Fixes are available
APAR status
Closed as program error.
Error description
When a WebSphere MQ V7 Explorer is connected to a WebSphere MQ Queue Manager (V6 or V7), selecting the "Queues" view results in the MQ Explorer progress bar scrolling for a few seconds before revealing no queue objects in the view, despite there being many queues defined on the queue manager. A blank page is shown in place of the expected queue listing. Right clicking on the "Queues" entry and selecting "Status" reveals the queues, and in some cases using a filter to limit the search (such as showing all the alias queues) will also result in the expected result. The problem is usually observed when using queue managers which have been defined using languages which contain characters outside of the standard ASCII set.
Local fix
Problem summary
**************************************************************** USERS AFFECTED: This issue affects users of the WebSphere MQ V7 Explorer who are connecting to queues that have description fields populated with characters which are encoded in an alternative codepage to that defined by the Queue Manager CCSID field. Platforms affected: All Distributed (iSeries, all Unix and Windows) +Java **************************************************************** PROBLEM SUMMARY: It is possible to create WebSphere MQ objects on the Queue Manager which have description (DESCR) fields that contain character strings, encoded in a different codepage to that specified by the queue manager CCSID. For example, the support pack MS03 allows an administrator to save the configuration of Queue Manager to a file. If this is performed on the Windows platform (using an encoding of ISO-8859-1 say for the "Latin alphabet number 1" encoding style), the resulting output file will be encoded in ISO-8859-1. If this file is subsequently relocated to say a Linux machine running in UTF-8, and a duplicate Queue Manager configuration is loaded using the command: runmqsc QMGR < theQueueObjectDefinitionFile.def then some unexpected characters may be seen in the Queue Manager object definitions. In this example, ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 happen to share many of the same character encoded values (the ASCII set of characters), however if characters outside this range have been used, usually within the description (DESCR) field, then these will be incorrectly encoded in the Queue Manager definition. Continuing with the example, let's imagine that a German umlaut character has been used in the description field on the Windows machine. By the time this has been transposed to the Linux system, it will look incomprehensible, eg: DESCR(l? ?ge) While this does not cause the Queue Manager a direct problem, when the WebSphere MQ Explorer attempts to view the queues on the queue manager, this incorrectly encoded string results in no queues being displayed, not even the queues which are not incorrectly encoded.
Problem conclusion
A code change has been made to the WebSphere MQ V7 Explorer such that it now better handles Queue Manager objects with incorrectly encoded strings. An alternative workaround to this problem is to ensure that all strings are correctly encoded for the encoding style of the Queue Manager. To check for such characters, you may like to try outputting the Queue Manager object definitions to a file. For example on a UNIX system the command: $ echo 'display qlocal(*) all' | runmqsc QMGRNAME > qdef.log will produce a file qdef.log, which can subsequently be analysed for incorrectly encoded characters. Continuing with the example on Linux, the "file" command may indicate which codepage the file is encoded in: $ file qdef.log qdef.log: ISO-8859 text Given that our Queue Manager is defined to be encoded in UTF-8, this provides a suggestion that there may be something amiss with the object definitions. --------------------------------------------------------------- The fix is targeted for delivery in the following PTFs: v7.0 Platform Fix Pack 7.0.1.1 -------- -------------------- Windows U200310 AIX U827232 HP-UX (PA-RISC) U826485 HP-UX (Itanium) U826884 Solaris (SPARC) U827125 Solaris (x86-64) U827374 iSeries tbc_p700_0_1_1 Linux (x86) U826321 Linux (x86-64) U827231 Linux (zSeries) U827105 Linux (Power) U826779 The latest available maintenance can be obtained from 'WebSphere MQ Recommended Fixes' http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=171&uid=swg27006037 If the maintenance level is not yet available, information on its planned availability can be found in 'WebSphere MQ Planned Maintenance Release Dates' http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=171&uid=swg27006309 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Temporary fix
Comments
APAR Information
APAR number
IC62909
Reported component name
WMQ WINDOWS V7
Reported component ID
5724H7220
Reported release
700
Status
CLOSED PER
PE
NoPE
HIPER
NoHIPER
Special Attention
NoSpecatt
Submitted date
2009-09-01
Closed date
2009-09-09
Last modified date
2009-09-09
APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:
APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:
Fix information
Fixed component name
WMQ WINDOWS V7
Fixed component ID
5724H7220
Applicable component levels
R700 PSY
UP
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Document Information
Modified date:
31 March 2023