Q264945: SMS: Explanation of Error 38a in the Despooler Log File

Article: Q264945
Product(s): Microsoft Systems Management Server
Version(s): winnt:1.2
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kberrmsg kbtool kbsms200
Last Modified: 25-JUN-2000

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Systems Management Server version 1.2 
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SUMMARY
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When you try to troubleshoot slowdowns with the Despooler service in Systems
Management Server (SMS) version 1.2, an error message that is usually present is
Error 38a. This article explains the error message.

MORE INFORMATION
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The Error 38a error message does not represent a problem condition, it is
actually an informational message to inform the administrator that a Request ID
was not found in an instruction.

This error message typically occurs when you cancel, delete, or expire a job. The
error message means that you have reached the end of the file without finding a
particular Request ID.

For example, you have 9,000 clients in a single domain, 300 of which were sent a
Microsoft Office package.

When you cancel the Office job, a single cancel instruction is created for the
domain. Despooler then builds a list of .ins files from the PCMDOM.BOX\Domain
sub-folder. It then reads each .ins file, and determines if the Request ID you
are canceling exists in the INS. If it does, it is removed. If not, an error
message with a 906 (hexadecimal 38a) is generated, potentially causing an 8700
error message. However, because Despooler was tasked by the single cancel
instruction, only the first 38a error message is logged.

The process must read through each instruction to determine if you can perform a
cancel, expire or delete request; this means that the process can be very slow
for large domains. The only time a perceived problem is apparent, is if a
Request ID in an instruction is not found. At that point (starting when the
error condition is written to the log), this process can take a long time to
complete.

If no error condition exists, the slowdown would still be a factor, but would not
be apparent, as there wouldn't be an error message in the log.

Additional query words: prodsms

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Keywords          : kberrmsg kbtool kbsms200 
Technology        : kbSMSSearch kbSMS120
Version           : winnt:1.2
Issue type        : kbinfo

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