Simplifying ABAP short dumps

ABAP dumps are very useful sources of an information about what went wrong in execution of particular ABAP code. When the code runs into runtime error due to e.g. an uncaught exception, an exit message, a failed assertion, missing authorization to access the object etc. there is the ABAP dump generated. The dup can be viewed in t-code ST22. The dump itself carries a lot of information about the SAP system and its environment. Be it: hostnames and or IP addresses of DB server, app server, terminal, user names, version of SAP system, kernel, DB, memory, even the data can be exposed in ABAP variables, internal tables etc.

In order to prevent a leak of potentially sensitive information like above mentioned an ABAP dump could be simplified. Instead of all information, only two parts of the dump can be presented to the user:

·        What happened? – shows brief description of the place where the code was aborted

·        What can I do? – shows basic information of what can be analyzed further

 

Technically the simplified ABAP dumps are displayed in case the user has no below authorization assigned to its profile:

Authorization object: S_DEVELOP

Activity:                  03

Object type:            ST22

The authorization check is performed in method CHECK_USER_AUTHORIZATION_ST22 of class CL_ST22_TOOLS.

 

More information:

2306423 - Hiding sensitive information from Short Dumps (ABAP)

Further investigating of SAP BW dumps

There are different types of ABAP dump one may encounter while working with SAP BW. Many of them are quite tricky to read. Even skilled BW developer or ABAP developer can be surprised at the end what really an issue was about. I just name few examples that can be seen here or here. What is an issue is that actually there are many areas within the dump that need to properly reviewed in order to come to conclusion of what is going on. Basically what we use once we look at the dumps is that we just review it very briefly w/o detail look at some of areas.

What I found recently is that following areas of the dumps are worth to look at:

Chosen variables - area lists out variable values at the time of dump. In many cases there might be values which may lead us to solution or at least gives us a clue of what is going on. In example below there was a very generic dump: UNCAUGHT_EXCEPTION / CX_RSR_X_MESSAGE. Symptoms of the issue was that load to DSO was just failing w/o any obvious evidence of what is wrong. 

 Monitor of the data load request was just read, no log or anything else was present. Finally someone took at this this part of the dump and there was an IO mentioned = 0WEEKDAY1. While looking up the IO name in support.sap.com an SAP Note (2079842 - Time check: Termination _CHECK_PART_TIME_WO_FINEST-6-) with solution was found. Therefore always pay attention to this part of the ABAP dump!

How to find TRFN concerned in ABAP dump?

ABAP dump is common place where monitoring team of SAP systems are talking look. Even Basis people usually observe tcode ST22 and they inform particular BW people about possible issues. So what actually we can read from the ABAP dump concerning BW failed transformation?

The ABAP dump related to failed BW transformation looks like following:

Category               ABAP Programming Error

Runtime Errors         GETWA_NOT_ASSIGNED

ABAP Program           GP00O2SPBAQDZP8PDSDOGUNVDYB

Afterwards an description of particular error follows. Main thing what we get out of it is just GP* report. It is generated report which contains whole logic of the BW transformation. The problem of the dump is that from the log that is provided we can't see what corresponding transformation is where issue occurred. This information must be lookup up. There is a table called RSTRAN which usually can be used to look up this info. The GP* report from the dump must be entered into field TRANPROG on selection screen of the table selection screen. Note that important is to remove first 2 letters "GP" from the name of the GP* report.

Here we go -> we got the transformation ID:

Now by using value in field TRANID we can look up the transformation in RSA1:

Here we go; the TRFN is found:

However this method doesn't work for all types of TRFN/loads.

Advanced Note Search Tool (ANST)

People working with SAP know what it takes to search for correction note of bug or an issue within SAP applications. Basically once you dealing with it you need to go through bunch a SAP Notes available at SMP. Sometimes the notes are not very well described so you may go in try-and-try loop. This of course takes time. SAP strives for better solutions of searching for the notes. This includes improvements of searching with SMP but not only that. SAP provides also tools using other approaches in this field.  One tool available is based on tracing the issue while simulating it directly in the system. There is a transaction ANST_SEARCH_TOOL which allows direct reproduction of issue. Within this TA you are guided directly into the particular functionality where issue occurs. After that you are offered with list of application components (e.g. components of BW or BOBJ components) where you choose component or components and you will get a list of applicable Notes for your issue. The listed notes are applicable to the issue and are not implemented in your system. 

If there is a custom extension involved in the SAP functionality and issue is related to this code. In such a case Advanced Note Search Tool transaction shows all the points where the custom code is involved. Custom tables are listed as well.

One more feature of the tool is Notes search capability directly from ABAP dumps transaction – ST22.

The ANST tool is available to be implemented only via Support packages. It is a part of SAP_BASIS components within following support packages: SAPKB70028 or SAPKB70113 or SAPKB70213 or SAPKB73106.

For more information see following sources:

1564850 - Automated Note Search: General Note

1778716 - Advanced Note Search Tool

1818192 - FAQ: Automated Note Search Tool

SCN blog: A new application that makes it easier to find sap correction notes  

SCN blog: Automated Note Search & Customer Code Detection II (release 2.0)