Deleting the XCF note pad catalog structure

CAUTION:

Take care when considering whether to delete the note pad catalog structure. Deleting the note pad catalog structure causes ALL note pads in the sysplex to fail, so you should do so only when no note pads are defined in the sysplex. Use the DISPLAY XCF,NOTEPAD command to determine whether there are note pads defined in the sysplex.

If necessary, you can use the IXCDELNP utility to delete an XCF note pad. Do not use the utility unless you understand the use of the note pad by its exploiting application and any adverse effects that the application might experience as a result.

The note pad catalog structure is a persistent structure that you can delete with only the SETXCF FORCE command or the IXLFORCE macro, or it is deleted internally by XCF in a failure scenario. Before you can force the deletion of the structure, you must wait for XCF to disconnect from the note pad catalog structure. If the structure has any connectors, the force command is rejected. There is no command to disconnect XCF. XCF automatically disconnects from the note pad catalog structure if there are no active note pad connectors on the system and no note pad activities (including DISPLAY XCF,NOTEPAD) for a time period of approximately fifteen minutes.

Tip: Issue the D XCF,NP command, which induces activity, consistently from the same system that already has a connection to the structure. This ensures that activity occurs on only one system and connections are therefore not created or extended unnecessarily.

To ensure that forced structure deletions succeed, ensure that you first understand what causes XCF to establish connections to these structures and when XCF will disconnect from the structures. Then plan the forced deletions for after XCF disconnects. The following steps outline a good procedure for successfully forcing deletions:

Issue the SETXCF FORCE,STR,STRNAME=strname command. If it succeeds, you are done. If it is rejected because the structure still has connections, continue with these steps.
Issue the DISPLAY XCF,STR,STRNAME=strname command to determine which systems have connections.
Issue the DISPLAY XCF,NOTEPAD command to determine which note pads have connections.
Shut down the appropriate applications.
Try deleting the structures again.

The XCF catalog structure can only be used by the sysplex in which the structure was allocated and formatted. If the sysplex is re-IPLed, or if XCF detects that the catalog structure belongs to a different sysplex, it automatically deletes the catalog structure (along with all the note pads) and allocates a new instance of the catalog structure.

The following references contain more information:

See Deletion utility for XCF note pads for information about the IXCDELNP utility.
See z/OS MVS System Commands for information about the DISPLAY XCF and the SETXCF commands.
See z/OS MVS Programming: Sysplex Services Reference for information about the IXLFORCE macro.