Batch processing and missing variant

[former_member284740]

At this client we encountered a very strange problem and i can't find the cause of it. So maybe someone can give me some pointers to look at.

We have a batchjob that consists of 7 jobsteps. Each step is run with its own variant.The batchjob terminates at the end of step 2 with the message that the variant for step 2 is missing. And that's where it gets a but hocus pocus for me...

How can step 2 be executed with its variant only to be terminated at the end with the message that the variant is missing? And hence raising a system exception:

Message DB 612 Variant <xxxxxxx> does not exist.
Message 00 564 Job cancelled after system exception ERROR_MESSAGE

Now you might ask: how did you know the missing variant is for step 2? Well, the message DB 612 shows the variant and the program name in Dutch whereas the English version (as above) only shows the variant name.

Today this batchjob has been created and executed 21 times today and 9 out of 21 times this error comes up.

What am i not seeing? What am i missing? Anyone with some pointers for me to look at?

Kind regards, Guus

[michael_piesche]

Have you checked where this message could have been thrown, maybe even in Z-Programms that are used in your job step? I find over 100 entries for this error message. I assume that no other users (dialog or system) have access to that report and its variants and might change these. Other than that, it does sound a little hocus pocus 😉

[former_member284740]

The Z-programs in step 1 and 2 don't trigger message DB 612 (at least not visibly programmed in the Z code)

Step 1 Z program creates an inventory document: result is ok, so next to step 2
Step 2 Z program creates WVINVE idocs; upon completion we have a spoollist, since processing was aborted there is only an empty spool
Step 3 is basically MI35 and so on for step 4..7; but the job doesn't get this far

No other user has access to the program and variant of step 2.

But thanks! You triggered something to look at: DB 612 is mostly triggered from one of the variant functions in function group SVAR. And there happens to be a call to function PRINT_SELECTIONS which reads the variant catalog. That could be the source of the error. But that doesn't explain why PRINT_SELECTIONS would state that variant Y for program X does not exist while running program X with variant Y (yes hocus pocus).

[michael_piesche]

guus.werinussa2, please follow up on your open question.

• comment answers or your question if there are still open issues.
• otherwise mark an answer as accepted if it helped you solve your problem
• or post an answer of yourself and accept it if you found another useful solution yourself
• or redirect your question to another question that is related and was useful to solve your problem
• in the end, close your question

[RobertVit]

Hi,

i would try to isolate the step in a seperate job for a better analysis.

Language of the batch user would be my first shot