165084 - Why does my job not start?

Symptom

You want to find out why a specific job will not start.

Other Terms

SAPMSSY2, SM37, SM37C, resources, background processes, jobs, delay

Reason and Prerequisites

Since the cause of the problem may vary according to the status of the job, you must first determine the job status. Then refer to the relevant section below.

1. Job status 'Scheduled'

2. Job status 'Released'

3. Job has the status 'Ready'

Solution

1. Job status 'Scheduled'

              A job that has the status 'Scheduled' can never start because it lacks a start condition. The job has either been descheduled (in this case, the original start condition is still visible), or it never had a start condition. In the latter case, an error may have occurred when the job was scheduled. Check the system log (transaction SM21) for error messages at the time the job was created.

2. Job status 'Released'

              You must first check whether transaction SM37 indicates a delay for the job. If this is the case, the start condition of the job has taken effect. If a released job is delayed, it may not start for one of the following reasons:

a) The job waits for the time scheduler to be executed.

                       This is a 'normal' delay. The time scheduler runs in an interval that is determined by the profile parameter rdisp/btctime.

b) There are insufficient free background processes.

                       To start a job, the system requires a free background work process. You can choose the 'Active' tab in transaction SM37C to check which jobs were active when your job should have started.
Note 923228 greatly improves the throughput of SAP background processing because, when each job ends, it informs the system that its work process is free.

c) There are insufficient dialog processes for the scheduler.

                       Time-controlled or event-controlled schedulers require a free dialog process. If an instance is occupied by several RFC calls, for example, the scheduler cannot start. You can use transaction SM61 to check when the time-controlled or event-controlled scheduler last ran.

d) Operation modes are defined incorrectly.

                       If an operation mode is defined in a transaction, which, for example, defines that only jobs with class A may run on an instance, jobs with class B or C will not run on this instance.

e) The target server is no longer active, or background processes are no longer available.

                       A job will never start if its target server is no longer active, or if there are no background processes available on the target server.

f) The target server group points to an invalid instance.

                       A job that is assigned to a target server group cannot start if this group contains only invalid instances. This applies to default server groups (see Note 786412). For invalid entries in the server groups, the system issues warnings in the system log (see Note 1143377).

g) The scheduler is deactivated.

                       The time- or event-controlled scheduler has been deactivated in transaction SM61. In this case, the system writes entries into the system log every minute.

h) Entries are missing from TBTCS or BTCEVJOB.

                       Each released job must have an entry in table TBTCS (time-controlled jobs) or BTCEVTJOB (event-controlled jobs). Otherwise, a released job will not start. You can display inconsistencies between the background processing tables by calling transaction SM65 and choosing the menu options 'Goto -> Additional Tests'. If inconsistencies occur frequently, report the problem to SAP Support.

i) The start dates in the table TBTCO and the table TBTCS are different.

                       For a customer, it has been noticed that the start date in the table TBTCO was earlier than the start date in the table TBTCS.  Transaction SM37 shows a delay for the affected jobs, however the job was executed correctly for the start date of the table TBTCS.  This problem was caused by direct table accesses in customer programs.

3. Job has the status 'Ready'

              A job should never have the status 'ready' for longer than five seconds. If this status remains for a longer period of time, a problem occurred during the sending of the start message, or the receiving batch work process does not have a connection to the database. Check the system log (transaction SM21) for error messages. If the problem occurs again after you import a new kernel, report the problem to SAP Support. If the problem only occurs for jobs that are started by sapevt, install a new sapevt as well as a new kernel.

4. Job has the status 'active'

              This job is currently running, so there is no problem.

5. Job has the status 'complete'

              This job has already ended, so there is no problem.

6. Job has the status 'terminated'

              This job terminated during runtime. The job log records the cause of the termination.

Header Data

Released On	21.04.2011 15:05:07
Release Status	Released for Customer
Component	BC-CCM-BTC Background Processing
Priority	Recommendations / Additional Info
Category	Help for error analysis

Validity

This document is not restricted to a software component or software component version

References

This document refers to:

SAP Notes

1169524		Program for periodic status query of jobs
930567		Overview: Jobs remain in status "ready" for a long time
1035000		Dynamic time scheduler appears not to work