ERROR: "XCOMN0298E Unable to allocate remote transaction program: Txpi 211:" rv= 10060

Products

• XCOM Data Transport
• XCOM Data Transport - Windows
• XCOM Data Transport - Linux PC
• XCOM Data Transport - z/OS

Issue/Introduction

Running new job on XCOM for Windows Azure server it is failing with:
XCOMN0298E Unable to allocate remote transaction program: Txpi  211: Socket connect error return value = 10060

Environment

XCOM™ Data Transport® for Windows

Resolution

The first part of the message ("XCOMN0298E Unable to allocate remote transaction program") indicates that XCOM running in a Windows box has failed to initialize the XCOM connection to its partner. The reason is in the second part of the message ("Txpi  211: Socket connect error return value = 10060") which provides the return value passed by the TCP/IP stack. In this case it is 10060 which per Windows Sockets Error Codes means WSAETIMEDOUT ("Connection timed out").

So the remote XCOM port has not responded to the connection request and the request has timed out. There are a number of possible causes for this symptom:

• Firewall settings are blocking the connection on port 8044 (unsecure) or 8045 (secure) or both.
• Some router in the network path to the remote host is down.
• The wrong IP address has been specified in the request.
• The IP name specified in the request resolves to the wrong IP address.
• The remote machine is down.
• The subnet mask in the local box is wrong so that the TCP/IP stack addresses the router instead of the local subnetwork or vice versa. This is unlikely to happen as most probably the Windows box is already establishing TCP/IP connections with other hosts.

1. Use utilities ping, telnet, traceroute to check whether the Windows box can reach the remote host (telnet can test the specific ports). Specify the IP address of the remote host in the request (instead of its IP name) to check whether the problem is with the name resolution.The command netstat -an | find "804" will show:
   

   C:\Users\user>netstat -an | find "804"
     TCP    0.0.0.0:8044           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
     TCP    0.0.0.0:8045           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
     TCP    2.3.4.5:60951          1.2.3.4:8044           SYN_SENT

   
   Which means that a SYN has been sent to the remote, but no SYN/ACK has come back in the given timeout period.
   
   
2. Check xcom.log on the target side. If there are entries similar to 
   

   2022/04/13 10:39:24 TID=000001 PRG=xcomtcp PID=43271 IP=2.3.4.5 PORT=8044
       XCOMU0785I Starting TCP/IP Connection.

it can still mean that a firewall allows traffic 2.3.4.5 > 1.2.3.4 but not backwards 1.2.3.4 > 2.3.4.5

Additional Information

XCOM support under cloud platforms Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, Google GCP

To enable telnet client on Windows go to "Control Panel" > "Programs & Features" > "Turn Windows features on or off" > "Telnet Client"
(On Windows Server "Turn Windows features on or off"  will redirect to "Server Manager" where the "Features" option will show "Telnet Client")