Rsubmit is pulling old data should I restart SAS/Connect

[dlawto2]

We are having an issue with SAS 9.3 sending old cached data to both other 9.3 installations (yes, I know upgrade is needed) and also to Viya 3.5.  When I run the remote=SERVERNAME on the same server as SERVERNAME (to test) I get the data dated last month, yet when I remove the remote=SERVERNAME I get the correct date.  This has been tested on other SAS 9.3 AIX servers and also Viya.  We are pulling data that is symlinked, and was working fine until this month.   I do not know enough about SAS/Connect to know if it is caching data, etc..

My suggestion was to restart the SAS/Connect piece, but I need to ensure that is enough.  

[Tom]

Sounds like you are using some of the features available with the SAS/Connect product to start a second SAS session from your current SAS session. For example by using the SIGNON and RSUBMIT command.

If you are seeing different behavior when you connect to different SAS servers then it sounds like one of the SAS servers does not have the current data.

Not sure what we can do to help you debug that situation.  

Try checking which server you are connected. Either just look at the SAS log or try checking the value of the SYSHOSTNAME macro variable (if that macro variable exist in SAS 9.3)

[dlawto2]

Sorry my explanation was vague.  So even when I used the rsubmit to test a connection to prod (run on Prod) it returned the invalid date for the data, yet when I removed the rsubmit, it pointed to the correct version for October.  

From Viya:

The CONTENTS Procedure

Data Set Name <filename>_2021 Observations 3612501
Member Type DATA Variables 26
Engine REMOTE9 Indexes 2
Created 09/02/2021 06:21:48 Observation Length 256
Last Modified 09/02/2021 06:22:01 Deleted Observations 0
Protection Compressed NO
Data Set Type Sorted YES
Label
Data Representation HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64
Encoding latin1 Western (ISO)

Engine/Host Dependent Information

Data Set Page Size 24576
Number of Data Set Pages 38028
First Data Page 1
Max Obs per Page 95
Obs in First Data Page 74
Index File Page Size 8192
Number of Index File Pages 43432
Number of Data Set Repairs 0
Filename <filename>_2021.sas7bdat
Release Created 9.0301M2
Host Created AIX
Inode Number 54857
Access Permission rwxrwxr-x
Owner Name <UID>
File Size (bytes) 1038098432

From Prod:
The CONTENTS Procedure

Data Set Name <filename>_2021 Observations 3612501
Member Type DATA Variables 26
Engine REMOTE Indexes 2
Created Thu, Sep 02, 2021 06:21:47 AM Observation Length 256
Last Modified Thu, Sep 02, 2021 06:22:00 AM Deleted Observations 0
Protection Compressed NO
Data Set Type Sorted YES
Label
Data Representation HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64
Encoding latin1 Western (ISO)

Engine/Host Dependent Information

Data Set Page Size 24576
Number of Data Set Pages 38028
First Data Page 1
Max Obs per Page 95
Obs in First Data Page 74
Index File Page Size 8192
Number of Index File Pages 43432
Number of Data Set Repairs 0
Filename /<filename>2021.sas7bdat
Release Created 9.0301M2
Host Created AIX
Inode Number 54857
Access Permission rwxrwxr-x
Owner Name <uid>
File Size (bytes) 1038098432

Prod without rsubmit:
The SAS System 10:53 Monday, October 11, 2021 1

The CONTENTS Procedure

Data Set Name <filename>_2021 Observations 4012677
Member Type DATA Variables 26
Engine V9 Indexes 2
Created Saturday, October 02, 2021 06:26:25 AM Observation Length 256
Last Modified Saturday, October 02, 2021 06:26:48 AM Deleted Observations 0
Protection Compressed NO
Data Set Type Sorted YES
Label
Data Representation HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64
Encoding latin1 Western (ISO)

Engine/Host Dependent Information

Data Set Page Size 24576
Number of Data Set Pages 42240
First Data Page 1
Max Obs per Page 95
Obs in First Data Page 74
Index File Page Size 8192
Number of Index File Pages 48242
Number of Data Set Repairs 0
Filename /<filename>_2021.sas7bdat
Release Created 9.0301M2
Host Created AIX
Inode Number 54857
Access Permission rwxrwxr-x
Owner Name <uid>
File Size (bytes) 1038098432

Alphabetic List of Variab

I removed UID and Filenames but they are identical. 

[dlawto2]

My apologies, the cut/paste removed carriage returns and the above is difficult to read:

From Viya to Prod with rsubmit:

The CONTENTS Procedure

Data Set Name <filename>_2021 Observations 3612501
Member Type DATA Variables 26
Engine REMOTE9 Indexes 2
Created 09/02/2021 06:21:48 Observation Length 256
Last Modified 09/02/2021 06:22:01 Deleted Observations 0
Protection Compressed NO
Data Set Type Sorted YES
Label
Data Representation HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64
Encoding latin1 Western (ISO)

Engine/Host Dependent Information

Data Set Page Size 24576
Number of Data Set Pages 38028
First Data Page 1
Max Obs per Page 95
Obs in First Data Page 74
Index File Page Size 8192
Number of Index File Pages 43432
Number of Data Set Repairs 0
Filename <filename>_2021.sas7bdat
Release Created 9.0301M2
Host Created AIX
Inode Number 54857
Access Permission rwxrwxr-x
Owner Name <UID>
File Size (bytes) 1038098432

From Prod to Prod with rsubmit:

The CONTENTS Procedure

Data Set Name <filename>_2021 Observations 3612501
Member Type DATA Variables 26
Engine REMOTE Indexes 2
Created Thu, Sep 02, 2021 06:21:47 AM Observation Length 256
Last Modified Thu, Sep 02, 2021 06:22:00 AM Deleted Observations 0
Protection Compressed NO
Data Set Type Sorted YES
Label
Data Representation HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64
Encoding latin1 Western (ISO)

Engine/Host Dependent Information

Data Set Page Size 24576
Number of Data Set Pages 38028
First Data Page 1
Max Obs per Page 95
Obs in First Data Page 74
Index File Page Size 8192
Number of Index File Pages 43432
Number of Data Set Repairs 0
Filename /<filename>2021.sas7bdat
Release Created 9.0301M2
Host Created AIX
Inode Number 54857
Access Permission rwxrwxr-x
Owner Name <uid>
File Size (bytes) 1038098432

Prod without rsubmit:

The SAS System 10:53 Monday, October 11, 2021 1

The CONTENTS Procedure

Data Set Name <filename>_2021 Observations 4012677
Member Type DATA Variables 26
Engine V9 Indexes 2
Created Saturday, October 02, 2021 06:26:25 AM Observation Length 256
Last Modified Saturday, October 02, 2021 06:26:48 AM Deleted Observations 0
Protection Compressed NO
Data Set Type Sorted YES
Label
Data Representation HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64
Encoding latin1 Western (ISO)

Engine/Host Dependent Information

Data Set Page Size 24576
Number of Data Set Pages 42240
First Data Page 1
Max Obs per Page 95
Obs in First Data Page 74
Index File Page Size 8192
Number of Index File Pages 48242
Number of Data Set Repairs 0
Filename /<filename>_2021.sas7bdat
Release Created 9.0301M2
Host Created AIX
Inode Number 54857
Access Permission rwxrwxr-x
Owner Name <uid>
File Size (bytes) 1038098432

Alphabetic List of Variab

[Tom]

That looks like output from PROC CONTENTS. 

What does PROC CONTENTS have to do with RSUBMIT?

What are you RSUBMITTING from and to?  

Are you using VIYA? Or regular SAS?

PS The missing formatting is probably because you tried to copy the HTML output instead of the plain text listing output.  If you cannot get plain old text listing to work in your environment try using OUT= option or ODS LISTING to generate a dataset and share that.

[dlawto2]

We get the same error with both Viya and SAS 9.3 rsubmits.  And yes, I ran a proc contents to see the date of the data.  It should be pulling the most current one of October. 

[SASKiwi]

Compare the LIBNAMEs you are reading your data from RSUBMIT versus non-RSUBMIT. Do they point to different folder locations? That could explain your problem.

[dlawto2]

No, same identical program was run to test, the remote submit was just removed when on prod.   It is the most bizarre thing.  

[SASKiwi]

Where do you assign the LIBNAME where the data is coming from though? In the program or somewhere else?

[Patrick]

So the rsubmit is just a new session on the same machine or is that running on a different machine. 

According to the info you've posted with identical inodes and file sizes I assume it's executing on the same machine and then I'd agree that this is weird.

In situations where "it worked and now it doesn't anymore but we haven't changed a thing" I'd ask: What has changed in the environment? Is there a new file system or anything else? 

It's certainly worth to restart the SAS servers and see if the issue remains or not.

And getting the log from the different executions would also help - i.e. to see the path the library points to.

[doug_sas]

Everything depends on where the data is stored and how you are accessing it. The following three methods should produce the same results:

1) HostA performs a SIGNON to HostB and then runs a LIBNAME statement using the REMOTE engine with SERVERNAME=HostB, it should be accessing data at the path specified on HostB's filesystem. This would look like

(running on HostA)

  SIGNON HostB;

  LIBNAME myLib REMOTE '/path/to/data' server=HostB;

  PROC CONTENTS DATA=mylib.mydata;

  RUN;

2) HostA performs a SIGNON to HostB and then RSUBMITs code to HostB to run a LIBNAME statement using the BASE engine to the same path.

  SIGNON HostB;

  RSUBMIT HostB;

    LIBNAME myLib 'path/to/data';

    PROC CONTENTS DATA mylib.mydata;

    RUN;

  ENDRSUBMIT;

3) Running SAS on HostB to run a LIBNAME statement using the BASE engine to the same path:

  LIBNAME myLib 'path/to/data';

  PROC CONTENTS DATA mylib.mydata;

  RUN;

(Of course #1 is the only one that will allow you to get data from HostB back to HostA)

It would be helpful if you at least provided some pseudo code as to what you are doing and the results you are seeing. Getting totally different data set information means you are not accessing the same data for some reason.