Technical Articles
Basic start-up troubleshooting – the logical sequence!
If I had to select one single issue that people report more than anything else in the Basis discussion forums it has to be problems they have starting an ABAP system.
Over the years I have read hundreds of discussions and for some reason the majority of posts start with a brief explanation of the problem and a “copy” of the dispatcher developer trace. Why?, There’s really not enough information there for anyone without a crystal ball!
If you find yourself in this situation, What do you do?
Basically when you start the system…
Database starts
SAP checks if the database is available and if it is not it starts the database. No dedicated developer trace is created in the work directory as the database has its own logs. If the database does not start correctly it should be visible within seconds.
Message server kicks in
The message server is the first part of the system to start, it handles the communications between the instances. Only one message server is available per system, regardless of the amount of dialog instances available. The message server logs are kept on the dev_ms developer trace and if there is an issue with the message server it will be pretty obvious because you will not see a dev_disp trace.
Dispatcher next
Ahhh the Dispatcher!… well, the dispatcher dispatches (ha!), Nah, seriously… The dispatcher job is to receive the requests and direct them to an available suitable work process. During start-up you can see how the work processes are invited to start in the dev_disp developer trace. If something was to go wrong the only thing you will find in dev_disp is that the work processes died. Usually no reason is ever given for the failure to launch in this trace, but one dev_w* developer trace for each dialog process is created and populated in the process.
The dialog processes
This is where you’ll find the root of the problem 99.9% of the time. Why?… Each dialog process has a dedicated memory area and a dedicated connection to the database layer. If something is going to go wrong it will most likely happen here. Each work process has its own developer trace dev_w* where you will find detailed information on the error.
So the logical troubleshooting sequence, in a nutshell is…
- Check connection to the database with a quick R3trans –d command, it’s the quickest and simplest way to discard DB availability as the issue.
- Go to the work directory and check the developer traces. If the dev_w* logs exist it means that the message server and dispatcher started and the issue is in the work process logs..
- If the dispatcher and work process developer traces are not created then your issue is in the message server developer trace.
The next time you find a start-up issue I’m hoping that these simple steps might mean we can dispense with the crystal ball 😉
Love to hear your comments.
Follow-up blog Basic start-up troubleshooting JAVA – the logical sequel!
Knowledgeable document for Freshers in SAP BASIS, escpecially helpful in Operation & maintenance projects.....
Cheers........... Juan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks
Sumit
Juan,
What a wonderful troubleshooting tip.
Usually when something goes wrong in the startup of the system and the development/biz. team is firing you with calls/emails about the system's availability, most of the time is spent in work directory catting the logs and trying to figure out the issue and 1st thing that went wrong.
Next time on wards, I will follow the trail so that the user's don't have to loose their cool.
Regards,
Akshay.
Simple, quick, effective... 😀
Hi Juan,
Very nice document.
Small addition .. In the home directory of SIDADM it writes some files in Unix apart from work directory which gives some more information. Like startDB.log etc.
I would request you to publish similar document for Java as well as part 2 😉
Thanks,
Jagadish.
Yes, a java one its on the make... thanks for your comment
Juan,
Very good, knowledgeable document.
Regards,
Ganesh N
Hi Juan,
Guess I'll be pasting this link in to a few of the questions we get posted over the coming months...
Cheers,
Graham
Hopefully it will guide a few new comers to read the logs rather than panic 😀
usefull
Hi,
Very userful document.
Regards,
Sharma TvK
Hi Juan,
Very useful.. thanks a lot .. 🙂
Regards,
Shyam Kumar
Hello Juan,
Very useful, Thanks...
Regards,
Farkath.C
Hi Juam,
Very useful,
Regards,
Jithin
Very well written to approach SAP System Start up problems.
Thanks!
Hello Juan,
Excellent, Useful information.
Appreciated for your efforts with in detailed steps.
Regards,
Junead
smart tips!....succinctly put ..
Thanks Juan for this post...keep writing...I look forward to your posts.
Thanks,
R
Good Resource for All...Many Thanks.
Best Regards,
Naresh K.
Hi Juan,
Thanks for sharing this information
Regards
Amit
Very nice document.. 🙂
Hello
Where do we have to enter R3trans-d?
Is it in cmd?
If not, how do I see if db is ON?
Thanks
Yogesh.
Dear Yogesh,
Login as <SID>ADM user and open command prompt and run this command
Regards,
Jithin
Very good Juan, it is very easy and simple.
SCN users not following these simple steps if they have issues starting SAP and asking the same questions again and again.
Thanks Sunil
Hi Juan,
Very useful information.
Thanks
Maruthi
Excelente esta información
Gracias Juan
Saludos
Gracias!
Hi Juan ,
Have you prepared for the java system ???
i am waiting for the doc for java System.
If you have prepared please update the link .
Regards,
Abhishek
Hi Juan,
Very well written!! Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Deeraj Shetty
Hi Juan,
Thanks for sharing. Very nice and useful information!!
Looking forward for the Java one...
Thanks,
Rahul Patki
Been very busy... I'll do my best to release a basic Java startup troubleshooting guide.
Regards, Juan
Hi ,
Useful document for freshers regarding issues of system startup.
Regards,
sumanth
Basic but very important steps for troubleshooting ABAP startup issues.
Thanks,
Ashish
Juan,
Great article and deeply insight information.
If you have time, can also extend the troubleshooting scope to cover sapstartsrv process. I have encountered a wired situation that the Windows MMC doesn't display any SAP System to start with. We were all in panic then. Finally we found the culprit is a bad sapstartsrv.exe (the win service failed to start), which was overwritten by wrong kernel binary. Back to the old day I didn't know the link between windows service and MMC.
this is my 2c
usefull information
Thanks Reyes, for this so much useful post!
sorry guys,
but how do I find the so called "dev_w*" files?
please tell my the directory path I can use to find the files in my dolphin-browser.
If I try the search function there are no results.
Thanks.
claas
/usr/sap/<SID>/<Instance>/work directory
Regards, JP
As simple and erudite as it can get. Thanks to the author Juan.
Thanks Suraj, after all this years this small blog is still as relevant as when I wrote it.
very detailed way of explanation, thanks!