A user killed one of the processes associated to a file watcher job, that showed the status change on the job to TERMINATED, but later an hour or two later the job's status changed to SUCCESS. Why?
Consider below example:
autorep -dJ test_fw
Job Name Last Start Last End ST/Ex Run/Ntry Pri/Xit
________________________________________________________________ ____________________ ____________________ _____ ________ _______
test_fw 01/12/2026 12:28:10 ----- RU 25132/1
Status/[Event] Time Ntry ES ProcessTime Machine
---------------------------- --------------------- -- -- --------------------- -------
STARTING 01/12/2026 12:28:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:10 agent.example.com
RUNNING 01/12/2026 12:28:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:11 agent.example.com
<Monitored for CREATE>
[CHK_TERM_RUNTIME] 01/12/2026 12:30:10 1 UP
<Event was scheduled based on job definition.>
ps -few|grep watcher
autosys 46539 800 0 13:28 ? 00:00:00 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/cybspawn.bin 6 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT 20260112 13281045+0500 WA_AGENT filemon#JavaAgent#tcpip@R12_SCH 7930.25132_1/WAAE_WF0.1/MAIN RUN DOTINTERNAL Data(Command="/opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/filewatcher",Args="18:1_10000_true_30000 35:\"\"\"/tmp/cawa_installer.log\"\"\" 2:S0 6:CREATE 0: 0: 0: 5:30000 5:false ") Env(AUTOSERV=R12,AUTO_JOB_NAME="test_fw",AUTORUN="25132-1") User(autosys) Password() MFUser(autosys) InternalCommand GblEnv(AUTOSYS="/opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/autosys",AUTOROOT="/opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE",EWAGLOBALPROFILE="/etc/auto.profile") MgrEnv(EWAGLOBALPROFILE="/etc/auto.profile") JLErase(TRUE) SpoolErase(TRUE) FilePermission(0644) CA3098C18D959984D6C503FE1A37DD0A04136CA7 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/cybAgent.bin 194c18 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/spool WA_AGENT 7520 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/security.txt - /usr/bin/sh,/bin/csh,/bin/ksh,/usr/bin/ksh,/bin/sh,/bin/bash - /bin/sh 256 USER_CONT_NOT_AVAIL - - su - -
autosys 46555 46540 0 13:28 ? 00:00:00 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/filewatcher 18:1_10000_true_30000 35:/tmp/cawa_installer.log 2:S0 6:CREATE 0: 0: 0: 5:30000 5:false
kill -9 46539
autorep -dJ test_fw
Job Name Last Start Last End ST/Ex Run/Ntry Pri/Xit
________________________________________________________________ ____________________ ____________________ _____ ________ _______
test_fw 01/12/2026 12:28:10 01/12/2026 12:28:51 TE 25132/1 9
Status/[Event] Time Ntry ES ProcessTime Machine
---------------------------- --------------------- -- -- --------------------- -------
STARTING 01/12/2026 12:28:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:10 agent.example.com
RUNNING 01/12/2026 12:28:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:11 agent.example.com
<Monitored for CREATE>
TERMINATED 01/12/2026 12:28:51 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:51
<Aborted, Signal 9>
[*** ALARM ***]
JOBTERMINATED 01/12/2026 12:28:51 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:52 agent.example.com
[CHK_TERM_RUNTIME] 01/12/2026 12:30:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:51
<Event was scheduled based on job definition.>
But after the watch_file_interval completes as the file arrived properly, that completed fine and so the SUCCESS event shows up now.
autorep -dJ test_fw
Job Name Last Start Last End ST/Ex Run/Ntry Pri/Xit
________________________________________________________________ ____________________ ____________________ _____ ________ _______
test_fw 01/12/2026 12:28:10 01/12/2026 12:30:10 SU 25132/1 0
Status/[Event] Time Ntry ES ProcessTime Machine
---------------------------- --------------------- -- -- --------------------- -------
STARTING 01/12/2026 12:28:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:10 agent.example.com
RUNNING 01/12/2026 12:28:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:11 agent.example.com
<Monitored for CREATE>
TERMINATED 01/12/2026 12:28:51 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:51
<Aborted, Signal 9>
[*** ALARM ***]
JOBTERMINATED 01/12/2026 12:28:51 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:52 agent.example.com
[CHK_TERM_RUNTIME] 01/12/2026 12:30:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:28:51
<Event was scheduled based on job definition.>
SUCCESS 01/12/2026 12:30:10 1 PD 01/12/2026 12:30:10 agent.example.com
<File Created, size 4, NoChange 0 min. Filename("/tmp/cawa_installer.log")>
Because the PID is being killed externally outside the realm of AutoSys, and the whole process tree was not killed, when the file watcher does complete it's watching, it reported back that status back to AutoSys.
This is expected behavior.
It is recommended to issue a KILLJOB against the job with in AutoSys.
If external kill needs to be done, kill the PGID associated to the file watcher process (which is usually the cybspawn process's PID).
Example:
UID PID PPID PGID SID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
root 4052934 1 4052934 4052934 0 2025 ? 00:00:00 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/cybspa>
root 4052939 4052934 4052934 4052934 0 2025 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGEN>
root 4052977 4052939 4052934 4052934 0 2025 ? 00:00:40 /opt/CA/WorkloadAutomationAE/SystemAgent/WA_AGENT/filewa>