Resolving problems with MQSC commands

If we cannot get MQSC commands to run, use the information in this topic to see if any of these common problems apply to you. It is not always obvious what the problem is when you read the error that a command generates.

Procedure

If we are redirecting input from a file, ensure that we use the < redirection operator. If we omit this operator, the queue manager interprets the file name as a queue manager name, and issues the following error message:
```
AMQ8118: IBM MQ queue manager does not exist.
```
If we are redirecting output to a file, ensure that we use the > redirection operator. By default, the file is put in the current working directory at the time runmqsc is invoked. Specify a fully-qualified file name to send your output to a specific file and directory.
Check that we have created the queue manager that is going to run the commands, and that the queue manager is running, by using the following command to display all queue managers:
```
dspmq
```
If the queue manager is not running, start it. For more information, see Starting a queue manager.
Ensure that you specified a queue manager on the runmqsc command, or that we have a default queue manager defined. If we have not defined a default queue manager, or you get this error:
```
AMQ8146: IBM MQ queue manager not available.
```
Check that we are not attempting to specify an MQSC command as a parameter of the runmqsc command. We cannot specify an MQSC command as a parameter of the runmqsc command. For example, this is not valid:
```
runmqsc DEFINE QLOCAL(FRED)
```
Check that we have issued the runmqsc command. We cannot enter MQSC commands before we issue the runmqsc command.
Check that we are not attempting to run a control command from runmqsc. We cannot run control commands from runmqsc. For example, we cannot issue the strmqm command to start a queue manager while you are running MQSC commands interactively. If you do this, you receive error messages similar to the following message:
```
runmqsc
.
.
Starting MQSC for queue manager jupiter.queue.manager.
1 : strmqm saturn.queue.manager
AMQ8405: Syntax error detected at or near end of cmd segment below:-s
AMQ8426: Valid MQSC commands are:
ALTER
CLEAR
DEFINE
DELETE
DISPLAY
END
PING
REFRESH
RESET
RESOLVE
RESUME
START
STOP
SUSPEND
2 : end
```

Parent topic: Administration using MQSC commands