PC does not start due to not maintained start variant

I faced recently a strange error within my newly created process chain. On attempt to start it up, I got below error message:

Job could not be released. Probably an authorization issue

Message no. RSAR051

I was sure that it has nothing to do with the authorization. I checked what user is assigned into the chain in its attributes as Execution User. That user did not lack any authorization too.

It turned out that it was just a missing chain’s start variant where I did not specified scheduling condition part. There was no either Intermediate Start/Date Time/After Job/After Event/Operation Mode data entered.

Once I added it the chain worked just fine.

Error message is issued within FM RSSM_PLAN_START_BATCH_JOB somewhere around line 661. There a return value of variable l_job_released of another FM (JOB_CLOSE) call is evaluated:

MESSAGE s051(rsar) WITH 'Job could not be released.'(210) 'Probably an authorization issue'(211) '' ''.

However real reason why job schedule failed is not really properly propagated. This is fixed in SAP Note 3164846 which introduces a CASE/WHEN statement to do that.

 

More information:

3164846 - Error messages from job scheduling are not returned to caller