CA WA DE (dSeries): External job did not complete and find home application job

Products

• CA Workload Automation DE - Business Agents (dSeries)
• CA Workload Automation DE
• DSERIES- SERVER
• CA Workload Automation DE - System Agent (dSeries)
• CA Workload Automation DE - Scheduler (dSeries)

Issue/Introduction

The external job stuck in EXTWAIT state.  The home application job completed in time.  The manager should have completed the external link job.
What can be the cause of the external getting stuck?

Environment

Release : 12.0, 12.x

Component : CA WORKLOAD AUTOMATION DE (DSERIES)

Cause

• If the external is stuck in EXTWAIT state, then it is likely It appears that the time limit may have been missed.
• In some cases the external match may fail by a second due to epoch time generated by the JRE.  The tracelog will show a message similar to the following about externals not found.
  
  [2020-XX-XX_08:00:00.000] EXTERNAL match failed candidate=NEW_APPL.215.JOB1234, ext=JOB1234, candidateScheduled=1583445600000(Fri Mar 06 06:00:00 CST 2020), does not match desiredScheduledStart=1583445600001(Fri Mar 06 06:00:00 CST 2020), desiredScheduledLimit=1583532000001(Sat Mar 07 06:00:00 CST 2020)
  2020XXXX 08:00:00.000 [externals] [INFO] DM.Appl.NEW_APPL.215: [2020-XX-XX_08:00:00.000] No Externals found waiting for =NEW_APPL.215.JOB1234

Resolution

To avoid external time limit issue, increase or decrease the scheduled time limit by a minute or so.  If the home application event is set to trigger at 9:00 AM, then set the start time for external to 8:59 AM (9:00 AM less one minute, see example below);