Restart file had wrong restart labels written to it?

[Riverhawk]

I have been running into weird problems lately. This is for version 7.2.2 and an upgrade is not yet possible. Attached is the syntax of the error. Thanks in advance for your input.

[John Gillings]

Riverhawk,

The only error I see is a COPY-E-OPENOUT which, if the output file really does already exist, is correct.

I'm not sure what you mean by "restart file" and "restart file buffer". If you're talking about restartable jobs in DCL, I'd want to see your $ SET RESTART_VALUE commands, and the value of $RESTART and BATCH$RESTART when the job starts.

This line worries me:

$ $status = "JOBABORT"

What is it trying to achieve?

[Hoff]

This could well be a restart (presuming here that you're either using the SET RESTART batch restart mechanism here, or that this is a self-requeuing batch job), and (assuming much around what has happened here) this centrally looks to be a job that got part way through and left a file around.

I don't see any restart symbols here, so (beyond the COPY collision with an existing file that John mentions) what's gone wrong here is going to need a bit more digging in the DCL. Something left a file around?

Assigning values to a system-defined DCL symbol (the assignment into that $status assignment) is generally considered a bad idea. That can lead to weirdness.

If this is cropping up with some regularity, you're probably going to want to tweak the "$ Overify = F$Verify(0,0)" sequence. That masks what is going on here.

For ease of debugging, I've tended to use the following construct in most DCL procedures I work with:

$ Overify = F$Verify(f$trnlnm("WHATEVER_DEBUG"))

This command to control enabling the DCL procedure verification by defining a group or system logical name. WHATEVER_DEBUG, in this case. Without editing the DCL.

[Riverhawk]

This has only happened once. If I could provide you with certain logs would that help also?

[John Gillings]

Riverhawk,

By what you've posted I doubt you have any other information that will shed any light on what happened.

I'd recommend adding the line:

$ SHOW SYMBOL *$RESTART

somewhere at the top of your procedure. That way, if it happens again, you can see what they job has been told to do.

It may also be useful to write a message each time you SET RESTART_VALUE.