How to solve issue: ZDATE_ILLEGAL_LOCTIME or ZDATE_LARGE_TIME_DIFF in Mini SAP

[akmal1216]

Dear Developers,

Recently I have installed mini SAP for development tutorial purpose and I find it both frustating and usefull.

Firstly, it is nearly empty system without much configurations that is frustrating, so you will have to make some researches and set up the necessary configuration and that is very usefull to understand a lot of staff.

Thus, I would like to share one of the recent nightmare, this can be definetely happened in all systems, not only in your mini SAP, but in your production system as well. When you check your ST22 and if you find the issue as below:

Then it is your time to become rock-star 🙂

The issue completely blocks everything such as executing custom reports, standard transaction, checking table contents.

I have searched and found number of SAP notes, but unfortuntely, I personally didn't find them very helpful.

Below I am describing the steps how to solve the issue:

1. Verify the time settings on the application server: Check if the system time, time zone, and daylight saving settings are configured correctly on the server hosting your SAP application.


2. Synchronize the server time: Ensure that the server's clock is synchronized with a reliable time source. You can use tools like NTP (Network Time Protocol) to synchronize the time on the server.


3. Restart SAP services: Restart the relevant SAP services to apply the time synchronization changes. This step ensures that SAP picks up the correct time from the server.


4. Check SAP system settings: Review the SAP system settings related to time and date. In the SAP transaction RZ10, check the profile parameter "rdisp/correct_tzone" and make sure it is set correctly for your time zone.


5. Clear the SAP buffers: Clear the SAP buffers to refresh the system's cached data. You can do this by executing the transaction code "SM50," selecting the affected application server, and choosing "Administration" -> "Cache" -> "Global Buffer (Old Version)" -> "Delete All Buffers."


6. Test the system: Validate if the error has been resolved by testing the affected SAP functionality. Check if the time-related operations are functioning correctly without any error messages.

As for the NTP ( that is the important step should be carefully taken into account), how to check or install it, I found one very usefull blog:

https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/25/virtual-machine-clock-synchronization-using-ntp/

To sum up, I believe above steps will save your great amount of time, since I spent there more than three days to understand and find out the proper solution 🙂