SNPP Failure

[soldier3003]

My company has been using PageGate SNPP short-term, and it's been working for our tests until recently. Suddenly, SNPP messages sent to ArchWireless no longer work. I looked in the log and talked to ArchWireless and they're telling me that the protocol is to login, and issue the following command sequence: PAGE, MESS, SEND, QUIT. Pagegate is doing PAGE, DATA, MESS................. it fails on the DATA command. I need help getting this to go. Please help!
P.S. I looked for options to change the format of SNPP (I looked online, there are different levels of SNPP) without any luck.

Thanks

[Tech Support]

If you would, use the Windows Explorer to browse to the PageGate directory. Go into the properties of the PageGate.exe file and go under the Version tab. Please let me know which specific file version you're running.

[soldier3003]

I did as you asked, 4.0.0.9 is the version showing.

[Tech Support]

Thanks for the bit of information. If you would, email the contents of your Dialer 1 Log to support@notepage.com

Something strange is definitely happening and we'd like to try to figure it out.

[soldier3003]

The log has been sent, please let me know what you find out.

[Tech Support]

Thank you for sending the log and other information, it helped greatly.

After much testing it seems that Arch's SNPP server is not implementing the SNPP protocol correctly. In other words, their SNPP server has a major bug.

When the 'DATA' command is sent, there are only two possible responses that a server can give. Either it can respond with a '500', meaning that the command is invalid or not supported, or it can respond with '354' meaning it is ready to accept text data for the message.

When their server receives the 'DATA' command, it goes into a waiting mode, ready to accept the message text, but never issues the '354', like it should. If I send it data and terminate that data properly, they accept the message. Very much a bad bug on their end.

There are two commands that can be used to send message text via SNPP, MESS and DATA. The DATA method is preferred because it can accommodate more data, and special characters like carriage-returns.MESS can only accept a single line of data. PageGate first tries the preferred DATA command. If it receives the '500' message meaning the DATA command isn't supported by a particular server, PageGate will then fall back to using the MESS command.

At this point, all I can recommend is that you try to contact Arch to let them know that their server has developed a bug.

[OzCom]

Coincidentally (or not) - Arch (Now USAMobility) is going to be shutting down their message processing servers tomorrow morning at 0200 hrs CST for "drive replacement" - it wouldn't surprise me that the issue you're experiencing is related to the trouble they are attempting to correct with the new drives

_________________
Aaron D. Osgood
Streamline Communications, LLC
* Authorized Notepage, Inc. Development Partner and Re-seller
TEL: 207-518-8455
AOsgood@streamline-solutions.net
Creators of AutoPage Spillman CAD interface for PageGate

[OzCom]

as a follow up - try changing to the WCTP protocol - Arch (now USAMobility) supports that more widely than SNPP

wctp.arch.com/wctp

10digit pager#


NOTE: Not ALL arch pagers accounts are configured to work with this protocol by default - it may require a call to their customer "service" lines to request that "UVA" and "UVB" be activated for the particular unit(s)

_________________
Aaron D. Osgood
Streamline Communications, LLC
* Authorized Notepage, Inc. Development Partner and Re-seller
TEL: 207-518-8455
AOsgood@streamline-solutions.net
Creators of AutoPage Spillman CAD interface for PageGate

[soldier3003]

We were working solid and it suddenly dumped, I've talked with Arch for about 2.5 weeks (1.5 weeks they ignored me) and couldn't believe it was something with the PageGate software. Nothing had changed, but they refused the fact that it was their server. This will certainly help in telling them to fix their problem. Thanks for the help :)

[soldier3003]

You guys will love this. I copied and pasted your responses from the forum to Arch and told them that the problem was on their side. The guy who i've been in contact accidentally replied to my email (he meant to send it to a co-worker) with a response of "Read Below. You will laugh at this one." Not 2 minutes later I received the quickest response i've ever gotten from Arch, a CYA phone call from him saying that he meant to send that somewhere else. I made him sweat on the phone and told him it really was their problem even though his accidental email told otherwise. Fun stuff. More to come.

[OzCom]

FWIW:
Here's the body of the message sent out by USAMobility's customer service on Tuesday, 11/29/05 at 14:55 EST:

"We will be performing emergency maintenance on our 2way system tonight.
The system will be restarted and hard drives replaced beginning at 2am CST tonight. The outage could last up to two hours. More detailed information is listed below:

The maintenance tonight involves replacing the OS and Data Base Hard Drives. This will have a direct affect on traffic and could last anywhere between 1 to 2 hours. In other words, after we replace the hard drives, the SACs (Satellite Access Controllers) will need to reload their configuration files from the SNMS, then the SACs will need to load the configuration files for all of the remote sites."

_________________
Aaron D. Osgood
Streamline Communications, LLC
* Authorized Notepage, Inc. Development Partner and Re-seller
TEL: 207-518-8455
AOsgood@streamline-solutions.net
Creators of AutoPage Spillman CAD interface for PageGate

[OzCom]

THis is interesting - this came directly from USAMobility this afdternoon:

From USAMobility:

Legacy Metrocall customers who utilize a software program that sends messages via SNPP (Simple Network Paging Protocol) may receive a failure message when attempting to send the message. Software may be third-party, internally developed, etc.

A ticket has been opened and techs are looking into this issue.

There is no ETR at this time.

Reference number: 188196

_________________
Aaron D. Osgood
Streamline Communications, LLC
* Authorized Notepage, Inc. Development Partner and Re-seller
TEL: 207-518-8455
AOsgood@streamline-solutions.net
Creators of AutoPage Spillman CAD interface for PageGate

[OzCom]

CLOSED NOW - SEE BELOW:
Outage Notification Outage ID#: 39125 Status: Existing
Change Requested ByName: Amy Perales E-Mail Address: CERT@usamobility.com

Areas Affected Nationwide

Outage Type: WME Severity: Medium
Location Information TCOE - Plano, TX

Outage Description:
CLOSED: 12/1/05 4:04 PM CT - Legacy Metrocall customers who utilize a software program that sends messages via SNPP (Simple Network Paging Protocol) may receive a failure message when attempting to send the message. Software may be third-party, internally developed, etc.
Current Status:
CLOSED: 12/1/05 4:04 PM CT - System Engineers modified requirements within the WME for legacy Metrocall customers who use SNPP to allow messages to be sent without errors. | CTOC and Systems Engineering are troulble shooting to provide resolution. No ETR.
Affected Customers:
Legacy Metrocall customers
Number of Subscribers Affected: unknown
Paging Terminals Affected:
Frequencies Affected:
States Affected: ALL
System Barcode: N/A
Remedy Ticket Number: 188196
Dates & Times Date Time
Date & Time of Outage: Thu 12/01/2005 7:00 AM CT
Estimated Date & Time of Repair: Thu 12/01/2005 6:00 PM CT
Actual Date & Time of Repair: Thu 12/01/2005 2:40 PM CT
System Downtime: No

_________________
Aaron D. Osgood
Streamline Communications, LLC
* Authorized Notepage, Inc. Development Partner and Re-seller
TEL: 207-518-8455
AOsgood@streamline-solutions.net
Creators of AutoPage Spillman CAD interface for PageGate