Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU!carl
From: carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Error message of the day
Message-ID: <880710122929.2e68@CitHex.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 10 Jul 88 19:37:41 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 21


 > Here's a charming error message that VMS game me the other day.
 > 
 > %SET-E-NOTSET, process NAMSRV, PID=20600236, not suspended
 > -SYSTEM-W-NONEXPR, nonexistent process
 >                                                                        
 > "Hi.  You see this process?  Well it doesn't exist. . ."               
 > 
 > 	Perhaps it's time for another line of work.

Process deletion is a fairly lengthy task under VMS (it can sometimes be  VERY
lengthy  [i.e.,  it can take DAYS], if the process is stuck in a resource wait
state).  Not all utilities (nor, apparently, all parts  of  the  SET  utility)
look  at  the  same  information  about a process to decide whether it's still
there or not.  What's happened here is that the process  structures  necessary
to  SUSPEND  the  process  have  been  deleted but those necessary to uniquely
identify the process are still around.  SET could have been written to  simply
tell  you  there was no such process without telling you its name and pid, but
then you'd have to go back and make sure you specified the right name or  pid.
Though it IS somewhat confusing the first time you run into this sort of error
message, I think the way it's done is the right way to do it.