The Four Hundred--Admin Alert: Does ENDJOBABN Prevent PTF Applications?

In "Admin Alert: Reader Feedback on How ENDJOBABN Affects PTF Application," I noted that using ENDJOBABN causes the previous end of system indicator, QABNORMSW, to be set to 1 (abnormal ending), which prevents PTFs from being applied at IPL time. I recently received an e-mail indicating that this might not be the case with OS/400 V5, and the problem may have been fixed as far back as OS/400 V3.

The e-mail was sent by an IBM employee, and it confirmed that using ENDJOBABN does turn on the QABNORMSW. The e-mail also referenced IBM APAR (authorized problem analysis report) SA54989 for OS/400 V3R2 and V3R6 from November 25, 1996. That APAR (which I was unable to find on the APARs Web site) states the following, in the conclusion section: "If the only reason an IPL is abnormal is because ENDJOBABN has been invoked, and the only reason PTFs are not applied is because the IPL is abnormal, then the PTFs will now be applied on the IPL even though it is an abnormal IPL."

I tried to find other APARs that might reference this issue, but I didn't see any on the site, either. However, since this APAR was written for OS/400 V3R2, it's reasonable to believe that this fix was ported upward to OS/400 V5, and that if you had used ENDJOBABN before IPLing your system, you wouldn't have to perform a second IPL to apply PTFs. However, I received a different answer from another source at IBM before I wrote the column.

If anyone at IBM can provide a definitive answer on this issue, please e-mail me at jhertvik@itjungle.com. We'll print the results of any correspondence in a future column.

I can recommend that the best course of action is to follow good PTF application practices and to check your installation history after you IPL. If you loaded PTFs to be applied, before you ran an ENDJOBABN command, you can check your installation history to see if those PTFs were applied, by running the following steps from the system console after the IPL completes.

First, go into the Work with Licensed Programs menu by entering the following OS/400 menu command: GO LICPGM

Next, take option 50, "display log for Messages," from the menu, and check for successful PTF application messages. If you see that your PTFs have installed successfully, a second IPL is probably not necessary. If, however, you see that there was an error in PTF installation, or that the PTFs weren't applied at all, you can try a second IPL to apply your loaded PTFs.

These instructions should also be available in the documentation you receive with PTFs.

While researching these columns on ENDJOBABN, I ran across a few other items for checking for abnormal termination that didn't quite fit into the main article. I'm passing them on to you because they may be valuable for general information.

Fact 1: You can check to see if ENDJOBABN was used on your system by checking for the following error messages in a job log or in your history log (QHST):

The ampersand parameters (&1, &2, &3, etc.) are returned by the system to provide more information about what happened. In the CPC1124 message, the returned value in the string &3/&2/&1 tells you which job was ended abnormally, and the value &4 tells you which user cancelled the job.

In addition to CPC1124, you may also find more information about whether a specific job ended abnormally by checking for CPF1164 messages. CPF1164 is a standard job completion message that has the following format:

For jobs that complete abnormally, you can tell whether the job completed abnormally by checking the end code parameters (&8 and &13). If the job ended abnormally, these parameters will be set to one of the following values: 80 means that the job was ended through the ENDJOBABN command, and 90 means the job was forced to end after the time limit for ending the job was exceeded.

Under certain circumstances, the system can also end a job abnormally, and that might prevent a CPF1164 message from being issued.

Also note that since OS/400 may issue a CPF1164 message for almost any job that it ends, checking this particular message for end job information could be incredibly tedious, unless you know the exact job identification of the job you're looking for.

Fact 2: If OS/400 tells you that your system previously ended abnormally (by checking the QABNORMSW system value or during an IPL), you can check the reason for that abnormal ending by looking for a CPI091D message in your history log.

CPI091D has the following format: CPI091D - Previous ending abnormal, reason code &1

6. The system ended with a reference code, ended while on auxiliary power, or was not ended with the PWRDWNSYS command.

7. PWRDWNSYS did not complete within the time limit specified by the Maximum Time for PWRDWNSYS system value (QPWRDWNLMT).

Fact 3: If PTF application failed, you may be able to find a little more information in message CPI091E, "double IPL for PTF apply failed."

This message has the following format: CPI091E - Double IPL for PTF apply failed, reason code &1

5. The current IPL source is not B, and IPLSRC(B) was not specified on PWRDWNSYS.