Insufficient memory log error - identify what causes it

[csetzkorn]

My log file contains this error message:

ERROR: Insufficient memory.
ERROR: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of insufficient memory.

Ussually this is due insufficient space for WORK library datasets but i have been assured by our IT support that Saswork is currently only 56% full. What can I do to find out more details about this error to ultimately solve this issue? Thanks!

[Kurt_Bremser]

Insufficient memory points to RAM, not disk.

Please post the log including the step that caused the ERROR, and some information about the dataset(s) used (variables, number of observations, cardinality of class variables, if such were used)

[mnjtrana]

What proc are you running or is it datastep? Please provide the logic where you encountered the issue.

You can also try checking what's your memsize setting at your end. You can try increasing the memsize and see if that works for you.

options memsize=max;

Cheers from India !

Manjeet

[Kurt_Bremser]

Keep in mind that MEMSIZE can only be set at SAS invocation, either from the commandline or through the config file.

[csetzkorn]

thanks - so inclusion of: options memsize=max; in my driver SAS program would not make any difference (did not get an error message).

[Kurt_Bremser]

But you do get a WARNING:

16         options memsize=max;
                   _______
                   30
WARNING 30-12: SAS option MEMSIZE is valid only at startup of the SAS System. The SAS option is ignored.

[Kurt_Bremser]

As an addendum: MEMSIZE problems often point to inefficient programming. Around here, the workspace server (9.2) runs with 192 MB, and we very rarely run into memory problems. Most often this is caused by using summary procedures with a class instead of a by, and the class variables having a high cardinality.

[csetzkorn]

Agrree but sometimes you inherit inefficient code and you do not have time to optimize (-:

[Kurt_Bremser]

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@csetzkorn wrote:
Agrree but sometimes you inherit inefficient code and you do not have time to optimize (-:

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If you do not have the time to do something right, then why are you doing it anyway? Not having the time to correct things is the one poor excuse that perpetuates shitty code. Because the next time that bullshit code causes you grief, you get into even more trouble and have even less time to fix it, and on and on and on. Until you find that you have wasted a man-month by not taking the one hour that would have fixed it in the first place.