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In this Document

Symptoms

Cause

Solution

References

Applies to:

Symptoms

 Problems with loosing communication to the drive on the Data Path or the Library Control Path

Cause

 Many causes.

Solution

Data Path Communication Issues

 In order to troubleshoot data path problems where the host loses communication to the drive a forced dump is typically needed. The dump will show the engineer the sequence of commands that the drive received and the status that was returned. See Document 2168135.1 for instructions regarding how to force a drive dump. It is important to unload any tape from the drive before forcing a drive dump to prevent the MIR and RFID from being invalidated due to the dump process.

Many of these problems are due to a SNO (Should Not Occur) condition. This is a condition where the drive is unable to continue based on what the drive code is seeing and it takes a fatal error. This triggers the drive to capture a dump into the drive EEPROM and IPL the drive. The drive will come back online once the IPL completes and a dump will be present in the drive. See Document ID 2168135.1.

In a mainframe shop the drive can take Interface Control Checks (IFCC) and go into a Boxed state. These IFCC messages can be seen in the System Log SYSLOG. Look for IOS000I messages. See Document ID 2176708.1 if this is occurring.

Library Interface Communication Issues

Symptoms:

If a tape drive loses communication with the library a 1320 result code event is logged in the library event log.Another symptom might be that tapes cannot be loaded and/or unloaded form this drive due to a library to drive communication problem.

There can be many reasons for these events:

1) The drive took a SNO.

2) The drive was IPLed.

3) The drive was powered off.

4) Hardware problem in the communication path between the drive and the library.

If you are unable to confirm that the drive was powered off or IPLed then it is best to force a drive dump. The dump will show the engineer the sequence of commands that the drive received on the library interface and the status that was returned. See Document 2168135.1 for instructions regarding how to force a drive dump. It is important to unload any tape from the drive before forcing a drive dump to prevent the MIR and RFID from being invalidated due to the dump process.

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