Interfacing with WordPerfect

If a user has WordPerfect 5.X installed on his machine, there are some known, potential conflicts between FacetTerm and the WordPerfect print spooler program. What can happen is that when FacetTerm is canceled, the WordPerfect print spooler can hang a pseudo-device or "lose communication" with other currently running WordPerfect processes. We will look at the WordPerfect 5.1 problem first and then the two known problems with WordPerfect 5.0.

The most common problem with WordPerfect 5.1 is having the WordPerfect print spooler not release a pseudo-device for re-use. The symptom you would see can be one of two messages when FacetTerm is starting up:

At the start up banner screen, you would get a message like this if you are using fixed line assignments:
```
   Facet process: Assigned pty cannot be opened.
```
The other message you can get would appear when FacetTerm is actually attempting to open the windows. You would get a message like this:
```
   /dev/t0w2 is already in use
```

What has happened is that a prior FacetTerm session was shutdown. In the process of FacetTerm shutting down, we send a software hangup signal. Because of the way the print server is designed, the server did not die, but re-attached itself to the init process and has retained a link to the pseudo-device that it was originally started on. To properly verify this situation, use the /etc/fuser command if it is available. This will print out a list of process numbers that have opened the stuck device. Then use the ps -fp command to check each of the reported process numbers. If one of them is wpexc, then this is the reason for the pseudo-device being already in use or unable to be opened.

To quickly fix the problem, kill wpexc. Go to the console or a terminal that is not currently running FacetTerm and shut down the WordPerfect print server by running the following command logged in as root:

   wpexc51 -k
   wpexc51 -s

The problem will be fixed until the machine is rebooted. To permanently fix the problem, find the script file that is executed when UNIX boots. It is usually called /etc/rc or is in a directory under /etc/rc*. Add the wpexc -s command in the place designed for local additions. Your operating system manuals can help you with this. Please note: to fix the problem under WordPerfect 5.0, replace all references to wpexc51 with wpexc.

In WordPerfect 5.0, you can experience the same problem as above and one additional problem. While in WordPerfect 5.0, you could get the following error message when you are trying to print a document:

   Error:  no message returned from print server

This message indicates that your current session is no longer communicating with the WordPerfect 5.0 print server properly (either the print server is not running or has been restarted). To quickly fix this problem, make sure that the print server is running, then stop your current WordPerfect 5.0 session and re-start it. This will re-establish proper communication with the print server. To eliminate FacetTerm from stopping the print server, place the wpexc -s command inside the boot script like above.