Alarm in Debugging Output
=========================

The debugging output of many versions of UUCP will include messages like
`alarm 1' or `pkcget: alarm 1'.  Taylor UUCP does not use the word
`alarm', but will instead log messages like `Timed out waiting for
packet'.

These types of messages mean that the UUCP package has timed out while
waiting for some sort of response from the remote system.  If it happens
consistently when trying to transfer a particular file, then the most
likely problem is that one of the modems will not transmit the XON or
XOFF characters.  Several UUCP protocols require an eight bit clean
connection, which means that the modems must treat XON or XOFF as normal
data characters, not as flow control signals.  This should always be
checked first.

Other possible problems are that the modems have simply dropped their
connection, or perhaps on one side or the other the serial buffer is
overflowing and dropping characters.  Another possibility is that the
UUCP packages disagree about some aspect of the UUCP protocol, which is
uncommon but does happen occasionally.

Using the information in the following sections, you should be able to
figure out what type of data your UUCP was expecting to receive.  This
may give some indication as to exactly what the problem is.  It is
difficult to be more specific, since there are many possiblities.