Riktronics BBS more trouble

[Riktronics]

I just didn't want to be left out since everyone else is having problems.. I just discovered an ugly little glitch in my setup... the BBS doesn't notice if someone drops carrier. To make matters worse, apparently Image won't time you out while you are in the text editor writing a post or an email, so basically somone called at 9:45 last night, started writing me an email, got disconnected, and the BBS was still sitting in the email when I got up this morning. As soon as I hit .S to send the email it then said "time limit exceeded" and logged the user out. The really bad part is if anyone had connected overnight and figured out how to get out of the email they would have been logged in as the other user.

I'm assuming it has something to do with my homebrew rs-232 that only has transmit and receive and no RTS or CTS or anything fancy. I am going to try to get my hands on a vic-1011 or a swiftlink and give that a try. If anybody has an extra they want to get rid of or knows anyone that does let me know, I will also post something on comp.sys.cbm. There is nothing on eBay right now...

[Dr. Video/ADDiXiON]

BBS Server, IIRC, raises and lowers RTS to control the carrier (which is odd, but I believe that is how Leif's EBBS wanted it to work).

If your PC runs XP or linux, grab Jim's TCPSER and give it a try, it's a more sophisticated hayes emulator.

But you're going to need more than just RX/TX and SG.

Yes, it seems that Leif's system and Taper's Antidote BBS are the only ones online 24/7. Antidote runs Cbase with a customized version of BBS Server. I was unable to get that version to work with Centipede, though I didn't have much time to fight with it.

I'm just so busy right now I haven't been able to get back to consistently trying to debug the system.

[Riktronics]

Riktronics is still up 24/7.. I don't think it warrants taking it down for however long it takes me to find a suitable rs-232 adapter... It is pretty random that it happens anyway.

[Jeff Ledger]

Riktronics said:

As soon as I hit .S to send the email it then said "time limit exceeded" and logged the user out.

Got an idea.. (quick fix until you solve the problem)
If it's the message editor that can't timeout, then
have the Server software send a ".S" when it does
a timeout.

Jeff

[Riktronics]

Jeff said:

Got an idea.. (quick fix until you solve the problem)
If it's the message editor that can't timeout, then
have the Server software send a ".S" when it does
a timeout.

Jeff

Awesome idea! That should work. If they get disconnected while they are at a prompt it will log them out after two or three minutes idle time. If they were in the editor it would sit forever, but if the BBS server sends a carriage return (to get them to the start of the next line) and a . S to send or .A to abort they will go back to the prompt and idle timeout.

That makes me feel a lot better and should give me plenty of time to find a 'real' adapter and get it going.

Thanks!!!

[Leif Bloomquist]

Riktronics said:

apparently Image won't time you out while you are in the text editor writing a post or an email, so basically somone called at 9:45 last night, started writing me an email, got disconnected

EBBS has the same problem when you are entering new user information. That's why I added the auto-timeout to BBS Server. However, with only TX and RX there's no way to signal to the BBS that it should disconnect (without sending +++/ath).