topic Re: Intermittent Special Characters ("NANA") for Blank CHAR(2) Field from DB2 z/OS in Qlik Replicate

Intermittent Special Characters ("NANA") for Blank CHAR(2) Field from DB2 z/OS

shyamkatika — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:01:20 GMT

Hi Team,

We are encountering an issue while replicating data from DB2 z/OS to the target using Qlik Replicate.

In the source DB2 z/OS table, a column with data type CHAR(2) contains blank values (spaces) for several records. However, in the target system, we are observing inconsistent behavior:

Most records are correctly replicated as blanks
But for a few records, the same field is populated with unexpected special characters like "NANA"

So, not all blank fields are impacted—only a subset of records shows this issue.

Thanks in Advance

Re: Intermittent Special Characters ("NANA") for Blank CHAR(2) Field from DB2 z/OS

SachinB — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 11:09:00 GMT

Hello @shyamkatika ,

Based on the behavior observed—especially the inconsistent replication of blank values—it would be best to investigate this further with deeper analysis.

Could you please raise a support case with Qlik Support for this issue?
Kindly include the following details in the case to help expedite the investigation

Replicate task logs covering the time of occurrence
Sample source and target data (including affected and non-affected rows)
Output of HEX values for the impacted column from the source

SELECT NAME, CCSID
FROM SYSIBM.SYSCOLUMNS
WHERE TBNAME = 'YOUR_TABLE';

Output of hex value in Snowflake

SELECT
column_name,
LENGTH(column_name) AS LEN,
HEX_ENCODE(column_name) AS HEX_VAL,
COUNT(*)
FROM your_table
GROUP BY 1,2,3
ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC;

Diagnostic package of the task

Regards,

Sachin B

Re: Intermittent Special Characters ("NANA") for Blank CHAR(2) Field from DB2 z/OS

shyamkatika — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:09:27 GMT

Hi @SachinB

Thank you for your response. Please find the attached screenshots showing the results of the above queries from both the source (DB2 z/OS) and the target (Snowflake).

Re: Intermittent Special Characters ("NANA") for Blank CHAR(2) Field from DB2 z/OS

SachinB — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 03:01:21 GMT

Hello @shyamkatika ,

Based on the analysis so far, the behaviour seen in the target system appears to be related to inconsistencies in the underlying source data rather than a replication issue. Specifically, some of the values that appear as blanks may contain non-standard or non-printable characters at the byte level, which can lead to unexpected results after character set conversion.

To proceed with a deeper investigation and validate this further, could you please raise a support case with Qlik Support with all the requested details?

Regards,
Sachin B

Re: Intermittent Special Characters ("NANA") for Blank CHAR(2) Field from DB2 z/OS

shyamkatika — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:44:22 GMT

Hi Team,

As a workaround, since the affected field contains numeric data, I changed the data type to INT and applied an IFNULL transformation. This results in blank and special character values being represented as 0.

Thanks,

Shyam Sundar.