Specific types of incorrect output for terminals

This section contains some suggestions about what to do for specific types of incorrect output, and what might be at fault.

Logon rejection message

If you get a logon rejection message when you attempt to log on to CICS, it could be that the TYPETERM definitions for the terminal are incorrect. A message recording the failure is written to the CSNE log or, in the case of autoinstall, to the CADL log.

You are likely to get a logon rejection if you attempt to specify anything other than QUERY(NO) for a terminal that does not have the structured query field feature. Note that NO is the default value for TYPETERM definitions that you supply, but YES is the value for TYPETERM definitions that are supplied with CICS.

If you have a persistent problem with logon rejection, you can use the VTAM® buffer trace to find out more about the reasons for the failure.

Unexpected messages and codes

If the "wrong data" is in the form of a message or code that you do not understand, look in the appropriate manual for an explanation of what it means.

Messages that are prefixed by DFH originate from CICS--use the CMAC transaction or look in CICS® Messages and Codes for these. For codes that appear in the space at the bottom of the screen where status information is displayed, look in the appropriate guide for the terminal.

The following are examples of common errors that can cause messages or codes to be displayed:

Unexpected appearance of uppercase or lowercase characters

If the data displayed on your terminal has unexpectedly been translated into uppercase characters, or if you have some lowercase characters when you were expecting uppercase translation, you need to look at the options governing the translation.

These are the significant properties of the various translation options you have:

Note:
User exit XZCIN can also be used to perform uppercase translation.

The UPPERCASE option in the offline utilities (DFHSTUP, DFHDU640, DFHTU640) specify whether all lowercase characters are to be translated to uppercase characters.

Table 16 and Table 17 summarize whether or not you get uppercase translation, depending on the values of these options.

Table 16. Uppercase translation truth table -- ASIS option not specified
Profile TYPETERM UCTRAN(YES) TYPETERM UCTRAN(NO)
UCTRAN(YES) Yes Yes
UCTRAN(NO) Yes No
Table 17. Uppercase translation truth table -- ASIS option is specified
Profile TYPETERM UCTRAN(YES) TYPETERM UCTRAN(NO)
UCTRAN(YES) No No
UCTRAN(NO) No No

CRTE and uppercase translation

Initiating a CRTE session

The input required to start a CRTE routing session is of the form:

CRTE SYSID(xxxx),TRPROF(yyyyyyyy)

Translation to uppercase is dictated by the typeterm of the terminal at which CRTE was entered and CRTE’s transaction profile definition as shown in Table 18.

Table 18. Uppercase translation on CRTE session initiation
TYPETERM UCTRAN CRTE PROFILE UCTRAN INPUT TRANSLATED TO UPPERCASE
YES YES/NO ALL OF THE INPUT
NO NO NONE OF THE INPUT. See note.
NO YES ALL OF THE INPUT EXCEPT THE TRANSID. See note.
TRANID YES ALL OF THE INPUT
TRANID NO TRANSID ONLY
Note:
If the transid CRTE is not entered in upper case, it will not be recognized (unless there is a lower/mixed case alias), and message DFHAC2001 will be issued.

Input within the CRTE session

During the CRTE routing session, uppercase translation is dictated by the typeterm of the terminal at which CRTE was initiated and the transaction profile definition of the transaction being initiated (which has to be a valid transaction on the application owning region) as shown in Table 19.

Table 19. Uppercase translation during CRTE session
TYPETERM UCTRAN TRANSACTION PROFILE (AOR) UCTRAN INPUT TRANSLATED TO UPPERCASE
YES YES/NO ALL OF THE INPUT
NO NO NONE OF THE INPUT. See note.
NO YES ALL OF THE INPUT EXCEPT THE TRANSID. See note.
TRANID YES ALL OF THE INPUT
TRANID NO TRANSID ONLY
Note:
If the transid CRTE is not entered in upper case, it will not be recognized (unless there is a lower/mixed case alias defined on the AOR) and message DFHAC2001 will be issued.

During a CRTE routing session, if the first six characters entered at a screen are CANCEL, CICS will recognize this input in upper, lower or mixed case and end the routing session.

For more information on the ALIAS attribute of the transaction definition, see the ‘Transaction’ section of the CICS Resource Definition Guide.

Be aware that when transaction routing from CICS Transaction Server for z/OS®, Version 3 Release 1 to an earlier release of CICS that does not support transaction based uppercase translation, uppercase translation only occurs if it is specified in the typeterm.

EXEC CICS SET TERMINAL and uppercase translation

In a single system, if the EXEC CICS SET TERMINAL command is issued for a terminal while it is running a transaction performing RECEIVE processing, unpredictable results may occur. This is because the command can override the typeterm definition regarding uppercase translation and RECEIVE processing interrogates the uppercase translate status of the terminal in order to establish whether translation is required.

In a transaction routing environment, the system programmer who issues the EXEC CICS SET TERMINAL command should be aware (for VTAM terminals) that the TOR terminal uppercase translate status is copied to the AOR surrogate terminal on every flow across the link from the TOR to the AOR. Consequently:

CICS client virtual terminal

If the codepage sent by a client is incorrect, this can lead to the entire screenful of data being incorrect. You must resolve this problem at the client end of operations.

The entire screenful of data might also be incorrect if the bit TCTSK_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL is not set on in the skeleton for the virtual terminal. The bit might have been overwritten, or not turned on when the virtual terminal was being created during CTIN processing.

Katakana terminals--mixed English and Katakana characters

If you are using a Katakana terminal, you might see some messages containing mixed English and Katakana characters. That is because Katakana terminals cannot display mixed-case output. Uppercase characters in the data stream appear as uppercase English characters, but lowercase characters appear as Katakana characters. If you have any Katakana terminals connected to your CICS system, specify MSGCASE=UPPER in the system initialization table to ensure that messages contain uppercase characters only.

The offline utilities DFHSTUP, DFHDU640, and DFHTU640 have an extra parameter to ensure all output is translated to uppercase. See the CICS Operations and Utilities Guide for details on how to use these parameters.

Wrong data values are displayed

If the data values are wrong on the user’s part of the screen (the space above the area used to display status information to the operator), or in the hard copy produced by a printer, it is likely that the application is at fault.

Some data is not displayed

If you find that some data is not being displayed, consider these possibilities:

Early data is overlaid by later data

Early data can be overlaid by later data, so that data appears in the wrong order, when the SENDSIZE value of the TYPETERM definition is too large for the device receiving the data. This is because the buffer can wrap when it is full, with the surplus data overlaying the first data that was received.

The data is formatted wrongly

Incorrect formatting of data can have a wide range of causes, but here are some suggestions of areas that can sometimes be troublesome:

Related concepts
VTAM buffer tracing
TERMINAL resource definitions
TRANSACTION resource definitions
Creating the map
Related references
TERMINAL definition attributes
TRANSACTION definition attributes
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