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Once again I placed the following order (minus the first problematic one from earlier)
MJ03523,MJ03525,MJ03532,MJ03688,MJ03734,MJ03795,MJ03942,MJ04438,MJ04911,MJ04937,MJ04972,MJ05890,MJ06137,MJ06290,MJ06451,MJ06818,MJ06832,MJ06916,MJ06991,MJ07177,MJ07180,MJ07271,MJ07272,MJ07455,MJ07546,MJ07924,MJ07997,MJ08280,MJ08370,SF99411,SF99686,SF99688,SF99689,SF99760,SF99761,SF99960,SF99961,SF99962,SF99963,SF99964,SF99965,SF99966,SF99967,SF99968,SF99969,SI33289,
SI48071,SI56133,SI56210,SI62930,SI65184,SI68702,SI68703,SI70413,SI74620,SI76061,SI77219,SI77220,SI77242,SI81193,SI83383,SI84798,SI84799,SI84800,SI84822,SI84843,SI85397,SI85614,SJ00164,SJ00167,SJ00250,SJ00275,SJ01498,SJ01499,SJ01500,SJ03124,SJ03405,SJ03444,SJ03611,SJ03666,SJ03673,SJ03689,SJ03712,SJ03836,SJ03906,SJ03994,SJ04035,SJ04207,SJ04256,SJ04342,SJ04402,SJ04487,SJ04647,
SJ04679,SJ04878,SJ05346,SJ05388,SJ05486,SJ05513,SJ05526,SJ05581,SJ05817,SJ05883,SJ05884,SJ05945,SJ05980,SJ06193,SJ06235,SJ06279,SJ06280,SJ06281,SJ06351,SJ06364,SJ06482,SJ06518,SJ06565,SJ06595,SJ06744,SJ06947,SJ06969,SJ07018,SJ07238,SJ07431,SJ07514,SJ07517,SJ07552,SJ07574,SJ07607,SJ07650,SJ07651,SJ07652,SJ08162,SJ08215,SJ08264
That was for IBM i PTFs. Later that same day I tried to order one single PTF and I received:
An error occurred
Error
You have exceeded the download policy. Please refer to the Download Support Policy here.
If after referring to the Download Support Policy you need help with additional access please use the Request help button below and fill out the provided form.
To continue, return to the main Fix Central page or use the Back button in your browser.
I clicked the help button and got emailed a form to fill out why I should be allowed to do this.
Day later. Still waiting on the reply. I'm seriously betting that my boss will be retired before this is approved. Anyone want to call that bet?
IBM claims the fix has been "Delivered" but it has not. They refuse to admit they have this problem.
I just duplicated this error.
I went to fix central.
IBM Support: Fix Central
Select Product, IBM Operating Systems, IBM i,
Picked individual PTFs
Pasted this in to the individual PTFs:
MJ03422,MJ03523,MJ03525,MJ03532,MJ03688,MJ03734,MJ03795,MJ03942,MJ04438,MJ04911,MJ04937,MJ04972,MJ05890,MJ06137,MJ06290,MJ06451,MJ06818,MJ06832,MJ06916,MJ06991,MJ07177,MJ07180,MJ07271,MJ07272,MJ07455,MJ07546,MJ07924,MJ07997,MJ08280,MJ08370,SF99411,SF99686,SF99688,SF99689,SF99760,SF99761,SF99960,SF99961,SF99962,SF99963,SF99964,SF99965,SF99966,SF99967,SF99968,SF99969,SI33289,
SI48071,SI56133,SI56210,SI62930,SI65184,SI68702,SI68703,SI70413,SI74620,SI76061,SI77219,SI77220,SI77242,SI81193,SI83383,SI84798,SI84799,SI84800,SI84822,SI84843,SI85397,SI85614,SJ00164,SJ00167,SJ00250,SJ00275,SJ01498,SJ01499,SJ01500,SJ03124,SJ03405,SJ03444,SJ03611,SJ03666,SJ03673,SJ03689,SJ03712,SJ03836,SJ03906,SJ03994,SJ04035,SJ04207,SJ04256,SJ04342,SJ04402,SJ04487,SJ04647,
SJ04679,SJ04878,SJ05346,SJ05388,SJ05486,SJ05513,SJ05526,SJ05581,SJ05817,SJ05883,SJ05884,SJ05945,SJ05980,SJ06193,SJ06235,SJ06279,SJ06280,SJ06281,SJ06351,SJ06364,SJ06482,SJ06518,SJ06565,SJ06595,SJ06744,SJ06947,SJ06969,SJ07018,SJ07238,SJ07431,SJ07514,SJ07517,SJ07552,SJ07574,SJ07607,SJ07650,SJ07651,SJ07652,SJ08162,SJ08215,SJ08264
It drags on forever. And ever. Eventually it gets
An error occurred
IBM i, i5/OS, and OS/400
Problem with authorization system: Please try again later. Contact support if problem persists.
And if you open a new tab on your browser and try to duplicate it you will get:
The maximum number of entitlement attempts has been reached. Your ID will be restored within 6 minutes.
As of Monday my team manages 581 IBM i partitions in our cloud data centers. (We manage countless additional LPARs on customer site.)
Some time back IBM removed mget from the FTP option requiring an individual get for each PTF image. Productivity killer but not a show stopper.
This business of NOT being able to keep PTFs in a repository makes no sense whatever. First off, rolling PTFs across a large landscape can take MANY months. During that time IBM will update PTFs and thus you CANNOT get the same PTFs again later. If you're over the seemingly arbitrary 90 days IBM has declared that you can keep PTFs around, you can no longer complete your PTF rollup. Even if you COULD get those old PTFs by specifying all those individual PTF numbers, what a giant amount of effort now required!!
Beyond that, I pay IBM a ginourmous pile of money for SWMA for all these IBM i servers. What I can't figure out is wat benefit it is to IBM to make me download PTFs individually for all 580+ LPARs. THEN they think I'm going be able to do that with 50 orders a day? THAT's not likely.
Come on IBM, we're trying our best to help your IBM i business, stop making it ever harder to do business with IBM!!!
* Instead of number of downloads or number of PTFs, the new max for IBM i customers is 50 Orders per day, and each order can contain all the PTF packages needed for an IBM i version.
If it is necessary to download beyond the stated 50 orders limit, please contact the Exception Handling Team - fixexp@us.ibm.com <mailto:fixexp@us.ibm.com>.
For IBM i, the Fix Central download logic has been updated:
Original download max was 25 downloads per day
New max for IBM i customers is 50 Orders per day, and each order can contain all the PTF packages needed for an IBM i version.
This change will override the general download policy published here, https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7181930
If it is necessary to download beyond the stated 50 orders limit, please contact the Exception Handling Team - fixexp@us.ibm.com.
We also encourage customers to use the blue Contact and Feedback button, which is floating on the right edge of the Fix Central pages, to capture the error and send the email to the exception handling team. IBM will continue to assess whether there are still issues, etc.
Thanks!
IBM i Product Management Team
I have the exact same problems as the idea mentions. I do large periodical downloads, usually around when new a CUM is released.
Not everything is part of a PTF group, so additional PTFs have to be downloaded, and quite a lot of them at that.
As of today, the number of additional PTFs for IBM i 7.6 is about 75. With the 25 per day limitation, it would take me three days to download.
Provided I don't make any mistakes, or need to change the list.
If I combine this with additional PTFs for 7.5 and 7.4, the number grows to about 260. That would take eleven days to download...
Getting an exception is not easy and takes a long time.
I work very hard to keep my customers LPARs running smoothly and I have better things to do than fight IBM for access for things we as a customer have paid for.
This is a bad policy for users. What is the purpose of this?
This a very annoying change to the way of downloading/requesting fixes from IBM. I don''t think customers and business partners will stop maintaining a system and drive to customers site next day to continue for another heap of 25 fixes (boah, what a quantitiy !)
Whatever this policy should do, it's just pure foolishness.
rgds
This policy will significantly impact the timely delivery of IBMi projects. Currently, customers are already dissatisfied with the IBMi platform due to a market shortage of seasoned resources and are considering switching to other platforms. This new policy will further negatively affect such customers, as no other OEM implements a similar restriction.
I am trying to understand a bit better this limitation. It is 25 individual PTFs using SNDPTFORD per day? Any link to read more about this?
I get the same feedback from many of my BPs - this limitation makes updating an IBM Power System almost impossible. I do not know who had this "brilliant" idea but I welcome that person to talk to my very upset BPs!
The CAAC has reviewed this IBM Idea and recommends that IBM view this as a high priority Idea that is important to be addressed.
For those customers who have software and hardware maintenance, there should be no limit in the number of PTFs that they can download per day.
Background: The COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CAAC has a key role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual IBM Ideas on the broader IBM i community and has therefore reviewed your Idea.
For more information about CAAC, see www.common.org/caac
Carmelita Ruvalcaba - CAAC Program Manager
It's not just IBM i. Our QRadar consultants are having the same issue.
If you request the cume, groups, etc one day and the next day there is a new hiper and security group you cannot download that because you've hit the limitation.
If you have a multi LPAR machine and test SNDPTFORD on each LPAR by SNDPTFORD SF98750 it will fail after the first one because you've already hit the limitation.
The existing problem is even deeper. If you are going to order all PTFs that are recommended in the PTF-recommendations of a cumulative PTF-Group you are easily over 25 PTFs that need to be downloaded.
We are a BP doing PTF-installations for our small customers and keep getting this error constantly for a lot of customers.
We were requested to have access in support (we have and are full Users, btw. we are full useres in ESS too), but we can't order more than 25 PTFs. A normal order consists of 60 or 70 PTFs if you are ordering all recommendations. The first order of the day and the first order after months for the custimer does not go through,
That is more than annoying, it makes our work nearly impossible.
If IBM would grant the exception in 1 or two weeks, that would be fast. In our cases this took sometimes more than 4 weeks resulting more often in postponing the downtime on a weekend we have appointed two weeks in the future.
If we can't download the PTFs, we can't install them...