Avoid S002-Abend when running a TPXBATCH-Job

Products

• TPX - Session Management
• Vman Session Management for z/OS

Issue/Introduction

TPXBATCH allows you to create the VTAMLST member for TPX by using some special parameters. This feature is available since Release 5.2. You might expect a S002 Abend if your SYSUT2 DD card is not properly defined.

Environment

Release: NVINAM00200-5.4-TPX-Session Management-Access Management package
Component:

Resolution

When you create a VTAMLST member for TPX using the *TPX,MDL Statement you have several options for the SYSUT2 DD-Card.

1. You can specify a dataset defined with Record length of 80 and fixed Block:
//SYSUT2 DD DSN=TPX.DATA.SET,DISP=SHR

2. you can specify DUMMY. If done, the output is located in the Job-Log
//SYSUT2 DD DUMMY

3. If you specify SYSOUT=* for the SYSUT2 DD-Card, then you will suffer a S002 Abend with Returncode 18 in this message
IEC036I 002-18,IGC0005E,TPX54MOD,TPX,SYSUT2

Returncode 18 means:

An incorrect record was encountered on a QSAM PUT operation; the data set uses the variable record format.
The value in the length of the record descriptor word (RDW) is incorrect for one of the following reasons:
o It is greater than 32,767, or greater than the block size specified in the DCB.
o It is less than 4, or less than 5 if ASA or machine control characters are used.                                            
o It specifies a value greater than the DCBLRECL value (maximum record size) that
  was specified when the data set was opened.  

You can prevent that Abend by using one of the two first SYSUT2-DD-Cards above or by specifying
//SYSUT2 DD SYSOUT=*,LRECL=80,RECFM=FB

Additional Information

The TPX Batch Administration Guide provides in Chapter 8 "Using VTAM Modeling Statements" detailed information's in how to use TPXBATCH in order to create the VTAMLST-member that contains the TPX models.