EO>> tried setting it up on my BBS, but it always says it is unable to 
 EO>> open its log file (QCHAT.LOG).  I see the log file being created
 EO>> though, so I'm not sure what the problem is. 

 ML> what user permissions is the door running under? what does the 
 ML> directory allow for permissions? it may be creating it but the OS 
 ML> may be causing problems somehow...

 EO> It should be running in the same process as the BBS software, I'd
 EO> think..  And since my BBS is running in Windows, I wouldn't think
 EO> there would be as much issue with user permissions as there is in
 EO> Linux.

true... i didn't know if you were having to spawn a virtual box of some sort
to run the door in, though... so that's what i was aiming at above...

 EO> At any rate, I got past that error by configuring the door to put
 EO> its log file somewhere else.

that would seem to indicate that it doesn't like the directory that it is
currently in...

 EO> Now it's giving me this error:
 EO>  QChat 1.00  has detected an error:

 EO>  Runtime error 103 has occured.
 EO>  Error has occurred at 0000:8DA0.
 EO>  Code location: 9

 EO>  Please report this to the author.

 EO> I think this door is written in Pascal,

one way to be sure is to look at the binary with a tool like vern buerg's
list.com tool... or midnight commander's view file... anything that is not an
editor... then you search for the copyright line and see what can be found ;)

some of them will actually tell you "borland pascal" or "turbo pascal" or
"borland c" or "borland c++" IIRC...

 EO> so I looked up Pascal error 103 and found that it means "File not 
 EO> open".  That tells me there's a file issue in the door, but it 
 EO> doesn't really help me beyond that.

you could try the old TSR tools MARK, RELEASE and IOLOG to see what it is
doing... the log could get fairly large but it should be able to tell you what
is failing and maybe why...

MARK    : records the current (DOS) memory layout before loading
          an unloadable TSR program

RELEASE : puts the (DOS) memory layout back like MARK recorded it
          which effictively unloads the unloadable TSR

IOLOG   : TSR that records all input/output operations of all
          programs executed after it is loaded

eg:
@echo off
mark
iolog c:\bbs\io.log
yourdoor.exe %1 %2 %3 %4
release

then just run the door via the bat file and when it exits, look at the io.log
file in the c:\bbs directory...

i used to do this to see what RA was doing while testing in some of the beta
cycles... it is one way that i found out about a few additional undocumented
display files that can be used during the logon sequence ;)

i have looked for the original archives of the above tools... MARK and RELEASE
come together with other TSR related tools... IOLOG is in its own archive... 

MARK, RELEASE and IOLOG are all TurboPower Software tools...

TSRCOM35.ZIP    76130 25-Dec-1998
----------------------------------------------
The TSR Utilities are a collection of programs
useful for managing DOS memory, particularly
for managing memory-resident programs, also
known as TSR's. TSR stands for "Terminate and
Stay Resident". The most popular use of these
utilities is for removing TSR's from memory
without rebooting the PC.


IOLOG.ZIP       15644 20-Dec-1988
----------------------------------------------
IOLOG - a TSR that logs all DOOS disk I/O
operations to a file for later study.

Requires Turbo Professional to compile.
Released to the public domain.

Written by Kim Kokkonen, TurboPower Software
Thanks to Don Pearsall for providing the
impetus to write this program.

Version 1.0 - 12/16/88
initial release


both are freqable from my system or you may get them from my web/ftp site...
IOLOG is in the newfiles area (#1) and TSRCOM35 is in the BFDS Batpower area
(#109)...

 EO> So it seems to be either a gaping bug in the door (and I'd
 EO> be surprised if it were, since I'd think they'd catch that in
 EO> testing), or it might be a Pascal issue.  Either way, it's a
 EO> bummer, since this door appears to be abandonware.

i still suspect permissions problems ;)

)\/(ark

 * Origin: North American RemoteAccess Support 919-774-5930 (1:3634/12)