David, You did not specify which version of MPE you are running. If you are running on 6.0, try using the new flavor of the PAUSE command. . . PAUSE 60;JOB=wakeup;NOTEXIST . . The job will pause there for 60 seconds or until a job named WAKEUP shows up on the system. See if this does it for you. Robert Schlosser Harris Corporation Melbourne, FL. (407) 727-5893 -----Original Message----- From: Maclary, David [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 9:55 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: message files I need to have a batch job wait for n seconds, but I'd also like it to "wake up" immediately if needed. I was thinking that a message file would do the trick. When I do the following interactively... Session A: :build msgfile;msg :file m=msgfile,old;semi;gmulti :input response;wait=60 < *x Session B: :file m=msgfile,old;semi;gmulti :echo OK >> *x Session A says... End of file on input. (CIERR 900) and msgfile now has an eof of 1, and record 1 contains the string "OK". Figuring that GMULTI was allowing the file pointer to move on me, I tried ;MULTI, but that get me... Couldn't open output redirection file, command failed. (CIERR 9425) DEVICE UNAVAILABLE (FSERR 55) In any event, I can work around the end of file error message easily enough, except, when I try running "Session A" as a batch job, the INPUT;WAIT=60 does not time out !!! Want I'd like to have happen is, in batch, for the :INPUT command to either read a record from msgfile (if one gets ECHOed to it), or, timeout after 60 seconds. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, David Maclary