5.7.1 Typical Issues

Here are some typical causes of unexpected ACATS test failures (often resulting from clerical errors):

Processing a test that is withdrawn;

Processing the original version of a test that has been modified by the ACAA to correct a test error;

Processing a test that is not applicable to the implementation (as explained in Section 5.6.4);

Processing files (or tests, see Section 5.4.2) in an incorrect order;

Processing tests when units required in the environment are not present.

Test result failures resulting from technical errors may include:

Incorrect values in ImpDef, which provide inappropriate values to tests at run-time (refer to 5.2.1);

Incorrect values in macro.dfs, which result in incorrectly customized tests (refer to 5.2.2);

Need to modify a test (e.g., split a B-test).

Finally, occasionally a user discovers an error in a new ACATS test. More rarely, errors are uncovered by compiler advances in tests that are apparently stable. In either case, if users believe that a test is in error, they may file a dispute with the ACAL. The dispute process is described in the next section.