Time Saving tips to import many languages for ERP/S4HANA Installation
How to save time needed to import many languages for ERP/S4HANA Installation
When you install languages using Software Provisioning Manager (sapinst) – Each language is installed sequentially and it takes a very long time. Just the install of French language takes 3 hrs 15 min. considering average of 2.5 hrs if you were to install 36 additional languages, it should take 90 hrs which is approx. 4 days. You can use the procedure below to save time when installing many languages required to be installed.
1. PREPARATION:
Provide sufficient additional space (36 languages need 100GB) in /usr/sap/trans. There should be sufficient background jobs. Also, take a backup at this point.
The media directory structure is as shown below after extracting the zip files:
vhcals4hci:/media/51050422_LNG1/DATA_UNITS # ls
AR BG CA CS DA DE EL EN ES ET FI
vhcals4hci:/media/51050422_LNG2/DATA_UNITS # ls
FR HE HI HR HU IT JA KK KO LT LV NL NO PL PT RO
vhcals4hci:/media/51050422_LNG3/DATA_UNITS # ls
RU SH SK SL SV TH TR UK VI ZF ZH
Copy the *.PAT files into /usr/sap/trans/EPS/in with this single command
vhcals4hci: cp /media/51050422_LNG?/DATA_UNITS/??/*.PAT /usr/sap/trans/EPS/in/.
2. ADD LANGUAGES IN RSCPINST:
Execute tCode SE38, program RSCPINST
Click on Add Language
RtClick First Column and select Set Filter from Popup
Click on Multiple Selection
Select items from below for cut & paste
AR
BG
CA
CS
DA
DE
EL
EN
ES
ET
FI
FR
HE
HI
HR
HU
IT
JA
KK
KO
LT
LV
NL
NO
PL
PT
RO
RU
SH
SK
SL
SV
TH
TR
UK
VI
ZF
ZH
Click on icon below to paste all 38 language codes
Click on Execute and Ok
Click on Select All
You will get screen like this. Languages already installed will be shown
Click on Check and then Activate. You will get message below
3. SETUP MONITORING AT OS LEVEL:
While the languages are being imported in the next step you will see no job running in SAP.
But R3trans processes will be running. The following scripts will help to check progress:
- Monitor CPU Consumptionm in one window command :
top - Count number of R3trans processes at OS level and they reduce in umber as the language import is completed.command :
ps -ef | grep R3trans | wc -l - Monitor Space at OS level in directory /usr/sap/trans with comma:
df -h - Count the number of files in /usr/sap/trans/tmp. The number of languages remaining to be imported are approx half the number of files here.
ls –l /usr/sap/trans/tmp | wc -l - Tail ALOG file in /usr/sap/trans/log. Find out the last ALOG file like ALOG1601 and tail the file to check current date to substitute MM, DD and execute command:
grep “S4H.ALL R 0004 2016MMDD” ALOG1601.S4H
4. ADD LANGUAGES TO SMLT:
enter tCode SMLT click on create icon. Assuming the box is not used for any other work, as you add each language watch the CPU utilisation and after you reach about 70%, wait for 5 minutes before adding next language.
In the above screen, “supplementation” language is a secondary language used to supplement a language that is not completely translated. English & German are only 2 languages which are completely translated. Missing texts in other languages can cause process to crash and language supplementation function helps to replace that missing text with supplementation language text. When you choose English here for Arabic language, whichever text is not translated for Arabic will appear in English.
SWPM (sapinst) procedure by default does not add any supplementation language and can be added manually later on.
5. REPEAT ABOVE STEPS FOR ALL LANGUAGES:
Add one by one language from below list shown here for Cut and Paste. Please pick the correct ones from the popup list one by one.
AR Arabic
BG Bulgarian
CA Catalan
CS Czech
DA Danish
DE German – Already installed
EL Greek
EN English— – Already installed
ES Spanish
ET Estonian
FI Finnish
FR French
HE Hebrew
HI Hindi
HR Croatian
HU Hungarian
IT Italian
JA Japanese
KK Kazakh
KO Korean
LT Lithuanian
LV Latvian
NL Dutch
NO Norwegian
PL Polish
PT Portuguese
RO Romanian
RU Russian
SH Serbian(Latin)
SK Slovak
SL Slovenian
SV Swedish
TH Thai
TR Turkish
UK Ukrainian
VI Vietnamese
ZF Chinesetrad.
ZH Chinese
The screen should look like this. If you are installing 36 additional languages, please ensure the number of languages is 38.
6. IMPORT PACKAGES:
Against each language click on Import Package icon
Find Packages, Select and Execute
7. MONITOR THE JOB:
A job will be launched in SM37
8. REPEAT ABOVE STEP FOR ALL LANGUAGES:
Check the jobs scheduled
The process of adding and running all above can be completed in 30 mins
9. MONITOR PROCESSES AT OS LEVEL AND IMPORT STATUS IN SMLT:
After above jobs are completed, you will need to monitor R3trans processes as below. The number of R3trans processes reduces as language import is completed.
All above should be completed in 7 Hrs
Following is the typical order of import if you have added all languages in SMLT one after other in listed sequence, The first language to finish was CA – Catalonia and after that in 4 minutes language ET finishes and so on. Arabic Language finishes last.
CA 4hrs8min
ET 4hrs12min
LV 4hrs33min
NO 4hrs36min
FI 4hrs40min
SH 4hrs42min
SL 4hrs47min
HE 4hrs49min
UK 4hrs49min
KO 4hrs49min
HI 4hrs49min
HR 4hrs49min
SV 5hrs
VI 5hrs1min
PL 5hrs5min
RO 5hrs7min
KK 5hrs8min
EL 5hrs10min
NL 5hrs11min
HU 5hrs13min
DA 5hrs14min
LT 5hrs16min
ZF 5hrs17min
SK 5hrs18min
TH 5hrs20min
TR 5hrs22min
RU 5hrs26min
IT 5hrs28min
CS 5hrs35min
PT 5hrs36min
JA 5hrs38min
ZH 5hrs39min
ES 5hrs41min
BG 6hrs
AR 6hrs 10min
For S/4HANA 1511 FPS1 if you are installing Best Practices content, please use Note 2292425 – Removal Language-dependent SAP Best Practice content to install only the needed languages.
Mahesh Sardesai
Product Expert
S4HANA Regional Implementation Group
Thanks for Sharing! good to know!
however, there's a remaining step - manually supplement every language (38?) with English or German in every used client.
Hopefully in near future, SAP will simplify language installation and make it more easier and time-saving.
Cheers,
Nicholas Chang
Hi Nicholas,
Thanks for your comments. This procedure matches the sapinst install. Supplementation is not required for all languages and can be done later only for those languages actually needed.
SAPINST already has the installation option and what is missing is the parallel install of all selected languages. This has already been communicated to the development.
FYI. The development team is will soon release note with workaround so that installation of all languages is not required.
Cheers !
Mahesh Sardesai
Hi the note to refer to if you dont want to install all 38 languages is:
Note 2270565 - Activation error due to missing languages
Thanks for the update Mahesh!
However, the note is not accessible by public yet.. thanks!
I would like to draw your attention to these 2 notes
2292425 - Remove Not-Installed Language Content from IMG Activity Files
2270565 - Activation error due to missing languages
Hi,
Thanks for a very helpful Blog.
Are there any implications installing so many additional languages?
e.g. significant growth in database size?
longer runtime of support pack/enhancement pack upgrades?
etc
Kind regards,
Chris
Hi Chris,
There is no significant growth in database size. It's marginal increase.
Also there is no significant change in runtime of support package upgrade.
- Mahesh
HI
What was the growth in database size from installing all the language packs? I am advised this could be 1.5 to 5 GB per language pack and would be interested to know exactly how much increase this was in your experience?
Best regards
David
Hi,
Can't remember exactly but looking in the region of 20GB
Kind Regards,
chris
Hi Mahesh,
I have Installed S/4HANA 1610 and upgraded to FPS02. Now I am installing SAP Languages PT&ES. I can follow above steps to do Language installation part but I have following question.
I am installing a system with swpm and saw that the language Import Jobs are still scheduled after each other.
Would be interesting if one could change the language Jobs from planned to “start now” manually (its’ possible to login via GUI already in this stage ):
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_CS
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_EL
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_HR
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_HU
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_IT
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_PL
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_RO
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_RU
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_SK
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_SL
SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_UK
etc
But I am not sure, if swpm will properly recognise it, as start of Job is normally done by swpm:
sapinst_dev.log:
TRACE 2020-01-14 17:11:09.074 (root/sapinst) (startInstallation) com.sap.sdt.ins.component.nw_language_inst.StartBatchJobsAndWait
Job status of SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_IT (20205600): R
TRACE 2020-01-14 17:16:09.132 (root/sapinst) (startInstallation) com.sap.sdt.ins.component.nw_language_inst.StartBatchJobsAndWait
Job status of SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_IT (20205600): R
TRACE 2020-01-14 17:21:09.152 (root/sapinst) (startInstallation) com.sap.sdt.ins.component.nw_language_inst.StartBatchJobsAndWait
Job status of SWPM_STRALAN_DDIC_IT (20205600): R
(language IT is actually runnning, others are still in status “planned”
Hi Uta,
This was requested already with development. I will ask again..
Hi Mahesh,
Would be great, if we would get the answer from dev team, that we could release the scheduled LANG-Jobs with Status "planned" manually without bad impact to swpm controls.
Thanks for asking them.
Still approx 4-5 Jobs with each approx. 3-5 h to be done , so still around 15-25 hours runtime for all language Jobs. If parallel we could spare time... 😉
Uta
Via customer message I got following answer:
So I'll wait until the serial Jobs are finished (SWPM 2.0 SP04)
Hi Uta,
Lets wait until it is released as it requires elaborate testing. As long as it is in the roadmap it should be fine.
According news of SL Toolset 28 (SWPM 2.0 SP5) the problem with language parallelisation seems to be solved and I am during Installation of a System with SWPm 2.0 SP5.
Language Jobs are running in parallel now, which is really good. But the jobs seems to be very slowly, the first Jobs run more than 24 hours.
I can’t see any bottlenecks in cpu or anything in /usr/sap/trans/tmp.
Any ideas?
Update: I found several Messages in /usr/sap/trans/log/SLOG<xxxx>.<SID>
WARNING: /usr/sap/trans/tmp/SAPKKLCSCA1909S4HOPF6.<SID> is already in use (2940), I'm waiting 1 sec (20200410233040). My name: pid 25717 on <hostname> (<sid>adm).
but the pid listed in semaphore file /usr/sap/trans/tmp/SAPKKLCSCA1909S4HOPF6.<SID> is still running (since yesterday): /usr/sap/<SID>/DXX/exe/tp <hostname> sapgw<xx> 75693151 IDX=20
In TRBAT or TRJOB (note 2025815) no entries.
I will try with waiting...
Uta Hedemann Thanks for this update to SL Toolset 28 / SWPM 2.0 SP5. Did you manage to get the jobs to run faster? What was the alltogether run time?
Hello Wolfgang Röckelein,
with SWPM 2.0 SP5 I still had problems on testsystem:
Due to the parallel execution ans to less batch processes, tp was blocked by the several parallel tasks.
I opened a customer message and was advised to use a special feature of swpm, which I used for installation of our prodsystem:
swpm with SAPINST_SET_STEPSTATE=true see https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2170093
and have set a breakpoint in a specific step to be able to increase the workprocesses before Installing additional languages.
When stopping swpm with break point was reached I configured 20 btc processes and 15 dialog-wps:
# rdisp/wp_no_dia = 10
rdisp/wp_no_dia = 15
# rdisp/wp_no_btc = 6
rdisp/wp_no_btc = 20
and then proceeded in swpm with OK.
With that, swpm had no trouble with our 12 languages and tp processes any more, but swpm has scheduled only 5 parallel lang jobs.
(originally from sap standard delivery 6 batchprocesses were configured, so 5 lang Jobs max were probably “hard coded” in swpm design. Was a bit disappointing…
Support wrote, that they have already released a temporary solution by providing an option to change the number of background jobs if you select “Custom” mode. They advised:
You might check more infos in readme of the newest SWPM.
Because of other linux-related problems I cannot say, how many lang jobs took, because we had to change some incorrrect set linux settings.
SWPM 2.0 SP07 is brandnew accoding note 2568783, might solve some of the lang job problems without need of manual intervention.
Good luck!