Messages

Strobe issues messages that report on the status of the components of Strobe. Specifically, these messages are returned from the session management facility, its session manager and session requester components, the measurement facility, and its subsystem components, and the reporting facility. These components are described in the Using-Strobe-to-measure-online-applications-and-batch-programs.

Messages fall into the following six categories depending upon their level of severity:

• Informative messages confirm user inputs, present information about the status of a Strobe function, and announce the completion of processing.
• License Management System messages provide information about the licenses you have BMC products. See the License Manager System documentation for more information about these messages.
• Warnings indicate that Strobe has performed the requested operation but had to use some default options.
• Conditional errors indicate that Strobe has performed the requested operation, but the information in the Strobe Performance Profile may be incomplete.
• Errors indicate that Strobe did not perform the operation, but you can correct and resubmit the request.
• Severe errors cause Strobe to terminate processing. The Using-Strobe-to-measure-online-applications-and-batch-programs contains system recovery information.

This section provides information about the following topics:

• Message Destination
• Message Format
• Message Notation
• Return Codes and Severity Codes
• ABEND Codes
• Viewing Message Descriptions with Strobe/ISPF
• Error Recovery and Reporting

Message Destination

The Strobe session management facility writes its messages to the SYSPRINT data set and to an operator’s terminal (if the request originated from the terminal). The session management facility also writes all messages, except those produced in response to measurement session status requests, to the Strobe log data set. The session management facility writes those messages produced in response to measurement session status requests to an operator’s terminal.

Strobe/ISPF displays its messages at the top of the panel associated with the error. You can view a longer explanation by pressing the Help PF key. When the session management facility performs an operation and returns more than one message, Strobe/ISPF places the messages in a data set and invokes the ISPF Browse function.

Strobe writes messages produced during reporting and indexing to the SYSPRINT data set. In addition, Strobe writes messages related to iStrobe to the iStrobe Performance Profile PROFILE.XML file. SQL analysis messages are also sent to the SYSTERM DD.

Message Format

Messages consist of an identifier followed by a short description of the condition. Message identifiers have a standard format of STRsnnnx, where:

• STR is the Strobe prefix.
• ssnnnn is a four- to six-alphanumeric character message key, where
  • ss is the one- to two-alpha character Strobe
  • The possible values for the severity code and their associated return codes are shown in Return Codes and Severity Codes below.

Strobe follows the message identifier with a short description of the condition. For example:

STRI101E The SMS parameter must be "YES" or "NO".

STRGM0001I Strobe Monitoring Address Space initialization complete

Message Notation

Lowercase italicized words represent the names of variables.

Brackets, braces, and vertical bars denote phrases that may or may not appear in the actual message:

• Brackets [ ] enclose expressions that appear only conditionally.
• Braces { } enclose alternative expressions (only one of which appears in the message), separated by vertical bars |.

Return Codes and Severity Codes

Unless otherwise indicated, the measurement task sets the job step return code to the value provided by the target program when it terminates.

Severity codes and the accompanying return codes are as follows:

ABEND Codes

This space references Strobe abnormal termination (ABEND) codes, which appear when Strobe terminates without completing the measurement session. Abend Codes Returned by Strobe includes a table of ABEND codes, their reason codes, and an explanation of why the ABEND occurred.

Viewing Message Descriptions with Strobe/ISPF

You can view an explanation of an error message by entering .M in the COMMAND or OPTION field on the panel displaying the message. In addition, you can view an explanation of any message from any panel by entering .M scnn (where scnn is the message key) in the OPTION field on the panel, or by selecting OPTION M from the Strobe Options menu. The messages and the accompanying explanations, system actions, and the recommended response are in Messages Produced by Strobe.

To view all the messages for the current request, enter .CVM in the OPTION field or select OPTION L from the Strobe Options menu. Strobe/ISPF presents all the messages in a data set for you to browse.

Error Recovery and Reporting

This space provides a recommended course of action for problems that a user can correct. If the error involves installation defaults, dynamic allocation problems, or other system problems, you should contact the Strobe system programmer.

For additional system information, refer to the Using-Strobe-to-measure-online-applications-and-batch-programs.