topic Insufficient space in file WORK. 'SASTMP-000000...' in SAS Studio

Insufficient space in file WORK. 'SASTMP-000000...'

rom_jp — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 04:18:41 GMT

Hi,

I am using SAS University Edition with VM Virtual Box. I have a 8GB dataset (17million observations and 72 variables). When I try to run proc surveymeans, I get the following error message.

Insufficient space in file WORK.'SASTMP-000000042'n.UTILITY.

ERROR: File WORK.'SASTMP-000000042'n.UTILITY is damaged. I/O processing did not complete.

My program is:

proc surveymeans data=nrd16.NRDcore1 missing sumwgt sum mean;
domain cirrhosis;
strata NRD_STRATUM;
cluster HOSP_NRD;
weight DISCWT;
var LOS;
run;

Is there any way to expand my work space or get around this problem? Thank you for your help!

Re: Insufficient space in file WORK. 'SASTMP-000000...'

Patrick — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 05:10:32 GMT

@rom_jp

The short answer is no. See here: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Analytics-U/insufficients-space-SAS-University-Edition/td-p/177721

Also consider that working with such data volumes is eventually outside of the intended (and licensed) usage of the SAS UE edition.

Re: Insufficient space in file WORK. 'SASTMP-000000...'

ballardw — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 15:58:19 GMT

No promise but I would at least try resting the variables from the data to those actually used with a data set option such as

proc surveymeans data=nrd16.NRDcore1 (keep= cirrhosis nrd_stratum hosp_nrd discwt los)

You may want to read the Surveymeans documentation in the Details section under Computational Resources if have not done so.

There are suggestions related to options SUMSIZE and MEMSIZE.

The apparent utility file may be occurring because (from the documentation)

When the data-dependent memory usage overwhelms what is available in the computer system, the procedure might open one or more utility files to complete the analysis.

With UE and the virtual environment I'm not sure of specifics on setting on the SUMSIZE and MEMSIZE values though.

Re: Insufficient space in file WORK. 'SASTMP-000000...'

rom_jp — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 16:49:26 GMT

Thanks for the info. I will look into the SUMSIZE and MEMSIZE options.

Re: Insufficient space in file WORK. 'SASTMP-000000...'

db_at_ccf — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 14:27:52 GMT

Check your table or data set using PROC CONTENTS. If there are any character variables of length = 200, or ones that can be truncated, try to do so. You can get the length using tricks posted at https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Finding-the-max-length-that-occurs-within-each-variable/td-p/268229

Then resize those variables, limiting the working data set to only those variables needed for the PROC SURVEYXXXXX procedure.

I found that my variables for STRATUM and CLUSTER were of length = 200. I truncated them to a minimum size. That did the trick. Good luck!