zVM tapes when migrated from a 3590 tape device to a 3490 tape device using CA-1 COPYCAT FILECOPY shows discrepancy in the LRECL

Products

• CA 1 Flexible Storage
• CA 1 Tape Management - Copycat Utility
• CA 1 Tape Management - Add-On Options

Issue/Introduction

On old tape created under z/VM with VMTAPE was copied using FILECOPY. The input tape has LRECL=065535 in the TMC, but the output tape has LRECL=0. Why has the LRECL changed by FILECOPY?

Environment

Release : 14.0

Component : CA 1 Tape Management

Resolution

TAPEMAP of input tape confirmed LRECL=0 in the header label. So FILECOPY worked correctly as the DCB attributes of the header label will be used. The LRECL from the TMC is not used during tape processing. It is just tracked in the TMC when the Data sets are created.

The reason for LRECL=065535 could not be determined as the tape was created many years ago and thus no AUDIT records or joblog was available any longer. Also the TMC record was updated manually, so it could be, that the LRECL was updated for any reason, but this could also not be verified.