SAP Note 26329 - oncatlgr: "The catalogers' named pipe is missing."

Symptom:

When carrying out database archives via CCMS (transaction DB13), the archive terminates and the following error message appears in the file '~adm/archive.log':
21:30:47 The catalogers' named pipe is missing.
21:30:51 Attempt to start cataloger failed.
In most cases, there are several oncatlgr's in the process list after such a termination.

Cause and prerequisites

The program 'infarcexe' (which is started by the R/3 System) tests first whether an oncatlgr process is already running in the system and whether the named pipe of this process ('/tmp/IX_ARC_CAT_V6.') exists.
If the named pipe is missing, then the above error message is written to the log file and a new oncatlgr is started.

There are two reasons why this named pipe can be missing:

a) If the system runs using database version 7.x (for example, under OSF/1 on a DEC alpha), this error message appears continually since the name of the pipe has changed to '/tmp/IX_ARC_CAT_V7.' in this case.

b) The named pipe in the '/tmp' directory was deleted manually.

Solution

This problem has been corrected starting with SAP release 2.2G and 3.0C.

Until then:

• Under the user informix, stop all oncatlgr processes using "stop_onctlgr".

• If the system runs using database version 7.x, use the following workaround until a new infarcexe is released:
  su - informix
  cd /tmp;
  ln -s IX_ARC_CAT_V7. IX_ARC_CAT_V6.
  

• Use Note 24253 to help get rid of any inconsistencies that may arise.

Additional key words

ccms, db13, onarchive, oncatlgr, archive, named pipe, infarcexe