FAX: Fax Gateway Stops with Corrupt RRS.FAX

ID: Q132491

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Mail Gateway to Fax, version 3.0.1

SYMPTOMS

Version 3.0.1 of Microsoft Mail Gateway to Fax can experience a critical error that halts the program. The critical error may be caused by a corrupt RRS.FAX file. The gateway screen will show the following message:

A Critical error has occurred (10:0:2:0)

Attempted operation: CREATE File affected: M:\FAX\RRS.FAX

On the first attempt to restart the gateway, the following messages may occur:

A Critical error has occurred (10:0:2:0)

Database function failure

A second attempt to restart results in the following message:

[<time>] - RRS.FAX file is corrupted

[<time>] - >>> Press any key to shutdown

CAUSE

The errors mentioned above are the result of a corrupt RRS.FAX file.

The RRS.FAX file can be corrupted under the following circumstances:

A fax message is sent with a bad phone number.

No other valid recipients are in the message.

The faxout cycle begins with more than one mail item in the fax queue.

The bad message follows a good message.

The corruption is due to a failure in resetting a pointer in the RRS.FAX file.

RESOLUTION

A supported fix that corrects this problem is now available from Microsoft, but has not been fully regression tested and should be applied only to systems experiencing this specific problem.

To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information on support costs, please go to the following address on the World Wide Web:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/default.asp

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:


   File Name    Version
   --------------------
   Faxgtw.exe   3.0.2

This hotfix has been posted to the following Internet location as Faxgy2k.exe:

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/mail/pcmail-public/all-y2k/

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Mail Gateway to Fax version 3.0.1.

MORE INFORMATION

After the sequence of events mentioned in the "Symptoms" section above, it is not possible to compress the RRS.FAX file. It has been renamed to TMPRRS.FAX, and it still contains the corruption.

To recover, restore the RRS.FAX file from the installation disk. The initial RRS.FAX file is four 00 bytes. When the RRS.FAX file is reset, the messages in the FAX queue should be returned or deleted using the Microsoft Mail Administrator's program (ADMIN.EXE).

Additional query words: 3.00.1

Keywords : MailGWFax
Version : MS-DOS:3.0.1
Platform : MS-DOS
Issue type : kbbug