Developer Traces

The system developer traces are log files which contain technical information about the SAP work processes and other programs. They are normally used by specialized personnel, especially by SAP support, when looking for problems in the SAP kernel or the runtime programs.

These traces can be useful also for administrators, since some of the files sometimes contain the explicit reason and explanation for system errors.

To display the list of developer traces, from the monitoring menu, select Traces -> Developer traces. The system will display a list with the title Error log files.These files are actually
operating system files located under the work and profile directories. To display the contents of any file, justdouble click on them, or select Log file Display from the menu.


The names of all the developer trace files start with the character string dev. The following list shows the developer trace file names.

Component File name
Dispatcher dev_disp
Work processes dev_w, where is the number of the work process
Dynpro (screen processor) dev_dy
Roll dev_ro
Paging dev_pg
Database interface dev_db
ABAP processor dev_ab
Enqueue process dev_eq
System logging dev_lg
Message server dev_ms
SAPGUI dev_st
APPC−server dev_appc
Transport program calls dev_tp
Remote function calls dev_rfc


You can set the level of tracing to be included in the developer trace files by adding the options to the start command lines of any SAP program. The start commands are normally located in the startup profile of the SAP instances. Available options are

¨ TRACE=0. No trace is written to files.
¨ TRACE=1. Write error messages in the trace file.
¨ TRACE=2. Write the full trace.
¨ TRACE=3. Write the full trace including data blocks.

You can set any of the above trace options for the whole instance, by entering the rdisp/TRACE= parameter in the instance profile file.


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