IBM Support

Meaning and use of FFDC files

Question & Answer


Question

What is the purpose of the First Failure Data Capture (FFDC) files? Does their presence indicate a problem? In the Console View of Rational® Application Developer, users might notice messages indicating that some information has been written out to FFDC; such FFDC events can occur at almost any time during a test run of a Web-based application.

Cause

FFDC stands for "First Failure Data Capture." The presence of these messages does not always indicate a problem.

In the WebSphere Application Server V6: Diagnostic Data IBM® Redbooks® paper, available at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4085.pdf
see the section about First Failure Data Capture (FFDC) of that document.

There are also numerous entries in the WebSphere Application Server 6.0 Information Center that relate to FFDC. However, the entry, What is new for troubleshooters, indicates:

More diagnostic data is captured when failures occur
The first failure data capture (FFDC) feature preserves the information that is generated from a processing failure and returns control to the affected engines.
The captured data is saved in a log file for analyzing the problem.
FFDC is intended primarily for use by IBM Service.

Answer

The contents of the FFDC files can be ignored unless you are getting errors in your application. At such a point, the FFDC files might be requested by IBM Support (typically the WebSphere Application Server level 2 or level 3 Support team) if the answer cannot be found by means of the standard WebSphere Application Server logs.

The FFDC files are found in the
<WAS_install_root>/profiles/<profile>/logs/ffdc
directory.

[{"Product":{"code":"SSRTLW","label":"Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU053","label":"Cloud & Data Platform"},"Component":"Web Services Development","Platform":[{"code":"PF033","label":"Windows"},{"code":"PF016","label":"Linux"}],"Version":"6.0;6.0.0.1;6.0.1;6.0.1.1;6.0.1.2;7.0;7.0.0.1;7.0.0.2;7.0.0.3;7.0.0.4;7.0.0.5","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB45","label":"Automation"}},{"Product":{"code":"SSYK2S","label":"Rational Software Architect Designer"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU053","label":"Cloud & Data Platform"},"Component":" ","Platform":[{"code":"","label":""}],"Version":"","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB45","label":"Automation"}},{"Product":{"code":"SSXJ7E","label":"Rational Business Developer Extension"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU054","label":"Systems w\/TPS"},"Component":" ","Platform":[{"code":"","label":""}],"Version":"","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB17","label":"Mainframe TPS"}},{"Product":{"code":"SSEQTP","label":"WebSphere Application Server"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU053","label":"Cloud & Data Platform"},"Component":" ","Platform":[{"code":"","label":""}],"Version":"","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB36","label":"IBM Automation"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
10 September 2020

UID

swg21273277