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This article is from the 3b1 computers FAQ, by John B. Bunch with numerous contributions by others.

8.3. Why did the time display at the top of the screen go away?

The time at the top of the display is provided by the program /etc/smgr, which combines the functionality of cron, /etc/update, a time display, plus maybe a few other mysterious things. Equally mysterious is its propensity to occasionally die, leaving a stipple pattern in its place.

As smgr does its cron processing, it logs what it is doing in /usr/adm/cron.log. So that this file does not get too large, smgr responds to signal 17 (SIGUSR2) by truncating the log file. Unfortunately, smgr will exit if the log file is missing.

If you want to make sure this does not happen anymore, edit /etc/cleanup.wk (the script that runs weekly and sends smgr the clean up signal) and add

touch /usr/adm/cleanup.wk

before the script sends the signal with "kill -17 $PID"

Restarting smgr is thankfully unmysterious; become root and type "/etc/smgr".

 

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