Resolving server stoppages

Server stoppages can occur from processing errors, the system trap handler, or other errors. When you determine the source of your server stoppage, the reason might resolve other known issues.

The server might stop for one of the following reasons:
  • A processing error causes memory to be overwritten or some other event triggers the system trap handler to terminate the server process.
  • The server processing has validation algorithms throughout the application that check various conditions prior to continuing running. As part of this validation checking, there are cases where if the validation check fails, the server will actually terminate itself instead of allowing processing to continue. These catastrophic validations are referred to as an assert. If the server terminates due to an assert, the following message is issued:
    ANR7837S Internal error XXXNNN detected.
    where XXXNNN is an identifier assigned to the assertion failure.

Other server messages that are indicative of a stoppage are ANR7836S and ANR7838S.

Whether the server stopped as a result of an assert or the system trap handler, the tsmdiag utility can collect the following information and package it for submission for IBM service so the situation can be diagnosed:
  • Server error file (dsmserv.err)
  • System image (core file)
  • Libraries and other files
  • System logs
  • Activity log
Package all the data (files) collected and contact IBM service to report this problem.