If an NCP fails or is manually reloaded immediately before or during the activation of an NCP by VTAM®, the activation might wait in a pending ACTPU state (PAPU1 or PAPU2). The adjacent link station must wait through its failure timeout period (specified on the ACTIVTO operand of the NCP GROUP definition statement) before it recognizes that its adjacent NCP has failed and that the link station is now inoperative. This timer value defaults to its maximum value of 7 minutes in the NCP generation process, so it can be up to 7 minutes before VTAM becomes aware that an SDLC-link-attached NCP has failed. VTAM bases its activation processing for the NCP during this period on the assumption that the NCP and its apparently active adjacent link stations are functioning normally.

You can recover by deactivating and reactivating the failed NCP. If it is certain that the NCP has failed and should be reloaded, you should specify LOAD=YES on the VARY ACT command for the NCP. If you do not specify LOAD=YES, any adjacent link stations in surrounding NCPs should also be deactivated before the reactivation of the NCP. Then you can avoid the possibility of the timeout described previously. These link stations can then be reactivated automatically as part of the reactivation of the NCP, or they can be reactivated directly after the NCP has been successfully reloaded.