CICS
What can cause an ASRA abend?


CICS transaction abend codes are listed in the CICS Messages and Codes manual.

An ASRA abend means that your task has been terminated because of a program check.

This means that your code has ended with an abnormal System Completion code. Your first task is to determine exactly what that System Completion code is.

To do this, follow these steps :
  1. Go into your spooled data utility (e.g. SDSF).
  2. Find the job associated with the CICS region you were executing in. If you cannot find this job yourself, you may need to ask your CICS System Programmers what it is called.
  3. Put a query (?) against this job, then select (S) the JESMSG DDNAME. There should be a message in here associated with your ASRA abend, stating what z/OS System Completion code caused the abend (e.g. S0C1, S0C4, S0C7).

Note that if lots of abends have taken place in your CICS region, you may need to use the timestamp of the message to help identify which System Completion code in the log is the one associated with your ASRA abend. If in doubt, re-execute your task and take careful note of the execution time, and try to limit the number of other users executing at the same time (or re-execute your test at a time when other users will not be using the CICS region).