Determine who has a lock on metadata and how to unlock it

[PaulHomes]

Hi Tammy,

In the past, when trying to determine who had a handle open on a (SAS dataset) file, I would use Process Explorer. It is available for download from Microsoft Sysinternals at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx

Whilst Process Explorer provides a point and click method for this, if you are after a scripting method then there's also a command line utility handle available at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/handle.aspx

Cheers

Paul 

[tammy_dezilva]

Thanks Paul. This sounds like a great tool to suit our needs.

[tammy_dezilva]

Hi Paul

Our IT are saying that we need administrator rights in order for this to work (to see processes that run by other people) and won't give us this.  Do you know of any way around this?

thanks

Tammy

[PaulHomes · Accepted solution]

Hi Tammy,

In that situation I might keep asking IT to tell me who has a file locked in the hope that they might eventually decide to delegate access so I can find out for myself 😉

Something else that comes to mind is to use SAS library access logging to give you an idea of who has been accessing the table most recently. Gerry Nelson wrote a blog post about it: Auditing data access: who did what and when? There's some more info in the Audit Messages for SAS Library Access section of the SAS 9.4 Logging: Configuration and Programming Reference.

Once you have the logging enabled you would write a stored process to report on recent table access. 

Cheers

Paul