ACF2 Initialization errors after ACF2 maintenance

Products

• ACF2
• ACF2 - MISC
• ACF2 - z/OS

Issue/Introduction

After applying ACF2 maintenance, ACF2 initialization issues when system is IPLed such as:

1. ACF2 does not fully start as it appears BPXINIT is looping.  IBM reviewed a standalone dump of the LPAR and determined that tasks were in a looping in ACF0AENT within ACF00SVA. 
2. ACF00401 ACF2 ENVIRONMENTAL ERROR.
3. Started tasks abending or failing to start during the IPL.
4. Various JES2/JES3 abends or errors.
5. ACF2 will not initialize.
6. ACF00401 - ACF2 ENVIRONMENTAL ERROR
7. System hang during IPL.
8. ACF8A014 ACF2 IS NOT DEFINED AS A SUBSYSTEM
9. ACF8A990 UNABLE TO INITIALIZE ACF2 CVT - TERMINAL ERROR

Environment

Release : 16.0

Resolution

If a site does not execute out of the ACF2 installation LPA and LINKLST libraries that ACF2 was installed in(or maintenance applied to), verify that the when the ACF2 installation LPA and LINKLST libraries were copied(deployed) that all modules and ALIASs are copied. To avoid potential issues it is recommended that the entire ACF2 installation LPA and LINKLST libraries are copied rather than individual modules.

Verify that the z/OS LPA and LINKLIST library concatenations do not contain libraries from a prior version of ACF2.

If an install/upgrade is done, verify that the ACF2/JES interface was re-assembled and linked with the appropriate z/OS macro libraries. For JES2 running the JXBUMJ2 job provided in the CAI.CAX1JCL0 data set. For JES3 running the JXBUMJ3 job provided in the CAI.CAX1JCL0 data set.

Note regarding aliases: After maintenance was applied, the aliases for ACF00SVA were incorrect, leading to a hard loop in ACF2. This can occur either due to an unresolved failure when applying maintenance, or an error when copying the maintenance libraries over to the runtime libraries.

To verify the aliases for ACF00SVA, run an AMBLIST job against the CAX1LINK library:

//STEP1   EXEC PGM=AMBLIST                              
//SYSLIB    DD  DISP=SHR,DSN=your.acf2hlq.CAX1LINK   <== Note: CAX1LINK must be a PDS, not a PDSE.
//SYSPRINT  DD  SYSOUT=*                             
//SYSIN     DD  *                                    
  LISTLOAD OUTPUT=XREF,MEMBER=ACF00SVA               
//                                                   

As an example, this is output from a working system:

MEMBER NAME:  ACF00SVA
LIBRARY:      SYSLIB  
    ** ALIASES **     
      ACF0AVAL        
      ACF00VSR        

The AMBLIST from the looping system showed:

MEMBER NAME:  ACF00SVA
LIBRARY:      SYSLIB  
    ** ALIASES **     
      ACF00VSR