Question & Answer
Question
Why would the CESC transaction loop in my CICS Transaction Server for z/OS (CICS TS) region for no apparent reason? I don't know of anything in my CICS region that would lead to a loop and there have been no changes to the CESC transaction definition. I use CA ACF2 from CA Technologies for security.
Answer
Diagnosis showed there was a loop of CA modules that manifested itself in the CESC transaction looping, doing GETNEXT TCTE ENTRY and EXIT's in the CICS Internal trace. CESC is a victim of a storage overlay in the ECDSA subpool ZCTCTTEL which is causing the loop. The overlay is caused by CA ACF2. Per the CA software engineer:
If you use ACF2EXIT you have to rewrite the exit using command level using the sample from samplib and apply the follow PTFs or ACF2 R15 will cause a storage overlay due to the change in CICS TS 4.2
It was recommended to that you apply CA PTF RO73740. This maintenance has the following prerequisites (PREs):
RO46083
RO49397
RO53745
RO59229
RO69515
RO71103
Loops can sometimes reveal themselves in the system trace (SYSTRACE). To make sure this is your problem, you will need a system dump of the CICS region at the time of the loop. You can enter IPCS command IP SYSTRACE to display the system trace. In this particular case, I saw that there was a loop of Estae and Time requests occurring for the TCB that the CESC transaction was running on. There were pages and pages of the trace entries like this:
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC 3C 00000000_133AC3C8 Estae
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR 3C 00000000_133AC3C8
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC B 00000000_133A2124 Time
07042000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR B 00000000_133A2124
07042000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC 3C 00000000_133ABDAA Estae
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR 3C 00000000_133ABDAA
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC 3C 00000000_133AC3C8 Estae
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR 3C 00000000_133AC3C8
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC B 00000000_133A2124 Time
07042000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR B 00000000_133A2124
07042000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC 3C 00000000_133ABDAA Estae
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR 3C 00000000_133ABDAA
This was a yielding loop, that occasionally was interrupted. The PSW for all these addresses pointed within:
| .00..GCSLIO...}. |
| ........&J..&... |
| .J...0{.GCSLIO L |
| JT3301 04.10 03/ |
| 17/08 (C)1992,20 |
| 08 COMPUTER ASSO |
| C. INTL, INC .ST |
| RPATCH{.{.{:{@{= |
| &0....A.....TRAC |
| FAIL GCSLIO ESTA |
| E FAILED...0F-8. |
It would occasionally be interrupted by Getmains and TestAuth's :
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC 78 00000000_1352F0FC Getmain
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVCR 78 00000000_1352F0FC
07040000 80000000
01 00XX 009F81B0 SVC 77 00000000_1352F140 TestAuth
07041000 80000000
These pointed into a CA module with these eyecatchers:
| {.wGCSLOP LJT330 |
| 1 12.38 06/25/07 |
| (C)1992,2007 CO |
| MPUTER ASSOC. IN |
| TL, INC STRPATCH |
Contact CA Technologies if you need additional assistance.
Andre Clark, CICS Level 2 Support
Product Synonym
CICS/TS CICSTS CICS TS CICS Transaction Server
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Document Information
Modified date:
18 February 2016
UID
dwa1251730