trying to > persuade Informix to release the tbzero utility to us, possibly with > some training, Corporate HQ of Informix said no. > > You have three options (probably had, actually, since I assume you > will be back up by now) - > > 1) try the program that was posted here before that enables you to > switch the flag byte in the chunk/dbspace to on-line (a bit dodgy, > since if you make a mistake you're on your own), > > 2) Call Informix support and ask them to log in and do it for you > with their tbzero utility, > > 3) Re-initialize and recover using archive and logical logs. > > My personal opinion is that Informix is being a bit spiteful not > releasing their utility or training anyone up on it, since this would > help enhance the resilience of their product. I daresay, however, > that the beancounters are quite happy counting those extra > 'after-hours/dial-in support' beans that come in from these problems. > > Hope this helps, > > Richard Ridley > DHL Asia Pacific Malcolm Weallans Online Database Consultancy Phone 0628-72154 Fax 0628-37463 CIX - onlinedbc