Rectifying a ‘Data Area MSDTA82 was Locked’ Message

 

The data area MSDTA82 is used to ensure that the ‘end of day’ process (started by job ALERTPRT), is complete before performing some ‘housekeeping’ procedures. Therefore if MSDTA82 is in use it is because the ALERTPRT procedure has not yet completed. If you are trying to save the @* libraries before ‘end of day’ completes, you will get this lock message.

To rectify this:

1. Check whether the end of day procedures normally complete in a ’sensible’ amount of time. Use the DetectIT command DSPEODLOG to review the recent runs of this process. Normally we would expect this process to take from 20 to 80 minutes.  If it has recently started to take longer, then it is likely that you are generating more information than before, and this may be lengthening the collection process. Do you need to move the ‘endofday’ process to a different start time when the system is less busy?
2. When preparing for your weekly saves it is important to check that the DetectIT subsystems have fully ended. If a critical job (such as the one with the lock on the MSDTA82 data area) cannot end, then the ENDSBS will not complete, unless you manually force the job to end. Please check the QSYSOPR messages for completion messages for ALERT and TIMPGM before progressing with the save.