41261 - A SAS® job that is running in a z/OS 1.12 operating environment might stop responding when an external file I/O error occurs

Problem Note 41261: A SAS® job that is running in a z/OS 1.12 operating environment might stop responding when an external file I/O error occurs

Under z/OS 1.12, if an undetermined I/O error occurs while a file that is not a SAS file is processing, the session does not terminate cleanly and must be canceled. You can circumvent this problem by specifying BUFNO=1 either in the JCL if the external file is allocated with a DD statement, or in the FILENAME statement if the file is allocated within the SAS program.

SAS normally terminates with a return code of 8 when it encounters an undetermined I/O failure. Specifying BUFNO=1 for the file keeps the SAS session from becoming unresponsive, but the job will then terminate and surface the return code of 8.

This problem occurs with SAS 9.2 and earlier releases.

The following characteristics apply to this problem:

The SAS program is running on a system under z/OS 1.12.
The SAS task is not consuming any CPU or might terminate with a system abend 522 due to an inactive time-out interval that is set on the system.

Messages similar to the following display toward the bottom of the SAS log:

ERROR: Undetermined I/O failure.
FATAL: Unrecoverable I/O error detected in the execution of the data step program.  Aborted during the 
       EXECUTION phase.

Click the Hot Fix tab in this note to access the hot fix for this issue.

Operating System and Release Information

Product Family	Product	System	SAS Release
			Reported	Fixed*
SAS System	Base SAS	z/OS	8.2 TS2M0	9.3 TS1M0

* For software releases that are not yet generally available, the Fixed Release is the software release in which the problem is planned to be fixed.

A fix for SAS 9.1.3 (9.1 TS1M3) for this issue is available at:

http://www.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/e9_sbcs_prod_list.html#041261

A fix for SAS 9.1.3 (9.1 TS1M3) with Asian Language Support (DBCS) for this issue is available at:

http://www.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/e9_dbcs_prod_list.html#041261

A fix for this issue for Base SAS 9.21_M3 is available at:

http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/HF2/B25.html#41261

Under z/OS 1.12, a SAS session that encounters an I/O error might stop responding.

Type:	Problem Note
Priority:	alert

Date Modified:	2011-05-04 08:24:25
Date Created:	2010-10-15 11:43:31