Batch job execution issue with IA64 V8.4

[Duncan Morris]

An issue has been observed on Integrity systems running V8.4, where certain batch jobs fail to run, and record a LOGFAIL entry in the accounting file.

Investigation has shown that if:

a) The job specifies a logfile located in a rooted directory, and
b) The job name contains characters which are unacceptable in a file specification (e.g. comma, brackets, <> etc),

Then the job will fail with %RMS-F-SYN, file specification syntax error, and no logfile is created.

In previous versions of OpenVMS, there is no such problem with odd characters in the job name:

SUBMIT

/NAME

/NAME=job-name

Names the job (and possibly the batch job log file). The job name
must be 1 to 39 alphanumeric characters. If characters other than
alphanumeric characters, underscores (_), or dollar signs ($)
are used in the name, enclose the name in quotation marks (" ").
The default job name is the name of the first file in the job.

If you omit the /LOG_FILE qualifier, the job-name value must be
a valid file name. The SHOW ENTRY and SHOW QUEUE/FULL commands display the job name.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have raised a support call for this, and HP advised that Engineering is already looking at this issue as a known issue.

Work arounds include specifying the full path for the logfile, or using the carat symbol to escape the offending symbols in the job name.

Just posting here to bring it to the attention of folks without access to support.

Duncan

[Duncan Morris]

and here are examples of job failures etc in the attachment

Duncan

[Shael Richmond]

Yep, found that one. Didn't get a warm feeling that it would be fixed so we changed our job names.

[P Muralidhar Kini]

Shael,

>> Didn't get a warm feeling that it would be fixed so we changed our job names.
This problem has been reported to HP engineering. We are actively working towards root causing this issue. Once this is root caused, we would work on the fix for this issue.

Regards,
Murali

[Duncan Morris]

Thread closed, as it is just for info.