S0C7 ABEND - Production Crisis Under Pressure

"2:15 AM Monday. Claims processing batch ABENDs with S0C7 at Step 15 of 22.

Context:

• Batch window closes at 6 AM
• 25,000 claims waiting for payment processing (downstream steps)
• Step 15 calculates claim reserves using policyholder age and claim amount
• Same job ran successfully Friday night
• No code changes since Friday
• Input file format unchanged

Your SYSUDUMP shows:

• ABEND at statement COMPUTE WS-RESERVE = WS-AMT * WS-FACTOR
• WS-AMT is PIC S9(7)V99 COMP-3
• WS-FACTOR is PIC SV999 COMP-3
• Offset shows failing record is #8,347

You have 90 minutes to diagnose and fix. Walk me through your next steps."

• Systematic troubleshooting under time pressure
• Understanding of COMP-3 data exceptions
• Ability to isolate root cause quickly
• Production fix vs. permanent solution thinking

Immediate Actions (First 30 minutes):

1. Extract record #8,347 from input file using SORT or file editor

2. Examine WS-AMT and WS-FACTOR in hex - look for invalid packed decimal (sign nibble must be C, D, or F)

3. Check if WS-AMT or WS-FACTOR is initialized before COMPUTE

4. Review recent data source changes (even if format unchanged)

Root Cause Analysis:

5. Likely causes in priority order:

• Uninitialized field (WS-FACTOR not set for certain policy types)
• Invalid data in input (age field corrupt causing lookup failure)
• Array overflow in factor table lookup
• Vendor file corruption

Quick Fix (For Tonight):

6. Add defensive code: Use NUMVAL or ON SIZE ERROR

7. Skip problematic record and log to error file

8. Implement in emergency change and restart from Step 15

Permanent Fix (After Production):

9. Add input validation in earlier step

10. Implement data quality checks before COMPUTE

11. Update unit tests to cover boundary conditions

• ❌ Immediately blames "bad data" without examining dump
• ❌ Wants to rerun without fixing anything
• ❌ Doesn't know how to read packed decimal in hex
• ❌ Suggests "just initialize all fields" without understanding root cause
• ❌ No mention of error logging or reporting

• "The dump shows WS-AMT contains X'12345C'. Is this valid packed decimal?"
• "What's the difference between COMP and COMP-3 in terms of S0C7?"
• "How would you prevent this from happening again?"
• "If you can't fix it in 90 minutes, what's your contingency plan?"