understand about the Active flag for dynamic and shapshot views

ClearCase checks the viewroot directory, typically /view on UNIX® and Linux® and the MVFS drive (by default M:\) on Microsoft® Windows®, for the presence of a view tag to report the Active state.

DYNAMIC VIEWS

Dynamic view tags are activated and made visible within the viewroot directory by starting the view using either the cleartool startview (Windows) or cleartool setview (UNIX/Linux) commands.

If the view tag is present in the viewroot directory, then the view's ACTIVE state is set to YES.

A dynamic view, will correctly display if that view is active or not.

Note: The * indicates the dynamic view is started.
C:\>cleartool lsview
* dynamic_view \\Host\ccstg_c\views\dynamic_view.vws
snapshot_view \\Host\ccstg_c\views\snapshot_view.vws
dynamic_view2 \\Host\ccstg_c\views\dynamic_view2.vws

C:\>cleartool lsview -long dynamic_view
Tag: dynamic_view
Global path: \\Host\ccstg_c\views\dynamic_view.vws
Server host: Host
Region: windows
Active: YES
View tag uuid:cd20acf1.f1cd4915.adde.65:03:52:0d:4f:26
View on host: Host
View server access path: c:\ClearCase_Storage\views\dynamic_view.vws
View uuid: cd20acf1.f1cd4915.adde.65:03:52:0d:4f:26
View owner: jdoe

C:\>cleartool lsview -long dynamic_view2
Tag: dynamic_view2
Global path: \\Host\ccstg_c\views\dynamic_view2.vws
Server host: Host
Region: windows
Active: NO
View tag uuid:25244aac.2a2148bd.9ca2.e4:1c:f4:bc:af:2e
View on host: Host
View server access path: c:\ClearCase_Storage\views\dynamic_view2.vws
View uuid: 25244aac.2a2148bd.9ca2.e4:1c:f4:bc:af:2e
View owner: jdoe

SNAPSHOT VIEWS

Snapshot views cannot be activated using the startview or setview command; therefore, a snapshot view tag is never made active in the viewroot directory.

So based on how ClearCase checks the active state of a view, a snapshot view will always show the status as inactive (Active: NO) even if a corresponding view server process is running for that view.

C:\>cleartool lsview -long snapshot_view
Tag: snapshot_view
Global path: \\Host\ccstg_c\views\snapshot_view.vws
Server host: Host
Region: windows
Active: NO
View tag uuid:0b5c58e8.0d7243c9.81db.1c:d5:1b:e5:8e:2f
View on host: Host
View server access path: c:\ClearCase_Storage\views\snapshot_view.vws
View uuid: 0b5c58e8.0d7243c9.81db.1c:d5:1b:e5:8e:2f
View attributes: snapshot
View owner: jdoe