topic Re: sas error : in Statistical Procedures

Write Access Violation w PROC REG

fengyuwuzu — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 12:35:09 GMT

I am running a simple regression with the following code, with a data file, 21M in size, 4 columns (ID, date, amount, count), 300204 obs. I tested the code on a smaller size sample (2457 obs) and it ran smoothly. But with this larger sample (300204 obs), I got an error message after running about 23 hours. The message says:

sas.exe has stopped working.

A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

Then a button "close program".

proc printto log="D:\Analysis\30days.log";   /* to print log to a file */
run;

ods table parameterEstimates=ana30.logfile; /* to save coefficients */
PROC REG DATA=ana30.mydata;
   BY ID ;
   MODEL amount= count ;
RUN;

Then in the windows event log, I saw 4 errors:

Critical SAS error: Write Access Violation REG Exception occurred at (65a9f27)

Critical SAS error: Write Access Violation REG Exception occurred at (1e49c0b)

Critical SAS error: Write Access Violation REG Exception occurred at (1e49afa)

Critical SAS error: Stack overflow detected REG Exception occurred at (4e849fc)

I have no idea which board to ask this question, and just try here and hope someone can give me some hints

Thank you very much!

Re: sas error :

Reeza — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:51:41 GMT

What does your SAS log say?

Your data doesn't appear complex enough to cause any space issues...

24 hours also seems like way too long for a 300K file

Re: sas error :

PGStats — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:54:54 GMT

Similar thing happened to me and often goes away after restarting SAS. If it doesn't, you should open a ticket with SAS Tech Support.

Re: sas error :

Rick_SAS — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 17:13:24 GMT

I see a several problems with your code:

If ODS GRAPHICS are on, this will produce a bunch of graphs. Be sure to explicitly set ODS GRAPHICS OFF;
Use ODS SELECT ParameterEstiamtes to suppress the other output tables.
I am not familiar with the ODS TABLE statement. I do not see it in the documentation. I presume you meant to use ODS OUTPUT
Because PROC REG is an interactive procedure, the PROC REG statement will not create the ODS OUTPUT until you type QUIT. Use the QUIT stataement in place of the RUN statement to exit PROC REG.

Re: sas error :

Reeza — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 17:47:28 GMT

@Rick_SAS ODS Table is correct - and it can be used before proc. If you're also suppressing output then you have to use ODS output, so it's preferable to use ODS OUTPUT in general.

Re: sas error :

Reeza — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 17:48:40 GMT

Rick's answer is correct - most likely the QUIT is the issue.

proc printto log="D:\Analysis\30days.log";   /* to print log to a file */
run;

ods graphics off;
ods select parameterEstimates;
ods table parameterEstimates=ana30.logfile; /* to save coefficients */
PROC REG DATA=ana30.mydata;
   BY ID ;
   MODEL amount= count ;
RUN;
QUIT;

Re: sas error :

Rick_SAS — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 17:54:02 GMT

As far as I can tell, ODS TABLE is not a documented statement.

Re: sas error :

fengyuwuzu — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 20:09:44 GMT

Thank you for your replies and suggestions. I was doing something else so I did not follow up in time.

I googled and found the solution (hopefully) http://support.sas.com/kb/54/246.html

They have a hot fix and I just installed and followed their instructions.

I also use data from the work temporary library, not from the permanent library. Maybe this can be faster too.

I just output to the log, saving time to write log to the file (last time I got a message telling me log is full so I used this option). I forgot to clear the log last time before submitting the program.

Will see tomorrow if I have program again.

Re: Write Access Violation w PROC REG

LinusH — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 12:35:25 GMT

Renamed to better specify the contents of the thread.

Re: sas error :

fengyuwuzu — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:46:58 GMT

Thank you, Reeza. With your code, there was no error any more, and it ran much much faster.

Sorry that I did not come back to update in time. Was testing running SAS on a high performance computation facility (Linux).

One thing worthy to mention is, I tested my original program, which gave error on my windows7 PC, but it did not have any issue running on the HPC facility. And it finished much faster. I guess the HPC system has a much higher I/O (and of course faster CPU too).