Using the MS DTC Transaction List and Transaction Properties Windows

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

If a communication line fails or a faulty distributed transaction application leaves unresolved transactions, you might have to view a transaction's properties. For example, a transaction might get stuck and remain present for a long time, or it might time out and be forced to abort. In addition, a system might fail and be unable to connect to an involved resource manager after recovery, which leaves the transaction in an In Doubt or Failed to Notify transaction state. In each case, you must view the transaction list before you can resolve the transaction states.

Transaction properties for OLE transactions

When you right-click a transaction in the Transaction List dialog box and then click Properties, the Transaction Properties dialog box opens. It displays a Parent/Subordinate column and an ID column. The Parent/Subordinate column displays the name of the parent transaction manager, if any, followed by the names of subordinate transaction managers and resource managers.

If the transaction originated on the local system, the local transaction manager serves as the commit coordinator and there is no superior transaction coordinator—and there is no superior transaction manager. In this case, the first entry in the Parent/Subordinate column is <no superior>. If the transaction originated on another system, the Parent/Subordinate column displays the name of that parent system.

In the Transaction Properties dialog box, the names of the subordinate transaction managers and resource managers are listed after the superior transaction manager. For each subordinate OLE Transactions transaction manager, the Parent/Subordinate column contains the name of the subordinate transaction manager system. For each subordinate resource manager, the Parent/Subordinate column contains the resource manager's name, if the resource manager supplied the name when it first connected to the DTC.

If the parent or subordinate is an OLE Transactions transaction manager or resource manager, the ID column of the Transaction Properties dialog box is empty. If the parent or subordinate is an IBM LU 6.2 or XA transaction manager, the ID column of the Transaction Properties dialog box displays the transaction identifier of the transaction.

Transaction properties for IBM LU 6.2 transactions

For each IBM LU 6.2 transaction, the LU Pair appears in the Parent/Subordinate column of the Transaction Properties dialog box, and the OLE Transactions Unit of Work (UOW) identifier appears in the ID column.

The LU Pair consists of the fully qualified Microsoft Systems Network Architecture (SNA) Server LU followed by the fully qualified IBM SNA Server LU. Each fully qualified LU consists of the network name followed by the LU name. In all currently released versions of MS DTC, the Windows-based system is always the transaction coordinator and the IBM-based system is always the subordinate transaction manager.

UOW consists of the fully qualified Microsoft SNA Server LU, followed by the UOW instance number and the UOW sequence number. The instance number and sequence number appear in hexadecimal form. You can correlate these values with the corresponding values on your IBM-based system.