A week before classes, I did a run through of setting up and using
our new mobile laptop lab. Most of the issues were related to the
logistics of setting up a projector in a classroom not designed for a
projector. There was however a problem that I had a hard time believing
was real.
One of the classes that will be using the laptops will be using them
as dumb terms to connect to a remote x server. Everything was working
as expected until we tried to run SAS.
That generated the following error in the console window;
ERROR: Floating Point Zero Divide.
ERROR: Generic critical error.
ERROR: Explorer failed to initialize.
WARNING: Protected resource may be inconsistent
WARNING: Protected resource may be inconsistent
The campus has a site license to X-Win32 which we use as the
local X server. It provides a properly setup ssh client to connect to
a remote x server. All other X windows applications (xeyes
of course being one of the more important ones tested) displayed
correctly and worked properly. It was only SAS which caused a problem.
Through a good deal of trial and error (testing different computers,
different accounts, different servers), we discover that the error only
occurs when a projector is plugged into the laptop prior to turning on
and logging into the laptop. To further add to the oddness, it is only
an issue when an "intelligent" (which is to say a modern one that does
autodetection and automatic image optimization) is used. If a video
splitter (which will strip any communication between the display device
and the laptop) is put between the laptop and the projector, SAS will
run without error.
SAS's tech support provided the following answer and suggested
solution
"We've seen this problem only with Sharp so far, but I can
tell you what is happening. The video drivers in your projectors are
corrupting the SASUSER profile catalog. It does sound far-fetched, I
know, but it's true.
Some things we've found that work are:
1. Starting the projector first, THEN invoking SAS.
2. Turning down the hardware acceleration on the projector's video card.
"
For the time being, we will be using an older projector which doesn't
cause this error to occur. Bug reports have been filed with both SAS
and Starnet, not that I expect much to come from either report as both
companies will likely blame each other.
