HP rushes out 5.5 PowerPatch to repair database-scrambling bug

Quick response from the MPE/iX labs and a little luck provide two repairs for a bug which can scramble IMAGE datasets on HP 3000s. A faulty performance patch in the PowerPatch 5 version of MPE/iX 5.5 has been repaired with a new PowerPatch 6 — after HP had to put new systems shipments on production hold for a week.

The faulty MPEKX79 patch was supposed to be an enhancement patch intended to improve the file system performance when a file returns unused file space. This file system function is most typically used by a DBUTIL ERASE command, an IMAGE database utility that’s part of MPE/iX. Customers using ERASE got databases scrambled,

“The original fix was actually a performance enhancement aimed at increasing the performance of specific MPE operation,cutting back the EOF on a large file,” reported HP’s Scott McClellan via the Internet. HP put PowerPatch 5 out to pasture and held up shipments of systems until a fix surfaced a week later.

HP began to ship PowerPatch 6 in the last week of October, eliminating the faulty patch. It also made an MPEKXJ3 repair patch available as of mid-October through the Response Center for those sites which already had installed PowerPatch 5. Customers who haven’t installed the PowerPatch 5 can go directly to PowerPatch 6, or the new MPE/iX 6.0, which was being received in the last week of October. HP expects to complete shipping the 6.0 release to its installed base by mid-December.

In a stroke of luck for the HP 3000 division, that new MPE/iX 6.0 doesn’t carry the buggy performance patch that can scramble IMAGE datasets. 6.0, which HP began to ship to all of its customers on support at the end of October, closed the door to new patches and enhancements before the buggy patch was ready to ship. Customers can install 6.0 when it arrives from HP to eliminate the buggy patch.

PowerPatch 6 also includes a patch to the HPDATE intrinsics. The intrinsics didn’t comply with an HP corporate standard for Year 2000, which was drafted after the intrinsics were released.

Other products patched for Year 2000 compliance in PowerPatch 6 include the Architected Interfaces for the operating system, the System Dictionary Cobol Definition Extractor, Dictionary/V, System Dictionary/iX, Performance Collector/iX, Allbase/BRW and BRW-Desk/iX. RPG/iX, RPG/V and SNA IMF/XL remain out of compliance with the HP corporate Year 2000 definition, even after installing PowerPatch 6. These HP subsystems are HP Y2K-compliant in their MPE/iX 6.0 releases, along with Allbase/SQL.

PowerPatches, by design, include all previous patches in prior PowerPatches. The obvious exclusion to this is the faulty performance patch — which was in PowerPatch 5 but not in PowerPatch 6.

The latest release of MPE/iX 5.5, PowerPatch 6, does not include changes on a SUBSYS tape. “We created PowerPatch 6, not Express 6,” CSY’s release expert Jon Cohen reported over the Internet. “Basically, we picked up about a dozen generally released patches (including the one that removes the PowerPatch 5 problem patch) and called it Powerpatch 6.”

Cohen added that the new PowerPatch does have a new “Read Before Install” document that should be included in the shipment, but does not have a separate Communicator. The PowerPatch 5 Communicator is valid for PowerPatch 6.

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