Re: flexfax: Large number of errors with Hylafax and ZyXEL Omni modem

[Robert Colquhoun <rjc@trump.net.au>]

Hi Dave,

I like your script, i was amazed at the low error rate you were able to
achieve with hylafax and i was going to ask about the secrets of your modem
config file, but then.......

..... i realized you had divided them all by 10     ;-)

Interestingly even still your getting virtually no phase B errors while
quite a few more DCS errors than i am (i am using generally 10/95 USR
Couriers, with a couple of 97 x2 models)

Have you altered the standard usr config files in any way?

- Robert

At 10:34 2/04/98 -0500, David Birnbaum wrote:
>Rob, Shuvam, et al,
>
>First - let me state that the recent messages on the nature of faxing and
>these problems with doing electronic faxing, particularly the mesage from
>Dr. Pollack, to be the most interesting and educational things on this
>list that I've seen go by in a long time.  That one email alone taught me
>more about the internals of faxing than three months getting a tidbit here
>and there from the various FAQs and stuff on the net.  Who do I make my
>check out to?
>
>On a second note, I'm getting ready to start spending time with our faxing
>systems again, which will involve moving from a mere 3K a night on up, as
>we have more and more clients who access our services.  So, anything I can
>do to reduce the overhead of calls, etc, is of high importance!  In any
>case, here's some numbers for a month's worth of faxes, across 8 USR Total
>Control modems, which are the chassis version of the high-end couriers.  I
>also included a PERL version of the gawk script for those who don't speak
>gawk that well.
>
>Modem: total
>Total faxes sent:                                            48263
>
>Error                                                           No      % Fl
>---------------------------------------
>Normal and proper end of connection                            510       1.1
>Unable to configure modem for fax use                            2       0.0
>No response to EOP repeated 3 times                            206       0.4
>Busy signal detected                                          5250      10.9
>Can not open document file                                      98       0.2
>Job aborted by user                                            108       0.2
>DCS sent 3 times without response; Giving up after 3 attempt     2       0.0
>RSPREC error/got DCN                                           233       0.5
>No carrier detected                                           6601      13.7
>No local dialtone                                               19       0.0
>DTE to DCE data underflow                                        9       0.0
>DCS sent 3 times without response                             1741       3.6
>No response to MPS repeated 3 times                              2       0.0
>Unspecified Transmit Phase B error                              18       0.0
>Unknown problem (check modem power)                              2       0.0
>No answer (T.30 T1 timeout)                                    325       0.7
>---------------------------------------
>Total                                                            0      31.3
>
>For me, the error ratio, once you remove the 10.9 of busy and 13.7 of no
>carrier, is down to 6.7%.  The errors I am worried about, that I am
>interested in tracking down and fixing, are those that make up the 5% of
>what appear to be errors in the faxmodem protocol:
>
>-  DCS errors - appear to be related to random modem failures
>-  Normal and proper end of connection - is actually a different class
>   of error, I don't know why it's reported like this.
>

>and one that looks strongly like a bug in Hylafax's non-fax code.
>
>-  Can not open document file - looks like some sort of locking/race
>   condition, having to do with jobs that share the same document file.
>
>Oddly enough, on the fax errors, often times that number will work on
>another day or another try.  Why?  Who knows...line noise?  Phase of the
>moon?  Composition of document?
>
>David.
>
>
>#!/usr/local/bin/perl
>#
>#  Adapted from the GAWK script....
>#
>#  -----
>
>require 5.000;
>
>use Text::ParseWords;
>use Getopt::Std;
>
>&getopts("t");
>
>while(<>) {
>    chomp;
>    @array = quotewords("\t", 0, $_);
>    $array[3] = "total" if $opt_t;
>    $total{$array[3]}++;
>    if ( $array[10] == 0 ) {
>	$array[13] =~ s/; too many .*//;
>	$errcount->{$array[3]}->{$array[13]}++;
>    }
>}
>
>foreach $modem ( keys %total ) {
>    print "Modem: $modem\n";
>    printf "%-68.68s %6i\n\n", "Total faxes sent:", $total{$modem};
>    printf "%-60.60s %5s %10s\n","Error", "No","% Fl";
>    print "---------------------------------------\n";
>
>    $tot = 0;
>    foreach $error ( keys %{$errcount->{$modem}} ) {
>	if ( $errcount->{$modem}->{$error} > 0 ) {
>	    $rate = $errcount->{$modem}->{$error} * 100 / $total{$modem};
>	    $tot += $errcount->{$modem}->{$error};
>	    printf "%-60.60s %5i %8.1f\n", $error, $errcount->{$modem}->{$error},
$rate;
>	}
>    }
>
>    print "---------------------------------------\n";
>    printf "%-60.60s %5i %8.1f\n", "Total", $total, $tot * 100 /
$total{$modem};
>    printf "\n";

>}