SPAU - note is obsolete and not released, what to do?

[Jelena]

We've just upgraded our DEV system (SAPKB73112) and in SPAU there are over 30 obsolete notes that we just can't seem to be able to get rid of.

One example is the note 1066494. SAP portal says "Document not released", so there is no way to see what even was in that note. 'Reset Obsolete Notes' button in SPAU does not help because the note was "modified". "Reset to original" is asking to load the note again and, after clicking through the green checkmarks, happily reports "Note downloaded and adjustment status recalculated" but this changes absolutely nothing - the note still has that gray signal.

In SNOTE the note had "could not be implemented" and "in progress" status when I got there. If I try to reset it, I get a message SCWN047 'No correction instructions implemented'. The only thing I could do was to change the status to "not relevant", but this had no influence on SPAU.

I've searched SCN posts (e.g. in this case looks like OP was able to use SNOTE to de-implement the note), but couldn't find anything on how to remove the note that doesn't even exist.

I'm fairly certain whatever changes were in the note are not actually needed at this point. Is there some trick that we could use to get such items off the SPAU list (I was hoping to leave it clean for future generations) or are we stuck with it?

Thank you.

[Reagan · Accepted solution]

Possibly a temporary issue and I would wait for sometime and also raise an OSS message and see what the support says.

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Thanks for a response! I've been trying this since last Friday (i.e. 4 business days), so it's definitely not a case of some SAP employee opening a note in change mode and leaving for a lunch break.

But it starting to appear that we may need to bother SAP with this issue.

[Jelena]

OK, boys and girls, after dancing around with the connection problems (it's a bit difficult when the person opening connection is not me and also needs to travel) and SAP claiming the problem does not exist and me confirming that it indeed does, it is finally over. Somehow SAP uploaded the note into our system and I was able to use 'Reset to original'. No idea what they did exactly (I bet it was Samuli's debugger trick) but my SPAU is now prestine.

The note is still not released but I was able to see it, here is the text in case anyone runs into the same thing:

Symptom

You perform a cycle in the update run.

The run terminates with a short dump with error message K5 011 (Error

PFKBER MISSING).

Reason and Prerequisites

The problem is due to a program error.

It is a side effect of Note 1021390, which is contained in Support

Package SAPKH50016 (ECC 5.0) or SAPKH60009 (ECC 6.0).

Somewhat disappointed I didn't get a chance to complain about the support. Response time was actually quite reasonable. Darn it!

[Former Member]

They probably just used their credentials and downloaded the latest version of the SAP note to a file and then uploaded the file in SNOTE. I was once sent multiple files containing SAP notes (non-released at the time) which I uploaded in SNOTE so that I could continue patching.

[Reagan]

I was able to see the SAP note using this link Redirecting... but it doesn't show the corrections delivered with the note.  Good to know that the issue has been resolved and thanks for the free points.

[Matt_Fraser]

This is what I was thinking, too.

[Former Member]

Interesting, although the SAP note isn't released it can still be viewed using SAP Search. The re-indexing period of SAP notes must be quite big. This for one is a feature I hope SAP doesn't fix, unlike the main and secondary responsible person information I reported. Since SAP notes can't be searched without authentication, there is no archive out there for SAP notes. This is a good replacement.

[Former Member]

I'll be damned. It looks like SAP Search is even displaying SAP notes that have never been released and to which the customer doesn't have access. I guess it's my responsibility to report this one too, pinging . Sorry Jelena for using your discussion thread, at least this is remotely related.

[krscheffler]

Hi Samuli,

Thanks for letting me know.  Following up on this.

Jelena, good to hear about your reasonable response time

Cheers,

Kristen

[Private_Member_7726]

Hi,

Have you tried the SCWB_BGR_OBS_NOTE_RESET "Job" from 1975910 - Mass reset of obsolete notes in SPAU? That note as well as 1972294 - SPAU: Resetting of obsolete SAP Notes comes with SAPKB73112 so you should be all set to go. OTOH, it also means that the stuff has been "touched" in that SP

cheers

Jānis

[Jelena]

Not only tried but I think I broke it already. That's what 'Reset Obsolete Notes' button in SPAU does now - it just starts that SCWB... job. The job log said:

Note 0001066494, version 0002 reset                     
Note 0001066494 was changed and must be downloaded again

and it doesn't change anything in SPAU. Ran it twice with the same result (naturally), but now after pushing and shoving this note for a few days if I try it again, it just runs forever and after cancelling the job I get a short dump with a memory error.

[Private_Member_7726]

Yup, I'd be reporting - the download check doesn't look like something that may be (or could be easily) bypassed using debugger

[Private_Member_7726]

The SAP stuff cleaning OCD does not give me rest A colleague claims he has done the procedure from 1675779 - SAP Note 1506197 cannot be adjusted in SPAU for other notes and all was well... While the SPAU and Note would most likely do get cleaned up (*rubs hands* yesss, let's clean that squalid note real good; with the knife, with the knife! ), I obviously have no clue what should be included in SPAU transport... If nothing was implemented... nothing to include?

cheers

Janis

[Jelena]

Interesting find... I opened an "incident" with SAP but if there is no response, I'd have to use the report in that note eventually. A bit concerned about the possible damage of just brutally taking the note out, but will take a chance, heck with it.

Still I'm curious what SAP has to say on why do we need to clean up such messes "due to missing administrative data". Clearly it's not the only problematic note, so why didn't someone think to check for the same issue with other notes? (I've heard there is a 3-letter company that supposedly makes some decent analythics software, maybe they could help?) And why it's not part of some kind of QA process...

P.S. Upon further random clicking I found that the other obsolete notes could be removed, I just had to run 'Reset' two times. The first run went as I described above but on the second attempt the notes were gone from the list. So only this one note is actually giving us trouble at this point.

Message was edited by: Jelena Perfiljeva

[Former Member]

Not sure about your exact problem but see if is of any help. I have been able to do all kinds of clever (and also nasty) things in SNOTE by using the debugger.

[Jelena]

Thanks, Samuli. At this point I'm digging in my heels and waiting for a response from SAP. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that the customers (it's likely not just you and me) have to resort to some kind of trickery in such cases.

So far on the incident I've only been getting updates that it's passed from one team to another, but will let you know how it turns out.

[Former Member]

Maybe time to call on Kristen again?

[Matt_Fraser]

Hey, at least it's being escalated/migrated to other teams and not languishing in 1st-tier, right?

[former_member65295]

Jelena, did you ever get the SCWB job to run successfully?  I have been tasked with installing the notes and cleaning up our systems of obsolete SPAU notes and have installed 1979510 and 1972294 on a sandbox system but the job never completes....runs endlessly and builds a very large log file that contains no valid information...I do finally get a dump with an out of memory  message.

[Jelena]

I did not run SCWB job. As mentioned above, we opened an incident with SAP and they were able to remove the obsolete note(s).

[former_member65295]

Thank you for the reply.  I am not pleased with the resolve of having SAP log on and perform some unknown routine.  My system is behaving similarly to what your was and when running creates giant log files with no discernible information, the log has been bigger than 2GB after running for 6 hours.  The report indicates in the first line of the log that 491 notes are obsolete.

[Jelena]

Al, we didn't have a large number of obsolete notes but I had no trouble with all of them except these few oddballs. If the note is not released I'm afraid you're stuck with either going to SAP or taking somewhat slippery path with tricking the system in debugger (from what I've read).

In our case though I believe SAP most likely just uploaded the note because they do have access to it, only we don't. So it's not that bad actually.

I guess we both just need to upgrade our systems more frequently.