Troubleshooting
Problem
You are having a logger problem in CICS Transaction Server for z/OS (CICS TS). You would like to know what documentation you must collect (MustGather) so that the CICS Support team can diagnose your problem. If you gather this documentation before contacting support it will expedite the troubleshooting process, and save you time.
Cause
Log stream failure or a failure within the MVS logger function. See the CICS TS information center for some conditions that cause CICS log manager error messages.
Resolving The Problem
For the most up-to-date documentation, refer to Collecting CICS troubleshooting data (MustGather) for IBM Support in the CICS TS documentation. You will find the General information you should gather for every type of problem followed by the Component-specific information which includes Troubleshooting data for Logger problems.
The following is the original MustGather information:
- Collecting general information for all problems
- Collecting data for logger problems
- Troubleshooting hints and tips
- Exchanging data with IBM Support
- Collect troubleshooting data for CICS products - Read first
Collecting general information for all problems
If you have already contacted IBM Support, you can continue on to the component-specific MustGather information. Otherwise, go to Collect troubleshooting data for CICS products - Read first.
Collecting data for logger problems
Required (MustGather) data:
- CICS message log back to the startup of the CICS region. The MVS logger return and reason codes for the failure are given in CICS messages. Log stream name, attributes, and other helpful information are also included in CICS messages.
- CICS internal trace that is included in the MVS system dump when tracing is active. The trace should be 10240K. If possible turn on level 1 tracing for all CICS components and level 1-2 tracing on for the LG and RM components. If this is not possible, turn on a minimum of level 1-2 or 1 for the LG component.
- MVS system dump taken automatically by CICS when a failure is detected. A dump of the MVS logger address space is produced automatically when an MVS IXGBRWSE or IXGDELET request fails because the MVS logger cannot find a specific log stream block identifier.
- If a dump of the XCF and MVS logger address spaces was not taken and you suspect that the problem is a result of something within MVS logger, a SLIP dump of the MVS system logger address space and the coupling facility structure taken by setting a SLIP trap and performing a diagnostic run of CICS.
Alternatively, use the MVS dump command to take a dump prior to doing an initial start. See Obtaining MVS logger and coupling facility dumps in the CICS TS information center for the dump command. You can avoid having to reply with so many dump options and instead specify the suffixes of one or more IEADMCxx parmlib members: - Tailor a IEADMCxx member to include the dump command. A sample for CICS and Logger problems is provided below.
- Copy the member into SYS1.PARMLIB.
- Enter DUMP TITLE=(dump-name),PARMLIB=xx to request a dump using the dump command in IEADMCxx. Request multiple parmlib members by specifying PARMLIB=(xx,yy).
- Output from the DFHJUP utility. Use this utility to print or copy the contents of the failing log stream before restarting the CICS region or reformatting the log stream. CICS will try to trim DFHLOG and DFHSHUNT at each keypoint and log data can be lost as a result of a trim taking place. Therefore, running DFHJUP right after a problem occurs is very important.
Optional (MustGather) data:
- Output from the IXCMIAPU utility with LIST and DETAIL=YES specified. See checking log stream status in the CICS TS information center for sample JCL.
- Output from entering the MVS commands D LOGGER and D LOGGER,L.
- A copy of the offload datasets taken by using IDCAMS REPRO.
Troubleshooting hints and tips
Diagnostic tips:
- Review the logs and dumps generated at the point of failure.
- Search the CICS support site for known problems using symptoms like the message number and error codes.
- If you find a fixing PTF, see Ordering CICS products and maintenance for the options that are available to order CICS maintenance.
- Gather the documentation and work with the CICS support team to resolve your problem.
- Dealing with log manager problems
- Restarting CICS after a system log failure
- Presentation on CICS and the MVS Logger: Where we are today
Exchanging data with IBM Support
- See Exchanging information with IBM Technical Support for FTP and email instructions using the IBM Enhanced Customer Data Repository (ECuRep).
- Go to the Service Request page to open or update a problem. If you have a SoftwareXcel enterprise edition for zSeries contract, you can also ask a non-defect installation and usage questions.
Note: Always update your Service Request (problem record) to indicate that data has been sent.
If you need to speak to an IBM technical support representative call your country representative. If you need to speak to an IBM technical support representative in the US, call 1-800-IBM-SERV.
Product Synonym
CICS/TS CICS TS CICS Transaction Server
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Document Information
Modified date:
21 June 2018
UID
swg21216201