I connect to more SAS server environments than your average SAS user. In a given week, I probably run SAS Enterprise Guide connecting to at least five different Windows-based servers, a few Unix-based servers, and maybe even a z/OS machine as well.
With that many SAS environments, I'm bound to encounter one or two with a SETINIT that's in its "warning" mode: you know, when the initialization log tells you that your SAS products will expire soon and you need to renew your SETINIT (via a SAS Installation Data, or SID, file). (Yes, even inside the walls of SAS, we use SETINITs to keep our software installations working.)
Sometimes I connect too late, and the license has already expired. If that happens, you don't get a nice message from SAS Enterprise Guide that tells you why you can't connect. The message is simply, "Failed to start the SAS server." Without a current SETINIT, a SAS workspace won't start at all, and so we can't get more detailed information than that.
NOTE: This is different from the expiration date sometimes encountered in older SAS Enterprise Guide clients, which has nothing to do with SETINITs.
So for my own selfish purposes, I added a new warning message into SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3. You'll see it whenever you connect to a SAS server that has entered its "warning" stage. I encountered it today (and thanked myself for adding it!); here's what it looks like:
What should you do when you see this warning? You should share the news, of course, and annoy your SAS administrator to apply a newer SETINIT. (In my case though, that's often me.)
I hope that this small touch serves you well, and gives you plenty of warning the next time your SAS licenses are coming close to term.
9 Comments
Hey Chris
Quck question, can you turn the warning off?
Cheers
Shane
Shane,
Alas, you cannot.
Well, you can: by renewing the license file.
We have hundreds of SAS users in our organization. I have no doubt IT gets their share of emails thanks to this message box. As convenient as it is for you, I hope you can understand the other side of the fence: for us lowly users who have no control over things, this small touch is an annoyance rather than a blessing. Please, for the sake of the many, allow us to turn off the warning.
Kurtis, thanks for the comment. I appreciate that you need a way to suppress this, at least after the first time seeing it. I'll check with the dev team and see if anything is planned.
Thanks, I appreciate it very much!
Hi Chris, Did you found any solution from dev team how to suppress license warning from SAS EG.
No -- other than renewing the SAS license. But good news -- in the next version of EG the message will be displayed in such a way that it does not block work/require a click to dismiss.
Hi Chris,
Please advise. We have a user who schedule the job every night.
This specific job run bit and goes to sleep mode until it get the source file. once the source file lands then the job runs again based on the trigger file etc. is the warning message kills the session when it is in sleep mode ?
The user is getting below error:
"A Communication Subsystem partner link setup request failure has occurred".
Please assist.
Thanks.
This could be a firewall timeout. If there is anyway to interject a periodic "ping" during the sleep mode (a %put statement in SAS, perhaps), you might be able to keep the connection alive.