The Lock Deadlock History screen can be used to identify the object that causes a deadlock event. The Stall Messages screen provides stall information, but when a lock is deadlocked, the stall is terminated and the information is no longer available on the Stall Messages screen. For each active process on the current VMScluster node, the Lock Deadlock History screen shows the process ID, the time that the process was most recently involved in a deadlock, the reason for the most recent deadlock, and the number of deadlocks the process has encountered since attaching to the database. The information shown in the screen includes: o process ID The process ID of each active process. o occurred The time that the process encountered the most recent deadlock. This field is blank if the process has not encountered any deadlocks. o lock deadlock reason The event that caused the most recent deadlock encountered by the process. This field is blank if the process has not encountered any deadlocks. Note that the lock deadlock reason does not identify the cause of the deadlock. The conflicting process could be on a different VMScluster node. Rather, the lock deadlock reason provides historical information that can help the DBA track down the deadlock by other means, such as using the RMU Show Locks utility or examining the application transaction data flow analysis. The lock deadlock reason remains displayed for a process until the process is involved in another deadlock or detaches from the database. For more information on interpreting the lock deadlock reasons, see the descriptions for the stall reasons in the help text for the Stall Messages screen. o deadlock The number of deadlocks the process has encountered since being attached to the database. This field is blank if the process has not encountered any deadlocks. This information may be as useful as the lock deadlock reason in determining the importance of the deadlock. For instance, if the database has been active for a week and the number of deadlocks is low, the system may be operating efficiently. Deadlocks are fairly common in a database system, and not all deadlocks are bad. By using the Lock Deadlock History screen to examine the most recent deadlocks, a DBA can more easily identify potential database hot spots and application bottlenecks. Looking at a screen full of deadlock information can help the DBA differentiate between frequent and infrequent problems and correlate common causes of the problems. Some of the deadlocks that appear on the Lock Deadlock History screen are page deadlocks. The lock deadlock reason "waiting for page n:nnn" appears for page deadlocks. Although a page deadlock is not necessarily a bad occurrence, it could indicate a potential performance problem. Sometimes a process that is experiencing a page deadlock appears on the Lock Deadlock History screen, and a high number of deadlocks is reported for the process. However, the lock deadlock reason gives the reason for only the most recent deadlock, so all the reported deadlocks for the process may not be for the indicated page. If the number of deadlocks reported is high for the time the process has been attached to the database, the DBA should examine the process in detail. A high number of deadlocks for a process can indicate a major design problem. In general, record deadlocks are undesirable and the cause of such deadlocks should be discovered and fixed. Page deadlocks are not always bad, but they need to be analyzed.