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Contacting IBM Software Support
IBM® Software Support provides assistance with product defects.
- For IBM distributed software
products (including, but not limited to, Tivoli®, Lotus®,
and Rational® products,
as well as DB2® and WebSphere® products that run on Windows or UNIX operating systems), enroll
in Passport Advantage® in
one of the following ways:
- Online: Go to the Passport Advantage web page and click How to Enroll.
- By telephone: For the telephone number to call in your country, go to the Software Support Handbook, click Contacts, then Worldwide contacts.
- For customers with Subscription and Support (S & S) contracts, go to the Open service request web page.
- For customers with IBMLink, CATIA, Linux, S/390®, iSeries, pSeries, zSeries, and other support agreements, go to the IBM Support Line web page.
- For IBM eServer™ software products (including, but not limited to, DB2 and WebSphere products that run in zSeries, pSeries, and iSeries environments), you can purchase a software subscription and support agreement by working directly with an IBM marketing representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information about support for eServer software products, go to the Support for IBM Systems web page.
Follow the steps in this topic to contact IBM Software Support:
Determine the effect of the problem on your business
- Severity 1
- Critical effect on business: You are unable to use the program, resulting in a critical effect on operations. This condition requires an immediate solution.
- Severity 2
- Significant effect on business: The program is usable but is severely limited.
- Severity 3
- Some effect on business: The program is usable with less significant features (not critical to operations) unavailable.
- Severity 4
- Minimal effect on business: The problem has little effect on operations, or a reasonable workaround to the problem has been implemented.
Describe your problem and gather background information
- What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
- Do you have logs, traces, and messages that are related to the problem symptoms? IBM Software Support is likely to ask for this information.
- Can the problem be re-created? If so, what steps led to the failure?
- Have any changes been made to the system? (For example, hardware, operating system, networking software, and so on.)
- Are you currently using a workaround for this problem? If so, be prepared to explain it when you report the problem.
Submit your problem to IBM Software Support
- Online: Go to the Software Support Handbook and enter your information into the appropriate problem submission tool.
- By telephone: For the telephone number to call in your country, go to the contacts page of the Software Support Handbook and click the name of your geographic region for telephone numbers of people who provide support for your location.
The IBM Support Assistant Data Collector can be used to submit diagnostic documents if you have an existing problem management record (PMR). For more information, see IBM Support Assistant Data Collector.
If the problem that you submit is for a software defect or for missing or inaccurate documentation, IBM Software Support might create an Authorized Program Analysis Report (APAR). The APAR describes the problem in detail. Whenever possible, IBM Software Support provides a workaround for you to implement until the APAR is resolved and a fix is delivered.
IBM publishes resolved APARs on the IBM product support Web pages daily, so that other users who experience the same problem can benefit from the same resolutions.