A problem occurs when the Import SAS Package wizard is invoked in a clustered Metadata Server environment. The master server is unable to complete synchronization with the slave nodes, which might cause an out of memory condition, corruption of metadata, or a loss of quorum. The problem might occur even with relatively small import packages in the 30 MB size range.

SPK files are created and used by the Import SAS Package and Export SAS Package promotion tools, which are available in SAS^® Management Console as well as from the command-line as batch scripts. For details about these tools, see the "Introduction to the Promotion Tools" section in SAS(R) 9.4 Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide, Fourth Edition.

When you encounter this problem, the SAS Metadata Server log shows messages similar to these:

In most cases, UNIX systems are more susceptible to the problem than Microsoft Windows systems. This difference is a result of how each operating system stores threaded-kernel characters (TKChars). Windows uses two bytes to store TKChars, whereas UNIX uses four bytes.

To circumvent the problem, perform the import process with smaller SPK files or select a subset of objects to import from the larger SPK files.

Click the Hot Fix tab in this note to access the hot fix for this issue.

Operating System and Release Information

A fix for this issue for Base SAS 9.4_M3 is available at: