IBM i NetServer Shares Show Path Availability as 'Unavailable'

There are two cases where the path will show as 'Unavailable'. 

The first case is where the path actually is not available.  A share can be defined for a path that does not exist.  Sometimes this happens when a path is deleted that had been shared or an application or user creates a share but does not create the path.  Or the path might be to a user-defined file system that is not presently mounted.  In these cases the information displayed by IBM Navigator for i will remain consistent.  If you refresh the browser tab, the Availability value will remain the same.

The second case is more a case of incorrect output due to limitations of the QDLS file system.  As background, the QDLS file system is not thread-safe so any attempt to access the QDLS file system from a job that has multiple threads of execution active results in a failure.  Further, access to the QDLS file system is only allowed for users that are enrolled in the System Distribution Directory.  IBM Navigator for i uses a query that involves IFS table functions to determine if the path being shared exists.  Those table functions return an error when they are run by a user that is not enrolled in the System Distribution Directory and the path is within the QDLS file system.  This result is also consistent, it will show the same result, 'Unavailable' every time.  The database host server jobs running SQL on behalf of IBM Navigator for i can become multi-threaded due to the way that the system implements Db2; there is nothing you can do to prevent that behavior.  If the job has multiple threads of execution when this particular query is running, shares for QDLS and any path in QDLS will all return unavailable.  In this situation though the result is typically not consistent, refreshing the browser tab will often result in the paths showing as 'Available'.  These limitations are imposed by the QDLS file system which has not enhanced since V3R1.  QDLS is maintained for backward compatibility but there are no plans to ever enhance or improve this file system.