File system becomes full due to large PDF spool files.

File system becomes full due to large PDF spool files.

Usually spool files are generated in /sapmnt/SID/global directory based on this parameter rspo/store_location value. If this directory becomes full, it will affect background jobs and others to fail.

Usually payroll users print large amount of PDF files and that may fill up the file system space at OS level in the above directory.  Also, .PDF file does not appear at OS level. PDF files create as *.xfd, *.cfg, *.pfg in the OS global directory.

To address the file system issues and delete the PDF files, please follow the steps below

• At OS level, putty into the affected system
• cd /sapmnt/SID/
• df -h – This command display the usage of file system (see screenshot), in this example, it has 71% space has been usedt, but when file system becomes full, you will see 100% in the use% column.

• enter this command du1 – This command display size of each directory in that folder (/sapmnt/SID).  As you can see in the below figure, the size of the global directory is 586 MB.

• Now cd to global directory and do ls -lart to display the files in that  directory.
• You will see files similar to the following.    The spool files are prefixed with SPOOL0000 then spool number.  In this example, the spool number is 2749. 

          SPOOL00002749_00001.pcl

          SPOOL00002749_00001.cfg

          SPOOL00002749_00001.xfd

• Login into SAP, enter Tcode SP01, select the PDF files  and delete.  As you can in the figures, the PDF file spool number 2749 matches with SPOOL file at the OS level. 
• If you want save these files on your PC before deleting, run this report RSTXPDFT4 based on this note: 1833550

After deleting the PDF files in SP01, you should see  more space created at the OS level in the global directory.

Hope this help.

Thank you

Adil