An application does not work as expected

It is not possible to give specific advice on dealing with this sort of problem, but the points and techniques that follow should help you to find the area where the failure is occurring.

General points for you to consider

  1. Make sure you can define exactly what happened, and how this differs from what you expected to happen.
  2. Check the commands you are using for accuracy and completeness. For programming information about EXEC CICS® commands, see the CICS Application Programming Reference manual. Are any default values the ones you really want? Does the description of the effect of each command match your expectations?
  3. Can you identify a failing sequence of commands? If so, can it be reproduced using CECI?
  4. Consider the resources required by the application. Are they defined as expected?
  5. Are the required functions in the failing functional area available in this system?
  6. For "input" type requests, does the item exist? You can verify this using offline utilities.
  7. For "output" type requests, is the item created? Verify that the before and after images are as expected.

Using traces and dumps

Traces and dumps can give you valuable information about unusual conditions that might be causing your application to work in an unexpected way.

  1. If the path through the transaction is indeterminate, insert user trace entries at all the principal points.
  2. If you know the point in the code where the failure occurs, insert a CICS system dump request immediately after it.
  3. Use CETR to select special tracing for the level-1 trace points for all components. Select special tracing for the failing task only, and disable all standard tracing by setting the master system trace flag off.
  4. Run the transaction after setting the trace options, and wait until the system dump request is executed. Format the internal trace table from the dump (formatting keyword TR), and examine the trace entries before the failure. Look in particular for unusual or unexpected conditions, possibly ones that the application is not designed to handle.

Related concepts
Trace
Using traces in problem determination
Using dumps in problem determination
Related tasks
Formatting transaction dumps
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