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Troubleshooting SAP startup problems:

SAP System startup Problems:

On Windows, Two places you need to check are: EventViewer (Application and System logs) and the SAP Management Console (MMC).
Event Viewer can provide useful information and it may help you pinpoint where the problem resides. The SAP MMC gives you the ability to visually see the system status (green, yellow or red lights), view the work processes status and view the developer traces, which are stored in the “work” directory. Example: /usr/sap/TST/DVEBMGS00/work.

For a central SAP instance to start successfully, both the message server and the dispatcher need to start. If one of them or both fail to start, users cannot log in to the system. The following scenarios will illustrate possible causes of why an SAP instance might not start and the reason of the message:
“DISPATCHER EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN “.

Developer Traces:
dev_disp Dispatcher developer trace
dev_ms Message Server developer trace
dev_wp0 Work process 0 developer trace

The “services” file, which contains TCP and UDP services and their respective port numbers. This plain-text configuration file is located under winnt/system32/drivers/etc.

Windows Task Manager (TASKMGR.exe), Event Viewer (EVENTVWR.exe).

Dispatcher Monitor (DPMON.exe), which is located under /usr/sap//sys/exe/run. Database logs.

1. Dispatcher does not start due to a port conflict

No work processes (disp+work.exe) exist in Task Manager.

Dispatcher shows status “stopped” in the SAP MMC.

Errors found in “dev_disp”:

LOG Q0I=> NiPBind: bind (10048: WSAEADDRINUSE: Address already in use) [ninti.c 1488]
*** ERROR => NiIBind: service sapdp00 in use [nixxi.c 3936]
*** ERROR => NiIDgBind: NiBind (rc=-4) [nixxi.c 3505]
*** ERROR => DpCommInit: NiDgBind [dpxxdisp.c 7326]
*** DP_FATAL_ERROR => DpSapEnvInit: DpCommInit
*** DISPATCHER EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN ***

Problem Analysis
I highlighted the keywords in the error messages above: Address already in use Service sapdp00 in use The TCP port number assigned in the “services” file is being occupied by another application. Due to the conflict, the dispatcher shuts down.

Solution
If your server has a firewall client, disable it and attempt to start the SAP instance again.
If the instance starts successfully you can enable the client firewall back again.
If there is no firewall client at all, or if disabling it did not resolve the problem, edit the “services” file and check what port the appropriate “sapdp” is using.
If the instance number is 00, look for sapdp00. If the instance number is 01 look for sapdp01 and so on. You can use the following OS command to help you resolve port conflicts:
netstat -p TCP There are also utilities on the Internet that can help you list all the TCP and UDP ports a system is using.

2: Dispatcher dies due to a database connection problem

No database connections.

No work processes

SAP MMC -> WP Table shows all processes as “ended”.

Errors found in “dev_disp”:
C setuser ‘tst’ failed — connect terminated
C failed to establish conn. 0
M ***LOG R19=> tskh_init, db_connect (DB-Connect 000256) [thxxhead.c 1102]
M in_ThErrHandle: 1
M *** ERROR => tskh_init: db_connect (step 1, th_errno 13, action 3, level 1) [thxxhead.c 8437]
*** ERROR => W0 (pid 2460) died [dpxxdisp.c 11651]
*** ERROR => W1 (pid 2468) died [dpxxdisp.c 11651]
*** ERROR => W2 (pid 2476) died [dpxxdisp.c 11651]. . .
*** ERROR => W11 (pid 2552) died [dpxxdisp.c 11651]
*** ERROR => W12 (pid 2592) died [dpxxdisp.c 11651]
my types changed after wp death/restart 0xbf –> 0×80
*** DP_FATAL_ERROR => DpEnvCheck: no more work processes
*** DISPATCHER EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN ***
DpModState: change server state from STARTING to SHUTDOWN

Problem Analysis
A connection to the database could not be established because either the SQL login specified in parameter “dbs/mss/schema” is set incorrectly or the SQL login was deleted from the database server. This parameter needs to be set in the DEFAULT.pfl system profile (under /usr/sap//sys/profile). In the messages above, we see that the SQL login ‘tst’ is expected but it does not exist at the database level.

Solution
Set the entry to the appropriate database owner. If the system is based on Basis <= 4.6 or if the system was upgraded from 4.x to 4.7 the database owner should be “dbo”. But, if the system was installed from scratch and it’s based on the Web AS 6.x the database owner should match the SID name in lower case. Example: if the SID is TST then the database owner should be “tst”. If the parameter is set correctly in the DEFAULT.pfl profile check at the database level if the SQL login exists. If it doesn’t, create it and give it database ownership to the .

3: SAP does not start at all: no message server and no dispatcher

The message server and the dispatcher do not start at all in the SAP MMC. The following error when trying to view the developer traces within the SAP MMC: The network path was not found. No new developer traces written to disk (under the “work” directory.)

Problem Analysis
The network shares “saploc” and “sapmnt” do not exist. That explains the “network path not found” message when attempting to view the developer traces within the SAP MMC.

Solution
Re-create the “saploc” and “sapmnt” network shares. Both need to be created on the /usr/sap directory

4: Users get “No logon possible” messages

Work processes start but no logins are possible.

Users get the login screen but the system does not log them in. Instead, they get this error: No logon possible (no hw ID received by mssg server).

In the SAP MMC, the message server (msg_server.exe) shows status “stopped”.

The dev_ms file reports these errors:
[Thr 2548] *** ERROR => MsCommInit: NiBufListen(sapmsTST) (rc=NIESERV_UNKNOWN) [msxxserv.c 8163]
[Thr 2548] *** ERROR => MsSInit: MsSCommInit [msxxserv.c 1561]
[Thr 2548] *** ERROR => main: MsSInit [msxxserv.c 5023]
[Thr 2548] ***LOG Q02=> MsSHalt, MSStop (Msg Server 2900) [msxxserv.c 5078]

Problem Analysis
Work processes were able to start but the message server was not. The reason is because the “services” file is missing the SAP System Message Port entry. Example: SAPmsTST 3600/tcp

Solution
Edit the “services” file and add the entry. Then, re-start the instance. Make sure you specify the appropriate TCP port (e.g. 3600) for the message server.

5: The message server starts but the dispatcher doesn’t

The dispatcher shows status “stopped” in the SAP MMC.

The “dev_disp” file shows these errors:
***LOG Q0A=> NiIServToNo, service_unknown (sapdp00) [nixxi.c 2580]
*** ERROR => DpCommInit: NiDgBind [dpxxdisp.c 7326]
*** DP_FATAL_ERROR => DpSapEnvInit: DpCommInit
*** DISPATCHER EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN ***

Problem Analysis
The keyword in the messages above is “service unknown” followed by the entry name “sapdp00″. The dispatcher entry “sapdp00″ is missing in the “services” file. Example: sapdp00 3200/tcp

Solution
Add the necessary entry in the “services” file. Example: sapdp00 3200/tcp Then, re-start the instance.

6: Work processes die soon after they start

All work processes die right after the instance is started.

The SAP MMC shows work processes with status “ended”.

Only one work process shows status “wait”.

An ABAP dump saying “PXA_NO_SHARED_MEMORY” is generated as soon as a user logs in.

The SAP MMC Syslog shows the following error multiple times: “SAP-Basis System: Shared Memory for PXA buffer not available”.

Problem Analysis
The instance profile contains misconfigured memory-related parameters. Most likely the “abap/buffersize” instance profile parameter is set to high.

Solution
Edit the instance system profile at the OS level under /usr/sap//sys/profile and lower the value assigned to “abap/buffersize”. Then, restart the instance. Also, it’s important to find out if any other memory parameter were changed. If not, the system should start once the adequate memory allocation has been set to the the “abap/buffersize” parameter.

‘logical system’ is used to identify an individual client in a system, for ALE
communication between SAP systems. That’s why you see a field for ‘logical
system’ in the client master data in SCC4 (table T000). You use logical systems
in ALE config – this should be documented further in the IMG guide, or SALE and
BALE transactions.

The naming convention for the logical system names which includes distinct IDs depending on:
System ID (SID), and client number, and maybe also system number if you have more than one instance per host machine. Hostname would be useful too, but I think there’s only 10 characters in v3.1x (maybe more with long name functionality in 4.x ??).

eg., in DEV box , sys no 00, client 100, choose something like ‘DEV00_100′.

The logical system must be defined or you get error messages all over the place during order processing stating the logical system has not been defined. The logical system is defined in the IMG. In 4.* it is found in the IMG > Cross Application Components > Distribution ALE > Basic settings > Logical systems > Define logical systems. Here the entry is just an identifier and a text entry.
“Logical Systems. The distribution of systems ( ALE ) makes it necessary to be able to
identify every system individually within a network. The “logical system” is
used to do this. A logical system is an application system within which the applications are
coordinated to work in one database. In the SAP sense of the word, a logical
system corresponds to a client. In the following steps, you must define every client as a logical system by first of all defining logical systems and then assigning the clients in
question to the corresponding logical systems

Note: Assignments must be unique (that is, a client may only be assigned to one
logical system.
Several clients must never be assigned to the same logical system.” Reading this it does seem that it is nothing more than another identifier for a “Client”.

So, What are user groups and how can we use them?

Transaction SUGR is used for User Groups.

User group can be used for different reasons and in different way.

In the latest versions of SAP, there are two types of usergroups

The authorization user group &
The general user groups

Naturally the main reason of user groups is to categorize user into a common denominator.

The authorization user group is used in conjunction with S_USER_GROUP authorization object. It allows to create security management authorization by user group. e.g. you can have a local security administrator only able to manage users in his groups, Help-Desk to reset password for all users except users in some group.

The general user group can be used in conjunction with SUIM and SU10, to select all the users in a specific group. User can only be member of one authorization user group but several general user group.

One of the Primary uses of user groups is to sort users into logical groups.

This allows users to be categorised in a method that is not dependent on roles and Responsibilities and Profiles.

User Groups also allow segregation of user maintenance, this is especially useful in a large organization as you can control who your user admin team can maintain – an example would be giving a team leader the authority to change passwords for users in their team.

Why, just because we can!

If you want the user to be locked after unsuccessful logon attempts, you can put a parameter in the Instance Profile to prevent them from doing so.

Transaction RZ10–> Instance Profile–> Extended Maintenance

Use the ‘login/fails_to_user_lock’ Parameter.
Defines the number of unsuccessful logon attempts before the system locks the user. By default, the lock applies until midnight.

Default value: 12; permissible values: 1 -99

To remove the lock after midnight :
login/failed_user_auto_unlock: Defines whether user locks due to unsuccessful logon attempts should be automatically removed at midnight.

Default value: 1 (Lock applies only on same day); permissible values: 0, 1

rdisp/vbname: Specifies the name of the update server that is to process the updates if load balancing is deactivated ( rdisp/vb_dispatching = 0 ).

In the standard system, this parameter specifies the name of an update server (set when the update server is created). If rdisp/vb_dispatching is set to 0, the updates are only processed by the server in rdisp/vbname.

rdisp/vb_delete_after_execution:Determines whether update records are deleted automatically after they have been processed successfully.

In the standard system, this is set to 1 (automatic deletion activated).

If set to 2, automatic deletion is deactivated. This value can be used to set the update and database performance. In this case, the report rsm13002 with the parameter DELETE = X should run in the background at least once a day to prevent the update tables from becoming excessively large. See also the section entitled Structure link Background Processing in the CCMS documentation.

rdisp/max_vb_server: Maximum number of update servers permitted in the SAP System. Default = 50 servers.

rdisp/vb_included_server:List of the SAP update servers, which are to be used to process updates in accordance with the load balancing principle. No updates are assigned to update servers that do not appear in the list.

This parameter is empty in the standard system. This means that all active update servers are taken into consideration for the load balancing mechanism. This is generally speaking the optimum value.

rdisp/vbdelete:Specifies the number of days after which the update records are deleted. The parameter is set to 50 days in the standard system.

Once this interval has expired, an update record is deleted irrespective of its status (processed, not processed, error etc.).

If set to 0, automatic deletion is deactivated. This value should only be set temporarily, and only if an incorrect update record is to be kept for further analysis.

A quick recap on various types of transports in SAP:

K type: The system owner does not get changed with K type transport. This kind of transport is only allowed to consolidation and production system. After the K type of transport is done no correction is allowed to those objects. Any changes to K type transport objects in consolidation system are called repair.
The repairs can be done to those objects if the change option is selected in SE06 and change option is there in client level selection in T00 table. Generally K type transport is used for stage and production environment.

C type: With the C type transport the ownership of that object is also transferred to the target. After the transport is done, the target system is the owner of the transported objects. The objects will be originals of the target system. These kind of transports are generally done in a four tier architecture, where a bundle of development objects can go from the sandbox environment to development environment or development environment to integration environment and vice versa. SAP recommends doing these transports when the objects should move to another system for further development work.

T type: T type is called a transport of copy. The ownership of the object remains with the source; the target system just gets the copy of the objects. When a sap patch is applied to the development system and transported to other systems, those are perfect example of T type transports.

There are 5 different User types:

1. Dialog
2. System
3. Communication
4. Service
5. Reference

Description about the above User types:

1. Dialog:- For Dialog User GUI Login is possible,Initial password and expiration of password and Multi GUI Logins are checked.
Individual system access (personalized)
It is possible to log on using SAP GUI. The user is therefore capable of interaction through SAP GUI.
The system checks whether the password has expired or is initial.
The user can change his or her password himself or herself.
Multiple dialog logons are checked and, where appropriate, logged.

Purpose of Dialog User is for individual human users.

2. System:- For a System User GUI Login is not possible, Initial password and expiration of password are not checked.
System-related and internal system processes.
It is not possible to log on using SAP GUI. The user is therefore incapable of interaction through SAP GUI.
The password change requirement does not apply to the passwords, that is, they cannot be initial or expired.
Only a user administrator can change the password.
Multiple logons are permissible.

Purpose of System User is for background processing and communication within a system (internal RFC calls) and between multiple systems (external RFC calls).

3. Communication:- For a Communication User login is not possible, Users are allowed to change password through some software in middle tier
Individual system access (personalized)
It is not possible to log on using SAP GUI. The user is therefore incapable of interaction through SAP GUI.
Although the system checks whether the password has expired or is initial, the implementation of the requirement to change the password, which exists in principle, depends on the logon method (interactive or non-interactive).

Purpose of this User is for external RFC calls of individual human users.These are used for login to system through external systems like web application

4. Service:- For a Service User GUI login is possible.Initial password and expiration of password are not checked.Multiple logins are allowed.Users are not allowed to change the password. Only admin can change the password.
Shared system access for a larger, anonymous group of users. Assign only very restricted authorizations for this user type.

Purpose of this User is for anonymous users. This type of users should be given minimum
authorization.After an individual authentication, an anonymous session begun with a service user can be continued as a person-related session with a dialog user.

5. Reference:- For a Reference User GUI login is not possible.Initial password and expiration of password are not checked.
User type for general, non-person related users that allows the assignment of additional identical authorizations, such as for Internet users created with transactions SU01.

Purpose of this Users are special kind of users which are used to give authorization to other users.