IEA394A   THIS SERVER HAS LOST CONNECTION TO ITS SOURCE OF TIME. IF THIS EVENT OCCURRED ON SOME, BUT NOT ALL NETWORK SERVERS, THE LIKELY CAUSE IS A LINK FAILURE. TO FIX, ENSURE THAT EACH AFFECTED SERVER HAS AT LEAST ONE CORRECTLY CONNECTED AND FUNCTIONAL LINK. IF THIS EVENT OCCURRED ON ALL NETWORK SERVERS, THEN THE LIKELY CAUSE IA A TIMING NETWORK FAILURE. TO FIX, REFER TO THE MESSAGE IEA394A DESCRIPTION IN MVS SYSTEM MESSAGES. AFTER FIXING THE PROBLEM, REPLY "RETRY" FROM THE SERVICE CONSOLE (HMC). IF THE PROBLEM WAS NOT CORRECTED, THIS MESSAGE is REISSUED AND YOU MAY TRY AGAIN. REPLY "ABORT" TO EXIT THE MESSAGE LOOP. PROABLE RESULT: 0A2-158 WAITSTATE.

Explanation

The system no longer has access to the Current® Time Server. This may have happened because of the loss of STP timing links or because there has been a failure of the Current Timer Server itself.

System action

The system waits for a reply to message IEA394A.

Operator response

Notify the system programmer.

System programmer response

Determine why the loss of the time source occurred, repair the problem and then reply "RETRY" to the message on each system where it occurs. There are two basic scenarios for which this message is issued.

It needs to be determined if a subset of the STP synchronized images have issued IEA394A or if ALL have issued it. If only a few images issued message IEA394A, then it is likely that STP links have failed to those machines.

Repair the failed links and then reply with "RETRY" on each issuing system. If the problem was corrected, processing will resume. If the problem was not resolved, the message is reissued until the problem is fixed or until it receives a reply of "ABORT". A reply of "ABORT" will result in a 0A2-158 wait state if the image is a member of a multisystem sysplex. If it is not, processing will resume in local TOD clock mode.
Note:
  1. When all systems in the sysplex issue IEA394A there is no time limit for making the reply. However, after the first response is given to IEA394A, the rest of the systems must be replied to within a minimum of four minutes. When there are more than eight systems in the sysplex the time limit is calculated using (30 seconds * number of systems).
  2. If not all systems in the sysplex are affected, the systems that are still running can take action for "status update missing" (SUM) on systems waiting for a reply to IEA394A. In this case, the four minute rule does not apply.
If all STP synchronized images issue message IEA94A, then there has been a failure of the Current Timer Server and the Backup Timer Server has not been able to take over that function. In this case, it might be possible to manually define the Backup as the Current Time Server from the HMC or to define a new Preferred Time Server and then reply "RETRY" as previously described.
Note: When replying to IEA394A using the Hardware Management Console (HMC), you must select the priority message box.
For more information, see the following IBM® Redbooks® publication:
  • See the information about Current Time Server failure in Server Time Protocol Planning Guide, SG24-7280.
  • See the information about recovery scenarios in Server Time Protocol Implementation Guide, SG24-7281

Also see the information about Understanding PLEXCFG Configurations with a Sysplex Timer in z/OS MVS Setting Up a Sysplex. A Sysplex Timer failure can affect the sysplex in several ways, depending on how the sysplex is configured with the PLEXCFG system parameter. This section provides additional information on PLEXCFG and describes different conditions when this message might be issued (for example, with PLEXCFG=MULTISYSTEM and PLEXCFG=ANY).

Source

Timer Supervision.

Module

IEATSCHSH

Parent topic: IEA messages