IBM Support

MustGather: Documentation for a hung or looping cicsas process or region

Troubleshooting


Problem

You are having a cicsas process, or CICS region hang. The CICS support team will need some documentation to diagnose your problem. If this documentation can be gathered before calling support, it will expedite the troubleshooting process, and save you valuable time.

Resolving The Problem

Click MustGather:Read First for TXSeries CICS on AIX, Windows, HPUX and Solaris to see a list of all MustGather documents for CICS, instructions on submitting information to IBM Support, and general hints and tips.

Gather the following documentation for a hung region or processes before calling IBM support:

Required doc

  1. console.nnnnnn
  2. console.msg
  3. symrec.nnnnnn (symptom records)
  4. environment
  5. <region_name>.env file
  6. CSMT files - located in the data directory for the region
  7. CCIN,out file - located in the data directory for the region
  8. Any files in CICS region’s dumps/dir1 directory. This can include dump files, traceback files and core files if any.
  9. Format the dump files in dumps/dir1 directory using “cicsdfmt” tool before sending.
  10. statsfile, located in the data directory for the region
The hung or loop of the CICS region or any CICS processes can happen in the following scenario.

Also collect the following documents apart from the above mentioned document based on the hang and loop scenario mentioned below:

Transaction hanging or looping

1. If one or more transactions are hung, looping or waiting, connect to the CICS region using any of the CICS terminals and run the transaction CEMT with following option:

CEMT INQUIRE TASK

Get the process ID of the application server with the suspect transaction. The suspect transaction will exist for more than a few seconds and will not terminate.

2. Collect the function stack of the CICS Application Server in question using the showProcInfo tool. This is available in CICS_INSTALL_DIR /etc/ directory.

CICS_INSTALL_DIR/etc/showProcInfo <Process_ID>

3. Collect the above command output two or three times to confirm the condition of the CICS Application Server.

Note: showProcInfo tool uses a debugger to get the process stack, dbx on AIX and Solaris, and gdb on HP platforms.


High CPU usage while CICS processes are in loop

1. Collect the stack of CICSAS process using the dumpcicsthreads utility.
Starting in V7.1 the dumpcicsthreads utility is included as part of the installed product eliminating the need for downloading.
With earlier product versions here are the links to download the utility.
For Unix:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21218807

For Windows:
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21438051

2. Collect the OS specific diagnostic information for high CPU usage
For example: If you are running TXSeries on AIX, collect, "tprof -s -k -x sleep 60" output during high CPU usage of CICS process.

CICS Region hang

If the CICS region does not respond or is not able to connect to a CICS region using clients, collect the following additional documents,

1. showProcInfo output of all CICS region processes. This can be done using the dunpcicsthreads utility. Starting in V7.1 the dumpcicsthreads utility is included as part of the installed product eliminating the need for downloading.
With earlier product versions here are the links to download the utility.

For Unix:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21218807

For Windows:
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21438051

2. System dump of the hanging CICS region
System dump of the hanging CICS region can be collected using the "cicsedump" command. The dump will be generated in dump/dir1 directory of CICS region.
Usage: cicsedump <region name>

NOTE: The cicsedump tool is only available with the TXSeries V6.2 release and onwards.

Related Information

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Document Information

Modified date:
02 August 2018

UID

swg21229656