Preparing to Raise a Support Case

All Problems

The following is good practice for gathering information about your problem so you can pass it on to Micro Focus SupportLine. This information is required for all support cases:

Micro Focus product serial number

Your serial number . To find out these numbers, look in the subject line and body of your Electronic Product Delivery Notice email that you received from Micro Focus.

Computer make and model

You should be able to find this information somewhere on your physical computer.

Product and environment information

The best way to collect information about the software installed on your computer and the environment in which it runs is to run the Micro Focus Support Scan (Windows) or mfsupport (UNIX) utility, which automatically gathers this information for you.

See Micro Focus Support Scan Utility (Windows) or mfsupport Utility (UNIX) for details on how to run this utility, and options for adding its output to your support case.

Details about your problem

When you raise a support case, you are asked to provide the following as you log the case. Before doing so, consider the following:

• An accurate subject line that briefly and succinctly describes your problem. For example, a subject line such as:

  Source won't compile, getting error code ###

  or

  Enterprise Server shows error code ### during restart

  rather than a more general and less useful description such as:

  Error with source compile

  or

  Enterprise server is crashing

• A full description that provides:
  • Context for the problem
  • Your own observations and knowledge
  • Step-by-step instructions that your Micro Focus engineer can follow to reproduce the problem
  • For compilation problems, compiler directive options used
• Additional details specific to your type of case. See Different Types of Cases for complete information.

Easily reproducible problems

An easily reproducible problem is one that occurs reliably when using the product. For these, in addition to the information outlined in the All problems section above, be ready to provide a zipped copy of your project and/or source code to enable Micro Focus to reproduce the problem quickly and easily.

Complex problems

Complex problems are classified as infrequent problems in production systems, or problems based on random timing and factors. Resolution often requires low-level analysis, review of logs and traces, and possible multiple iterations.

In addition to those listed in the All problems section above, use these best practices for more complex problems to significantly improve the liklihood that your Micro Focus SupportLine engineer can give you a quick and satisfactory response. Cases that receive the best support responses include the following:

• The full description provided when you log your case includes details such as:
  • Chronology
  • Symptoms
  • Configuration specifications
  • Workload levels
  • What else was happening in the environment at the time
  • Any third-party software involved
• A zipped archive of the project or source code in development when the problem occurs
• A zipped archive of all relevant first point-of-failure diagnostics files
  Attention: Failure diagnostics are critical; please always provide them when available. See Diagnostics for COBOL Applications and/or Diagnostics for Enterprise Server Applications to help you determine which diagnostic tools you can use to provide this information.

We recommend that your set of diagnostics:

• Includes complete diagnostics such as traces, dumps, the console log, and other relevant logs.
• Be chronological, meaning that all of the logs for the same failure should be in sequence.
• Be specific enough to allow us to identify the exact failure, the date and time of the failure, the symptoms demonstrated, whether or not recovery was achieved, and if so, if it was achieved automatically or manually.

The Reporting and Managing Support Cases section provides detailed information on how to log a support case, and how a Micro Focus SupportLine engineer can help you to resolve your problem.