Can you confirm that it is only the JCL being changed to fix the problem?

I'm not sure you'll find others with experience of this, because it is 
difficult to envisage why it was done, or how it happened, in the first place. 
People may have encountered individual problems with this, but I can't think 
how it would become widespread.

OK, one scenario. Project to make lots of changes to files. JCL updated 
correctly, JCL library later corrupted, and recover to the wrong JCL. 
Everything still runs, and no-one "realises": old systems, not many changes, 
perhaps years before someone needs to look at the JCL again. Still, unlikely.

Someone needs to look at what is "common" to the programs and JCL that is known 
to be problematic. Is there any pattern to the differences between JCL and 
programs? It is, however, not simple to suggest what type of pattern to look 
for.

You have Panvalet. Do you have the change-history going back... what, perhaps 
40 years or more? Were all the problem programs changed at about the same time? 
What to the "update" messages indicate? I don't suppose the JCL is also in 
Panvalet... any records made of JCL changes? Long time ago, though...

Any "war stories" from the veterans there, even second-hand ones? 

What about, for the problem programs. browsing the loadlibrary members and 
seeing the compile date/time? Any correlations? Of course, if they were all 
December 20, 1999, not much help, necessarily. Oh. I wonder if someone was 
extending dates...

Comments, change messages in any of the programs? Don't rely on them as fact, 
but may give a hint. 

If you can establish why a change was made, it may narrow things down to a 
particular system/systems/type of program.

How were the initial systems for this conversion chosen? One "good" and one 
"bad", or just pot-luck?

Lots of other ideas. but without being there and seeing what things are like, 
it is just idle speculation. 

Oh, and if it is just the JCL which needs to be changed, I think you can get 
away with just attempting the DSN-with-DCB match to the "catalog". You wouldn't 
strictly need to know the programs up front, just identify them once the DSNs 
are identified.

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