Attempt to reference a page past end-of-file error

[heleenw]

Hi all,

I receive on my SAS EG v8 in the graphical user-interface on 1 particular dataset, when trying to  open it or even right-clicking trying to change its properties, the ' Attempt to reference a page past end-of-file'  error.

I went to this forum, found the error there and hence tried following steps;

-assigning a library before importing the dataset, not ok

-extending putting the ODS extend option on YES, not ok

-creating a new EGP and pulling the data set in it. So I can still not open it. I can actually import it using import data rather than open data, but then it is imported as text and it is gibberish. I managed to distill from it it was made with M7 9.4 but no further info. My colleague has tried in his SAS EGP but sees same behaviour, might it be related to the fact the dataset is/was on another server than our EGP profiles? We experimented with the server-name and made new lib name statement to reflect path on the other server as well but we can't seem to succeed in opening the dataset, also cannot succesfully copy the file to the other location; so please - would any of you have any ideas?

Thanks & best regards

Heleen

[heleenw]

Exact info:

The open data operation failed. The following error occurred.
[Error] Attempt to reference a page past end-of-file on ECI00001.REAL_ESTATE_DM.DATA.

<?xml version="1.0" ?><Exceptions><Exception><SASMessage severity="Error">Attempt to reference a page past end-of-file on ECI00001.REAL_ESTATE_DM.DATA.</SASMessage></Exception></Exceptions>

[heleenw]

Hmmm, it looks like I fixed this. What I did, I went to profiles and gave myself a new profile on that other server. Then without any modification the EnterpriseGuide project started working without that particular error, very strange. It seems your metadata-server which you provide in your profile has effect on this particular error-message, though I do not precisely see why.

[heleenw]

It seems that other server is generating another error-message: Unable to open input data

That is different from the error given before, but it does not actually - unfortunately - work (yet).

[heleenw]

Might it be related to the fact that one of these servers has currently some issues w.r.t. insufficient storage space?

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

---

@heleenw wrote:

Might it be related to the fact that one of these servers has currently some issues w.r.t. insufficient storage space?

---

Absolutely. Running out of space while writing to a dataset can (and usually will) create a damaged dataset file.

[Kurt_Bremser]

You have a damaged dataset (.sas7bdat) file. As a first step, determine if it is completely destroyed (file size = 0), or if it has a reasonable size corresponding to what you would expect. If that is the case, you can try the REPAIR Statement in PROC DATASETS.

Use the PATHNAME function to retrieve the physical path to the library; how you do the directory listing depends on your SAS setup (local vs. client/server) and if you can use external commands (system option XCMD).

[heleenw]

Solved this by (increasing storage space through clean-up and) retrieving the original (non-damaged) dataset (.sas7bdat) file from elswehere.

Thanks all for your helpful insights and comments.