From jmb@ast.cam.ac.ukThu Sep 18 09:30:11 1997
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 09:20:02 +0100 (BST)
From: Jonathan Burch <jmb@ast.cam.ac.uk>
To: fjg@ing.iac.es
Cc: jmb@ing.iac.es
Subject: Fault Reports

Dear Frank,

  Thoughts on the fault reports -

  9460 - losing the link to the TCS is, as you know, one of those things
         that happens from time to time, but I don't know why they closed
         down ICL and the WHIRCAM control system and therefore spent 40
         minutes recovering. Recommended procedure is to try issuing
         TEL_LINK_TO_TCS at ICL, and if that fails to exit the TCS and
         try again, and if that fails to kill and restart the TEL dtask
         and try again, or something like that - I think it's described
         in a fairly recent software news note, which followed problems
         with the TEL_RESET procedure. Maybe they tried all the recommended
         things and had no joy, but I have my doubts.

         [NOTE : See WHT Software News 102, paper coopy in SW NEWS folder
	  in WHT Control Room, disk copy on WHT_SRC_DISK:[WHT.NEWS.REF]
	  NEWS_102_TEL.TXT on LPVF/G]

  9461 - Shaun's file contains two error messages. The first is associated
         with the TAG task and should not have caused too many problems,
         and I don't think Shaun is claiming that it did. It was probably
         caused by the TAG task not getting a completion message from the
         autoguider, or by the telescope offset taking an unexpectedly
         long time, and it should have been possible to restart the EXEC
         if it had paused. The second error looks like a corrupt message
         from ALICE. This happens from time to time, it is a true crash,
         and the correct action is to close down and restart the control
         system (I would be tempted to power-cycle the ALICE rack, too).

  9464 - WRITE_FITS is faster than AUTOFITS! I guess it's annoying if
         you want to leave site during the morning after your last
         night's observing, but I don't think you would do any better
         with AUTOFITS even if you had started it at the beginning of
         the night. You could use WRITE_FITS to add files to the tapes
         in batches during the night, if you were in a real hurry.

  Hope this helps,

  Jonathan