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IT12097: MODIFY THE PCFMESSAGEAGENT TO DISABLE THE STRICT CHECKING OF PCF RESPONSES BY DEFAULT

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APAR status

  • Closed as program error.

Error description

  • The PCFMessageAgent class, which is used by applications (and
    internally by the MQ Explorer) to send PCF requests to a queue
    manager and collect the responses, will be modified to provide a
    mechanism to turn off/on the the strict checking of PCF response
    messages that was introduced as part of IT01469, to prevent
    applications and the MQ Explorer from behaving unexpectedly when
    connecting to a queue manager that is affected by the issue
    reported in APAR IT10521.
    

Local fix

  • na
    

Problem summary

  • ****************************************************************
    USERS AFFECTED:
    The issues affect two categories of users:
    
    Category 1:
    ----------------------
    Users of:
    
    - The WebSphere MQ V7.5 classes for PCF
    - The MQ V8 classes for PCF
    
    who are making use of a PCFMessageAgent to send and receive PCF
    Messages.
    
    Category 2:
    ----------------------
    Users of:
    
    - The WebSphere MQ V7.5 Explorer
    - The MQ V8 Explorer
    
    
    Platforms affected:
    MultiPlatform
    
    ****************************************************************
    PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:
    The PCFMessageAgent class, which is part of the WebSphere MQ PCF
    classes, is used by applications (including the MQ Explorer) to
    send PCF requests to a queue manager, and collect the responses
    that the queue manager sends back.
    
    APAR IT01469 modified the behaviour of the three send() methods
    provided by the PCFMessageAgent to ensure that whenever a PCF
    request was sent to a queue manager, the correct number of PCF
    responses were received before they were returned to the
    application . This code change exposed an issue with the way the
    PCF responses were generated, which was reported in APAR
    IT10521.
    
    As a result, if an application using the PCFMessageAgent (such
    as the MQ Explorer) was connected to a queue manager that did
    not have the fix for IT10521 applied, then the PCFMessageAgent
    would not receive all of the responses that it expected and so
    throw an MQException containing WebSphere MQ Reason Code 2033
    (MQRC_NO_MSG_AVAILABLE) back to the application. If the
    application using the PCFMessageAgent was the MQ Explorer, then
    the user interface would display empty panels to the user.
    

Problem conclusion

  • PCFMessageAgents and the MQ Explorer can be used to communicate
    with lots of different queue managers, and it is not always
    possible to apply the fix for IT10521 to each of these queue
    managers.
    
    Given this, the default behaviour of the three send() methods
    provided by the PCFMessageAgent has been changed so that they no
    longer performs strict checking of the PCF responses that have
    received. Rather than counting the the PCF responses to ensure
    that the queue manager has sent the required number before
    returning control back to the application, the methods will now
    assume they has received all of the PCF responses to a command
    once they have processed a response message that has the Control
    field set to the value MQCFC_LAST.  This reverts the behaviour
    back to how it was before the fix for APAR IT01469.
    
    If strict checking of PCF response messages is required (to
    avoid the issue that was originally reported in APAR IT01469,
    for example), the Java system property:
    
    com.ibm.mq.pcf.enableStrictPCFResponseChecking=true
    
    should be set on the Java Runtime Environment that the
    application using the PCFMessageAgent is running in.
    
    To enable the strict checking of PCF response messages within
    the MQ Explorer, the user interface should be started by running
    the following command from the command line:
    
      MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH/bin/MQExplorer
    -Dcom.ibm.mq.pcf.enableStrictPCFResponseChecking=true
    
    where MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH is the directory where either
    WebSphere MQ V7.5 or MQ V8.0 has been installed.
    
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    The fix is targeted for delivery in the following PTFs:
    
    Version    Maintenance Level
    v7.5       7.5.0.7
    v8.0       8.0.0.5
    
    The latest available maintenance can be obtained from
    'WebSphere MQ Recommended Fixes'
    http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=171&uid=swg27006037
    
    If the maintenance level is not yet available information on
    its planned availability can be found in 'WebSphere MQ
    Planned Maintenance Release Dates'
    http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=171&uid=swg27006309
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

  • APAR number

    IT12097

  • Reported component name

    WMQ BASE MULTIP

  • Reported component ID

    5724H7251

  • Reported release

    800

  • Status

    CLOSED PER

  • PE

    NoPE

  • HIPER

    NoHIPER

  • Special Attention

    NoSpecatt / Xsystem

  • Submitted date

    2015-11-06

  • Closed date

    2015-11-25

  • Last modified date

    2015-12-01

  • APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

  • APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

  • Fixed component name

    WMQ BASE MULTIP

  • Fixed component ID

    5724H7251

Applicable component levels

  • R800 PSY

       UP

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Document Information

Modified date:
01 December 2015