Do you often experience problems accessing SAP Portal? Yes, I know, we all like that, especially when it happens exactly when we need it the most and it usually does . But maybe sometimes you are not sure where the problem resides, maybe you also have some problems with the internet connection…
I want to share that there is an official site where you can check the status of the Portal and in case there are some problems, these are announced here. If it is an unexpected issue or if it is a planned unavailability you can check here and maybe plan your activities accordingly. You also have the option to subscribe here for any updates, so you can receive automatically an email or even SMS to stay informed about any changes, which I find very convenient. Here it is:
Looks like this year Santa Claus did not forget about us admins . On 14.12.2017 at 14:00 CET, SAP is presenting a free WEBINAR about SAP memory management. Feel free to also register at this link https://webinars.sap.com/ves-id-12255-2017capo/en/registration.aspx. After a successful registration, you should receive a confirmation email. If for any reason, you cannot join at this time, don’t worry, the registration will also be available as an attachment in this note: 2560709 – [WEBINAR] Understanding and Troubleshooting SAP Memory Management. But of course, it would be better to join live, as this way you also have the possibility to put questions on this topic to the SAP experts. See you on Thursday!
**Update: looks like there are plenty of webinars being presented by SAP on regular basis. You can check their calendar and topics from this link:
There is one tool that I like very much and it helps me in my daily work, I thought I would share it with you guys. The tool is free, so you can give it a try if interested.
It is called Power Note Searcher and it helps to open and find SAP notes in the quickest time possible with the smallest amount of effort. No, it is not a tool for lazy people, we are called optimizing technicians now
If you like using Google Chrome as a browser, (I do not really find a good reason for using something else, but let’s not be judgmental now) this might be your new toy to play with.
This is a browser extension, once installed will appear as a small icon next to the site textbox:
For those not so familiar with installing chrome extensions, the procedure is the following. Go to Settings -> More tools -> extentions -> get more extensions -> do a search on “Power Note Searcher” -> add to chrome and that’s it, the little icon will appear on the right side of your website box.
The idea is that you do not have to enter Support Portal and then search for your desired note, you just have to click on the application icon installed in your chrome browser and enter the SAP note. If you do not have any note number, you can also search notes after key words or even topics on SCN or help.sap.com. The plugin will also keep a history of your recently searched notes, a few information about them and the possibility to open your recent notes in PDF format.
Of course, this tool redirects you to the Support Portal and you need a S-user to view them, as in a normal case.
If you are using Firefox, you can use a similar tool called SAP Support Note QuickLaunch:
It does not have so many option as Power Note Searcher, but it is the only similar option for Firefox browser. To install it here go to Menu -> Add-ons -> Extension -> Enter SAP Support Note QuickLaunch in the search area and hit install.
As you might have noticed, lately SAP is really investing in making their technical support much better in several ways: by redesigning the support portal through the new SAP Launchpad, yes I know that this not going also as fast as expected and that there are some sudden unexpected interruptions, exactly when you need it more 🙂 and for the new users maybe it is a little difficult to find things, but hey, it is a big progress, if you remember the old and dull service.sap.com. Also expert chat, schedule an expert, non-technical chat, expending the Wiki, SCN, blogs sections, releasing new KBAs for different basic topics, some of them even with videos, developing the SuccessFactors and OpenSAP applications and so on, these are all part of SAP initiative for improving their support service. Maybe not all the solutions are as helpful as expected, but for sure SAP is trying and I think it has improved a lot in this area and finding information is starting not to be a problem anymore.
One tool that is rather new and interesting to use is called SAP Guided Answers. At the moment there are 484 articles, maybe this is not so much at the moment, but I am sure that this will get much popular in the future and that the topics covered will extend. These are not just some simple articles written, but it is also interactive by guiding you through find a solution, depending on your error scenario, you can follow different decision trees.
What is really cool is that this is also integrated in the knowledge base search from Support Portal, so you do not have to do a separate search when you are interested in finding an answer to a specific problem:
You also have an option to write a feedback depending on your experience, so you can also contribute on making this application better.
You can access the application from here, I am sure that you will find something new and useful:
An interesting and free source of SAP trainings you can find on OpenSAP at https://open.sap.com/courses. The subjects covered are various and are useful for administrators, application consultants, developers, technology consultants, etc… You can use these to extend your knowledge and also to get familiar with the newest technologies, so I really recommend to have a look on them, for sure you will find something interesting.
For attending any courses on the site, you only need to create an account, no S-user account is necessarily required.
Each course contains also an exam that you can optionally take. If this is successfully passed you will also receive a record of achievement certificate, but this exam can only be taken while the course is still current, while if you just participate at the course, you will receive a confirmation of participation certificate. It is true that the certificates do not have much of a value, but still it is a good confirmation that you understood the content of the course presented and also motivates you to go through it.
There is also an application for Android available that you can use to access the courses, you can download it from here:
Today SAP announced that there are some problems with the sapxpg binary due to incompatibility in kernel 749.
This affects both SAP_BASIS releases 740 SP >=18 and 750 SP >=8.
SAPXPG is a kernel binary that is used for controlling external programs or the external commands within the same system or in a remote system. The trace for SAPXPG is dev_cp.
There could be two symptoms as per SAP note 2443381:
“1. You use the Unicode sapxpg and the asynchronous execution of external commands no longer works.”
=> in this case for:
– kernel 745, sapxpg_uc has to be patched to PL >=416
– kernel 749, sapxpg has to be patched to PL >=210
“2. You have SAP_BASIS 750 or 740 and SAP Kernel 749, and there are problems with the execution of external commands that have non-ASCII charactes in the parameter string or in their output. These characters are not transferred correctly.”
=> in this case for both 745 and 749 kernels the note 2443381 must be implemented.
But as there are also some other minor problems detected with SAPXPG, it would be best if you update directly to sapxpg_uc PL 510 for kernel 745 and sapxpg PL 310 for kernel 749.
In order to find out the version of sapxpg you can execute:
./sapxpg -VERSION
I recommend that you subscribe to the SAP news page in order to be up to date to the latest kernel related announcements: https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/SI/SAP+Kernel%3A+Important+News
More information can be found in notes:
2443381 – Problems during execution of external commands as of SAP_BASIS 740
2479738 – Connection test for sapxpg or sapxpg_uc fails
For some technical reasons, recently I had to rollback the bundle patch Oracle Database SAP Bundle Patch 12.1.0.2.170418 – 201705. I followed exactly the steps from the guide, but when trying to start the database back, after the deinstallation, I got this error:
SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.
Total System Global Area 1.4596E+10 bytes
Fixed Size 6952656 bytes
Variable Size 4362078512 bytes
Database Buffers 1.0201E+10 bytes
Redo Buffers 26599424 bytes
Database mounted.
ORA-01092: ORACLE instance terminated. Disconnection forced
ORA-04024: self-deadlock detected while trying to mutex pin cursor 0x3BD887D18
Process ID: 21912
Session ID: 301 Serial number: 50635
The solution to this problem can be found in the note 2392622. To summarize it, the self deadlock will be solved by adding the fix control ‘9550277:ON’.
Note for more information:
2392622 – ORA-01092 and ORA-04024 after SBP deinstallation when trying to startup database to execute rmsbp
While starting the SWPM tool for a system installation I came across this message:
./sapinst SAPINST_USE_HOSTNAME=hostname
[==============================] - extracting... done!
SAPinst build information:
--------------------------
Version: 749.0.23
Build: 1763064
Compile time: May 19 2017 - 07:46:46
Make type: optU
Codeline: 749_REL
Platform: linuxx86_64
Kernel build: 749, patch 217, changelist 1761678
SAP JRE build: SAP Java Server VM (build 8.1.030 25.51-b02, Apr 26 2017 16:01:22 - 81_REL - optU - linux amd64 - 6 - bas2:288514 (mixed mode))
SAP JCo build: 3.0.16
SL-UI version: 2.5.30
SAP UI5 version: 1.42.4
Exe directory: /share/packages/SWPM/tmp/sapinst_exe.29580.1497432865
load resource pool /share/packages/SWPM/resourcepool.xml
INFO 2017-06-14 09:35:17.155 (root/sapinst) (SLPCommunicator) [/bas/749_REL/bc_749_REL/src/ins/SAPINST/impl/src/guiengine/SLPMonitoringStatemachine.cpp:1355]
********************************************************************************
Access URL for GUI is
https://hostname:4237/w8RbRSZrzplmfEY9/docs/index.html
Logon users: [root]
********************************************************************************
sapinst was hanging here without starting the GUI window
It looks like starting with SWPM PL 19, the installer can start now in two ways:
– new web browser based, the link where this can be accessed appears in the sapinst log
– or the classic Java GUI based. This is not available by default anymore, in order to access this in the old way, you have to use sapinst with the command line option SAPINST_SLP_MODE=false
//
