How to troubleshoot when no one is able to login to SAP system (ABAP stack)?

This article answers the following queries :

• How to troubleshoot when no one is able to login to SAP system (ABAP stack)?

• What could be the reasons if no one is able to login to SAP system (ABAP stack)?

Sometimes users may complain that they are  :

i)       Unable to login to SAP system from SAPGUI

ii)      Other users who have already logged in may complain that system is not responding

iii)    Some users who have already logged in may complain that system is very slow and response time is very high

Please note that in most of the above cases even SAP basis administrator cannot login to SAP system through GUI. So, he should use database, operating system tools (like PuTTy) and dpmon to identify the issue and troubleshoot.

The most likely reasons for all the above scenarios could be

i)          Oraarch is full and system is not able to respond to user queries due to that and all dialog processes are occupied within a while due to that and system is not allowing any other users to login due to lack of dialog workprocesses

Solution :  As even basis administrator cannot login through SAP GUI at this point of time, Please check at operating system level. If you find that oraarch filesystem is 100% full, please trigger archive log backup immediately and make sure there is enough space. Once there is sufficient space, system will start processing and all the dialog users activities will be resumed and within a while there will be free  workprocesses to login and issue will get resolved

ii)           Some critical filesystem at Oslevel is full and system is not able to perform any activity due to that. Within a while all the dialog workprocesses are full and no other user is allowed to login

Solution :  As even administrator cannot login through SAP GUI at this point of            time, Please check at oslevel whether any filesystem is 100% full. If so, please contact OS team and make sure sufficient space is free either by requesting them to add  more space or by deleting some unnecessary files

iii)        Some tablespace like PSAPSR3 is 100% full and system is not able to perform requests of existing users. Within due time all the workprocesses will get occupied and system will stop responding and it won’t allow any other new user to login due to lack of free workprocesses

Solution :  (In Unix related Operating systems (AIX, HP-UX), login to system                 through <ORASID> user and run brtools to run whether any tablespace is 100% full. If so, please add some datafiles and make sure sufficient free space is created. After that system automatically resumes processing.

iv)    Update got deactivated and system is not able to perform updates and thus all dialog/background workprocesses are full within due time and system is not allowing any other users to login

Solution : In some cases, in all the above error cases i) , ii) and iii) , SAP system may deactivate update automatically to prevent loss of data. So, after fixing the respective issue, we need to manually activate the update through SM13 so that system will resume processing. But you can activate the update only if system allows you to login through SAP GUI.

If you are not able to login to SAP system through SAPGUI, please use dpmon tool to do the same.


How to use dpmon tool

v)          Other scenario could be some processes has gone into PRIV mode consuming so much memory. This leads to memory bottlenecks and all other users requests will either take lot of time to process thus experiencing slowness or high response times.

After a while it also may happen that all dialog workprocesses got full and no other user will be able to login due to lack of free workprocesses

Solution :  This has 2 scenarios :

i) If you are able to login to SAP system through SAPGUI, please goto SM66 and identify the processes that have gone into PRIV mode. After identifying the transactions that are being run in PRIV mode, please check with respective user and terminate the processes or logoff the users from the system after confirmation that his process is non critical and can be terminated.

Terminating user session

ii) If even basis administrator could not login to SAP system, then use dpmon tool to identify the processes that have gone to PRIV mode.

How to use dpmon tool ?

 After identifying processes that have gone to PRIV mode, cross check with the user and after confirmation that his session can be terminated, kill his session by providing PID number

For example: In AIX or HP-UX use command below

Kill -9 <PID>

In the above command, PID is process identification number.

After that system will release all the memory allocated to PRIV mode processes and will sytem will start processing normally.

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