Length = 0 in BIND Causes SNA Server to Reject BIND

ID: Q160709

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft SNA Server, versions 2.0, 2.1, 2.11, 3.0
on the following platforms: NT

SYMPTOMS

When a host initiated BIND is sent to the SNA Server where the following two conditions obtain

there is an incorrect field in the BIND

and

one of the User Data Structured Subfields' length field is 0,

SNA Server will appropriately reject the BIND's incorrect field with a 0835xxxx sense code, but the last 4 hexadecimal digits will be incorrect. The 0835xxxx will appear in the event log as:

Event ID 17

APPC session activation failure: BIND negative response sent

Sense data = 0835xxxx
connection = <value>
Session ID = <value>
LFSID = <value>
TH = <value>
RH = <value>
RU = <value>

The last four hexadecimal digits (xxxx) of the sense data correspond to an offset within the BIND command that points to the parameter that was not recognized or supported by the BIND receiver, in this case SNA Server.

CAUSE

The SNA Server service gets confused because of the 0 length field. It therefore reports an incorrect offset in the 0835 sense code.

RESOLUTION

There is no current workaround. When using the 0835 sense code in diagnosis, be aware that if there are User Data Subfields whose length field is 0, the offset value may point to a perfectly legitimate subfield.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SNA Server versions 2.0, 2.1, 2.11, 2.11 SP1, and 3.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

Additional query words: prodsna

Keywords : kbnetwork kbbug2.00 kbbug3.00 kbbug2.11 kbbug2.11.sp1
Version : WINDOWS:2.0,2.1,2.11,3.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type :