
      *** Troubleshooting the SF-ROM Door by Mike Robinson ***
          October 8, 1994

      SF-ROM writes error conditions to file ERROR.LOG in the current
      directory. Check this file. If it says that SF-ROM cannot find or
      read a certain file, check your SFROM.MAS and SFROM.CFG files to
      locate where this file is specified. Change the path to the file, or
      relocate the file. Check the spelling of the path and filename
      carefully. A single misplaced character will cause an error.
      Verify that the directories and files specified actually do exist.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      *** PROBLEM: SF-ROM works on local end but the caller sees nothing. ***

      This is caused by a failure to open the com port. The wrong port is
      being used, the port is non-standard, or there is a conflict with
      other hardware or software. SF-ROM determines the port number to use
      by reading line 6 of one of the following files:

      SFFILE.DAT    If you run SF-ROM on the file menu extension.
      SFMAIN.DAT    If you run SF-ROM on the main menu extension.
      SFMESS.DAT    If you run SF-ROM on the message menu extension.
      SFDOORS.DAT   If you run SF-ROM in the doors section.

      In the batch file that runs SF-ROM, the first parameter on the
      command line should be the full path and file name of one of these
      files. Check the door drop file to be sure that the correct com port
      number is specified on line 6. You can also force it to use a certain
      port by using the ForceComPort command in SFROM.MAS. This will
      override the port specified in the door drop file.

      If SF-ROM starts, shows some of the initial displays, and then seems
      to halt, this is almost always an IRQ conflict with another device or
      software on the system. The most common such problem is an internal
      modem and IO card trying to use the same IRQ number. Make sure that
      nothing else on your system is using the IRQ and IO base address used
      by SF-ROM. Other devices which could cause conflicts are a mouse,
      sound card, CD-ROM card, network card, tape backup card, scanner
      card, or just about any other piece of "extra" hardware plugged into
      the computer.

      When running on Spitfire BBS, SF-ROM gets the IRQ number and IO base
      address from the Spitfire SFNODE.DAT file. So SF-ROM will use the
      same values for these as configured in Spitfire for the node.

      If run on a BBS other than Spitfire, then SF-ROM uses the "standard"
      IBM PC clone com port settings which are:

      COM1   IRQ 4   $03F8
      COM2   IRQ 3   $02F8
      COM3   IRQ 4   $03E8
      COM4   IRQ 3   $02E8

      If your com port does not use these settings, then it is called
      non-standard. Which means that SF-ROM does not know the correct
      settings, so you must "tell" SF-ROM which settings to use. The
      commands to do this are:

      ForceComPort  2
      ForceIrq  3
      ForceBase  $02F8

      Put these commands in either SFROM.MAS (multi-disk mode) or in
      SFROM.CFG (single-disk mode). The settings shown above are for a
      standard COM2. You will have to adjust these to match the settings
      used on your com port. Note the $ in front of number in the ForceBase
      command. This $ indicates that it is a hexadecimal number (base16).
      Also note that if you use a "true blue" IBM PS/2 made by IBM then
      SF-ROM detects the PS/2 and uses slightly different settings for COM3
      and COM4 only.

      SF-ROM will NOT run properly on a serial port board that uses a
      shared IRQ for more than one com port. Most computers use a standard
      serial port board with 2 com ports that do not use a shared IRQ.
      SF-ROM will work fine on these. The problem of a shared IRQ usually
      only arises on a multi-port board that has 4 or more ports. It should
      also be noted that SF-ROM will not work on a DigiBoard.

      SF-ROM will not run properly if  FOSSIL driver is used to remap com
      port settings. SF-ROM will work fine with a FOSSIL and without a
      FOSSIL. But SF-ROM ignores the FOSSIL. So if the FOSSIL has changed a
      port setting, SF-ROM will not "know" about the change, so there could
      be problems.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      *** PROBLEM: Caller attempts to download a file, the download fails. ***

      There are 4 common reasons why downloads fail.

      1. DSZ.EXE or DSZ.COM is not in the current directory and not on the
         DOS path. The Xmodem, Ymodem, and Zmodem file transfer protocols
         used by SF-ROM are supplied by the DSZ program from Omen
         Technology Incorporated. The shareware version is fully functional
         and widely available. The current version is available on my BBS
         as DSZ0920.ZIP.

      2. The HoldDir directory specified in SFROM.MAS or SFROM.CFG does not
         exist. SF-ROM creates a list of files to download in the HoldDir
         directory. If the directory does not exist, it cannot create the
         file and the download fails. Check the spelling of the HoldDir
         carefully. If it is incorrect by just 1 character, the download
         will fail.

      3. Not enough memory available to run DSZ. You can see how much
         memory is available by looking at the upper right hand corner of
         the SF-ROM screen. Hopefully there is at least 70K there. Also,
         check to see if there is an ERROR.LOG file created by SF-ROM. This
         may give a clue. An error 8 during DSZ means not enough memory.

         One common way to gain more memory is to swap the BBS out of
         memory before running SF-ROM. Spitfire BBS does this
         automatically. If your BBS cannot do this, the widely available
         shareware program Shroom (Shell Room) by Davis Augustine can swap
         any program out of memory. Available on my BBS as SHROM23A.ZIP.

      4. Incorrect usage of the Handshake command in SFROM.MAS or
         SFROM.CFG. SF-ROM automatically uses the lowercase "ha cts"
         command by default. So unless you want to change the handshake, Do
         NOT use a handshake command at all. If you do use it, you must be
         sure that the command is valid. Several people have tried this:

         Handshake HA CTS

         This is incorrect. DSZ is case-sensitive. If you use this command
         as shown above, the download will fail. Most commands must be
         lower case like this:

         Handshake ha cts

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      *** PROBLEM: No tag letters displayed when viewing file lists. ***

         See the TagChar command in SFROM.DOC. If a line in a file list has
         a valid TagChar in the correct position, then that line is
         displayed in color and assigned a tag letter. So all you need to
         do is find a character that repeats in the same position on every
         line which has a file name. Then use the TagChar command to
         specify this character and position.

         Here are some examples:

         TagChar 26 -

         Lines which contain a dash(-) at position 26 will be colorized and
         assigned a tag letter. Lines which do NOT contain this character
         at this position are assumed to be header lines or extended
         description lines.

         TagChar ALL

         Every line will be colorized and assigned a tag letter no matter
         what is on the line.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      *** PROBLEM: I registered SF-ROM and now the <D>ownload command no
                   longer appears on the menu and callers cannot download.

         The caller is either over his daily download limit or the daily
         download limits are set too low. Now that SF-ROM is registered it
         is enforcing the daily download limits. It gets these limits from
         the Spitfire DAILYLMT.DAT file. If there is no DAILYLMT.DAT file
         then it gets the limits from the door drop file SFFILE.DAT or
         equivalent. You may also set different limits for use in SF-ROM
         only by using the LIMIT command as described in SFROM.DOC. It will
         allow you to set your own limits in SFROM.MAS or SFROM.CFG. The
         limits you set with the LIMIT command will override the values in
         DAILYLMT.DAT. The default limits are 10 files or 2 meg per day.

