Re: [hylafax-users] receiving: logic of RTN negative followed by MPS

[Lee Howard <faxguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Giulio Orsero wrote:

> Do you know a way, in non ECM case, to force HylaFAX to always
> terminate the connection with an error as soon as it rejects a page
> (ie: it receives 4 pages, then the 5th is bad and it should just tell
> the sender there's an eror, ie not MCF)?
>  

I do not think that there is a way in HylaFAX to do this via configuration.

However, in non-ECM mode there is not a clear-cut way to "reject" a 
page.  The RTN signal doesn't particularly say "I refuse to print that 
page", but rather it says "That page was of unacceptable quality, please 
retrain before sending another page".  HylaFAX traditionally has 
interpreted RTN to mean that the sender should retransmit the 
unacceptable page, but many senders are simply incapable of doing that - 
from a mechanical and technical standpoint.  Many senders will interpret 
an RTN signal as a page receipt confirmation... yes, that's crazy, but 
they do.  If we really wanted all senders to get some sort of error 
message when we want to "reject" a page - we'd have to just hang up... 
possibly we could send DCN first (instead of RTN or MCF) without getting 
senders claiming that it was a "confirmation" signal.  And some other 
receivers do just this precicse thing.  Now, this still doesn't 
guarantee that the sender will call back and retransmit... and that 
itself is risky.  Many senders won't do it automatically... and some fax 
machine operators won't do it manually, either.

Non-ECM fax mode is just so untrustworthy.  Like I said earlier in this 
thread ... in non-ECM mode I really do believe that the best way to 
handle the situation is to simply save every single page to file.  That 
way we don't have to rely on the sender's interpretation of RTN or on 
their ability to call back, etc.  Then the responsibility rests upon the 
recipient of the fax image to decide whether or not they can make use of 
the image as-is.

> I'm ok with wasting time, my issue is to avoid telling the sender all
> was ok when I don't have the doc available.

I understand.   Again, HylaFAX could be given an option to hang up or 
send DCN instead of sending RTN... how effective this would be, I don't 
know.  However, I think that the better solution long-term would be to 
have HylaFAX just save every page to file... even if the quality is 
unacceptable.

Lee.


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