Troubleshooting data for the z/OS or CICS Explorer when the user interface is not available or not usable

CICS® MustGather for Explorer UI

If the startup of the CICS Explorer®, IBM® Explorer for z/OS®, or any of the CICS Tools plug-ins fails, appears to be hanging, or is not responding, gather the following diagnostic information before contacting the CICS support team.

Required data:
  1. If the UI is displayed, create screen captures of the Explorer screen as image files (.bmp or .jpg). These images might provide useful information for IBM Support.
  2. If the Explorer user interface is usable, use the Explorer-integrated capability to create a zip file containing service data:
    1. Select Explorer > Trace > Collect Service Data from the Explorer menu.
    2. Select where to save the .zip file.

      For more instructions, see Preparing error data for IBM service in the CICS Explorer product documentation.

  3. If the Explorer user interface is not usable, collect the logs and other Explorer working files (such as settings) from one of the following directories. Use an archiving utility (a program that creates .zip, .rar, .tar, or .tar.gz files) to collect directory content.
    • If you use the default on Windows, use the location C:\Users\$User\.zosexplorer.
    • If you use the default on Linux®, use the location /home/$username/.zosexplorer.
    • If you use the default on macOS, use the location /Users/$username/.zosexplorer.
    • If you use an alternate workspace, which is described in the "Starting multiple instances of CICS Explorer" Help, use that location.
Optional data:
If the UI is up but unresponsive, follow these instructions to take a Java™ Thread Dump. The dump might provide useful information for IBM Support.
  1. If you use the Explorer on Linux, perform the following procedures:
    1. Find out the process identifier of the CICS Explorer by using any system tool. For example, enter the following command from a shell (command line):
      $ ps -ef | grep cicsexplorer
    2. From a shell, invoke kill -QUIT <process_id>. A file named javacore.YYYYMMDD.<other>.txt will be created in the Explorer directory.
  2. If you use the Explorer on Windows, perform the following procedures:
    1. Ensure that you start the Explorer with the -consolelog parameter, so that the Explorer opens a shell (command line) window only for output besides a graphical UI window.
    2. If a dump is not taken, press Ctrl+Break on the command line to request a dump.
    3. From the consolelog window, you will see a message that includes the location and name of the dump: 
      JVMDUMP010I Java dump written to C:\...\CICS Explorer\javacore.20090610.092732.6908.0001.txt.

      Send the message to IBM.