Error "An error occurred while attempting to display a message" when trying to open a .sas7bdat file

[PleaseHelpKMS]

I get the error "An error occurred while attempting to display a message. The details of the message were: --------" when I try to open a .sas7bdat file. Also SAS enterprise Guide crashses after that. I have all the latest versions, I reinstalled SAS a number of times, changing the software version every time, and I always get the same error. The file is not corrupted as I tried to open different .sas7bdat files and I get the same error, I also sent my files to colleagues with the same version of SAS Enterprise Guide and they can open the files just fine. Please help!

[Kurt_Bremser]

Remove all SAS components first (using Control Panel), then install everything from the ground up. If that does not fix it, I suggest the Windows solution #1: format the system drive and reinstall Windows from scratch, followed by the SAS software.

[PleaseHelpKMS]

yep, sure, thanks man!

[ChrisHemedinger · Accepted solution]

Instead of opening the file directly, can you assign a SAS library to the path and access the data from there?

It sounds like you have SAS installed on your machine as well as EG.  But if not, try the Upload Data Set to Server task to send your data set to a library on your SAS session (could be WORK) and see if you can access that way.

A little behind-the-scenes info: when you double-click or select to open a sas7bdat file in EG, one of two approaches is followed:

• If you have SAS on your local machine, EG will connect to your local SAS and assign a temporary libname to access the data from your local file path.
• If you don't have SAS locally, EG will use the SAS OLE DB Local Data provider to read the data directly to provide you with a data view.  However, if you run a task or query, EG will copy that data to your remote SAS session to make the data available there.

If you can provide the details of the message, I might be able to provide some more insight into what's happening here.

[PleaseHelpKMS]

"--------" is literally the message of the error.

I tried uploading the data to the server and opening it from there in my EG, it's the only thing that worked so far, thank you!