RE: error 28 on ontape archive

I've encountered this error myself. Mostly it has been when the tape is almost full according to the TAPESIZE value from the onconfig. Informix does not use physical end-of-tape markers for determining the end, but has an internal counter of the amount of data written. When this reaches TAPESIZE ontape prompts for another tape. The value for TAPESIZE must be less than the physical tapesize or the error 28 occurrs. I believe that the accuracy of the "data written counter" is not exact and that the actual amount of data written may be greater than what ontape calculates. We write a lot of blobs and I'm guessing that this may confuse ontape or maybe it uses a bad algorithm for an estimate. In any case, lowering TAPESIZE has always remedied this. Don't try to get every last byte of space on the tape used. Leave yourself some buffer so that any inacurracies in the 'data written counter' can be handled without reaching the physical end-of-tape. E.g. for an 8mm tape capable of holding 5GB use TAPESIZE 4500000K (4.5GB). It'll just prompt for a new tape sooner. Dick Brieck DBA, Chase Manhattan Mortgage William Raper <WilliamR@catmktg.com> on 08/31/99 01:18:37 PM To: "'Keith Sharp'" <ksharp@bear.com>, informix-list@iiug.org cc: (bcc: Dick Brieck/CHASE) Subject: RE: error 28 on ontape archive On my system (Solaris 2.6), an error 28 is "Out of space on device". In other words, the tape is full. Check your TAPESIZE parameter, and verify that it does not exceed your tape capacity. Also, for other O/S errors, check errno.h On Solaris this is located in /usr/include/sys HTH Bill Raper Senior Database Administrator Catalina Marketing 727-579-5134 Pager 727-529-8331 williamr@catmktg.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Sharp [SMTP:ksharp@bear.com] > Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 9:40 AM > To: informix-list@iiug.org > Subject: error 28 on ontape archive > > Problem, I am getting an error 28 on the second tape of a level 0 ontape > archive. Does anyone know what this error is?