Richard, Peter, Giles and all the others who kindly offered
their suggestions:
 
I found the missing $STDLIST.  When I aborted the job the
session I was in didn't have sufficient permissions to see that
a spool file existed.  Even though I could kill the job I still
could not even determine that a spool file had been opened much
less its contents.  Something decidedly odd about that picture.
 
As fate would have it, on this particular run the job was
waiting for a second tape.  At least that is what I think it was
doing as it never raised an operator request to mount one and
there were no outstanding replies waiting on the system.  Unless
seeing these too are now shut out from certain users.
 
Despite this particular case, the symptoms described in my
earlier posts have occured with growing frequency since moving
to 5.0 and are not related to multitape backups.  I have no
recollection of ever seeing this type of behavior before last
fall.
 
I now have another query for the list.  Has STORE ever told the
operator to mount a second tape when one was required.  I seem
to recall that it did but we have been on DATs for so long now
that my memory of multiple tape backups has faded.  If it
dosen't, it SHOULD.
 
Regards
--
James B. Byrne                  mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited            http://www.harte-lyne.ca
Hamilton, Ontario               905-561-1241