June 20, 2023
MFX issues reported on TPF5 and/or individual post-TPF5 PTFs (Updated 6-20-23)
Technical Alert
Precisely has discovered various issues/symptoms related to TPF5 for v3.1 (3.1.5) and additional PTFs subsequent to that release. Below is an explanation of issues/symptoms discovered and the corrective chain of PTFs to address each one.
PTF TZ04522 (MFX SMF Record enhancement - SORTWK primary/secondary dynamic allocation). This PTF was released late 2021, however, customers have just recently reported an Abend 0C4, which we traced back to this early PTF. (We continue to research how and why this 0C4 is just now being reported by customers after so much time).
The fix for the above 0C4 Abend was PTF TZ05063 (Fix for 0C4 in z15 Sort Accelerator with empty datasets), however this PTF has TZ04671 (Internal Serviceability Change) as a Pre-Req. Unfortunately, this PTF then introduced a potential 878-10 abend.
PTF TZ05298 (Corrects Abend S878-10 or S013-24 which may occur after PTF TZ04671 has been applied). The 878-10 or S013-24 may occur if your application calls the SORT multiple times within the same step. If you encounter this situation, you can restart the SORT at the next iteration.
PTF TZ05298 requires PTF TZ04878 (Improve CPU Performance in a JOIN application) as Pre-Req.
PTF TZ04878 introduced an Abend 8D1 or 8D2 which may occur in a JOIN application, as well as a potential for an incorrect data result set.
- PTF TZ05405 (Abend Syncsort 8D1 W or 8D2 W Occurs in JOIN Application After Applying TZ05383) corrects the Abend 8D1/8D2.
- PTF TZ05424 addresses a potential data issue with a JOIN process involving Packed Decimal/Zoned Decimal records that have equal digits except for the last value resulting in more paired records.
- PTF TZ05456 resolves an Abend 8D2 W with TZ05424 applied, when a JOIN application uses JNF1 and JNF2 with different record formats (RECFM)
- PTF TZ05475 addresses an issue with inconsistent output due to a JOIN compare issue for fields longer than 256 bytes and RECFM=F/FB.
Action to take
If you do not encounter the originating 0C4 abend described above with TZ04522, and you have not applied TZ05063, we recommend that you not apply this chain of PTFs.
If you encounter the originating 0C4 abend described above with TZ04522, we believe it is intermittent, so you can attempt to rerun the job or route that job to another LPAR to see if it will run successfully.
If you have any questions regarding this alert, please contact support at support@precisely.com