IT15971: MQ V8.0 MANAGED FILE TRANSFER AGENTS PUBLISH XML STATUS MESSAGESWITH NO FORMAT WHICH APPEAR TO JMS APPLICATIONS AS BYTESMESSAGES

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition V7.0.x and WebSphere MQ
  Managed File Transfer V7.5 agents published XML status messages
  under the /SYSTEM.FTE topic tree with an MQMD.Format value of
  "MQSTR   ".  These messages appeared as TextMessages to JMS
  applications consuming the publications.  However, the same
  messages published by IBM MQ Managed File Transfer V8.0 or V9.0
  agents have an empty MQMD.Format value of "        " and appear
  to JMS applications as BytesMessages instead.
  

Local fix

• The XML messages generated by FTE and MFT are created in UTF-8
  (also known as CCSID 1208).  A JMS application which receives a
  BytesMessage from this topic tree can interpret the byte array
  from the message by passing the bytes to the String constructor
  with a charsetName argument of "UTF-8".  This tells the Java VM
  to interpret the contents of the message as a series of one- to
  four-byte UTF-8 characters.  For example, a JMS application
  could call:  String msgbody = new String(msgbytes, "UTF-8");
  .
    http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/String.html
  #String(byteݨ,%20java.lang.String)
  .
  .
    Passing the byte array to the single-argument String
  constructor is incorrect, as this interprets the bytes based on
  the default Charset of the Java VM.  If the default Charset is
  "ISO-8859-1", for example, then each byte will be decoded into a
  separate character.  Two- to four-byte UTF-8 characters will be
  incorrectly interpreted as multiple characters, e.g. the bytes
  0xC3 0xA7 for 'lower-case c with cedilla' will be interpreted
  as 'capital a with tilde' followed by 'section sign' instead.
  

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  USERS AFFECTED:
  This issue affects all the users of the:
  
   - IBM MQ Managed File Transfer (MFT) V8 component
   - IBM MQ Managed File Transfer (MFT) V9 component
  
  
  Platforms affected:
  MultiPlatform
  
  ****************************************************************
  PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:
  In MQ MFT V7.5 and earlier the MFT Agents published XML Status
  messages to the SYSTEM.FTE topic in a string format
  (MQFMT_STRING).
  
  In MQ MFT V8 this was changed so that the messages were
  published with no format (MQFMT_NONE). The only exception to
  this was messages published to SYSTEM.FTE topic using the topic
  string /LOG, which were still published as String format. This
  could cause issues for applications which were processing the
  publications and were expecting messages published in String
  format. Now they are receiving messages with no format which
  meant the application wasn't able to process them.
  

Problem conclusion

• To resolve this issue a new property has been added to the
  installation.properties file which allows users to specify the
  message publication format used by MFT agents for their status
  XML messages.
  
  The property is called "messagePublicationFormat" and it can be
  set to the following values:
  
  messagePublicationFormat=mixed
   - This is the default value and maintains the v8 behaviour
  (messages are published with no format, except those published
  to the SYSTEM.FTE topic using the topic string /LOG which will
  have a format of String).
  
  messagePublicationFormat=MQFMT_NONE
   - MQMD.FORMAT will be set to MQFMT_NONE
  
  messagePublicationFormat=MQFMT_STRING
   -  MQMD.FORMAT will be set to MQFMT_STRING
  
  Applications that previously used MQ MFT V7.5 will need to be
  updated to process messages in the new format. If it is not
  possible to change the applications, set the property to
  'string'. This will make the MQ V8 MFT (and later) component
  behave in the same way as V7.5.
  
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
  The fix is targeted for delivery in the following PTFs:
  
  Version    Maintenance Level
  v8.0       8.0.0.7
  v9.0 CD    9.0.2
  v9.0 LTS   9.0.0.2
  
  The latest available FTE maintenance can be obtained from
  'Fix List for WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition 7.0'
  http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27015313
  
  The latest available MQ 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 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 MFT V8.0

• Fixed component ID

  5724H7252

Applicable component levels

• R800 PSY

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