[ESS] Process SAS is not running

[Cameron Hooper]

Today when I attempted to start up an interactive SAS session using ESS  
(M-SAS) I received a "Process SAS is not running error". I've been  
using ESS and SAS daily for months without trouble so something must  
have changed at my site to break things. I need some help to find out  
what is going wrong.

Poking around I noticed the location of the SAS executable has moved. I  
updated the soft link in ~/bin (rehash) and tried to start SAS at the  
command line. This failed as it is trying to open the DMS. This isn't  
the way SAS normally behaves, is it? I called the exectutable directly  
not via a shell script. Typing:

$head sas

Produces the "nonsense" output that indicates the file is a executable.

The only way I could get SAS to run (without starting X) was to add the  
-nodms option.

I tried replacing the soft link with a simple shell script in ~/bin:

# Simple script
/usr/local/SAS/SAS_9.1/sasexe/sas -nodms

Didn't work.

I'm at a loss.

Cameron

PS I've included the output from the *ESS* buffer in case it is helpful:

[ess-site.el]: ess-customize-alist=nil
[ess-site.el _2_]: ess-customize-alist=nil
(R): ess-r-versions-create making M-x defuns for [ess-site.el]:  
ess-customize-alist=nil
[ess-site.el _2_]: ess-customize-alist=nil
(R): ess-r-versions-create making M-x defuns for (ess-setq-vars-LOCAL):  
language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil, comint..echoes=nil,  
comint..sender=comint-simple-send
(ess-mode-1): ess-language=SAS, ess-dialect=SAS buf=unlikely-name.sas
(ess-mode-1.5): alist=((ess-local-customize-alist quote  
SAS-customize-alist) (ess-language . SAS) (ess-dialect . SAS)  
(ess-mode-editing-alist . SAS-editing-alist) (ess-mode-syntax-table .  
SAS-syntax-table) (inferior-ess-program . inferior-SAS-program-name)  
(ess-help-sec-regex . ^[A-Z. ---]+:$) (ess-help-sec-keys-alist .  )  
(ess-object-name-db-file . ess-sas-namedb.el)  
(inferior-ess-objects-command . objects(%d)) (inferior-ess-help-command  
. help("%s",pager="cat",window=F)
) (inferior-ess-exit-command . endsas;
) (ess-loop-timeout . 500000) (inferior-ess-primary-prompt . ^)  
(inferior-ess-secondary-prompt . ^)  
(comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields . t)  
(inferior-ess-start-file) (inferior-ess-start-args .  
inferior-SAS-args-temp) (ess-local-process-name))
(ess-mode-1.6): editing-alist=((sentence-end . ;[	
  */]*) (paragraph-start . ^[ 	]*$) (paragraph-separate . ^[ 	]*$)  
(paragraph-ignore-fill-prefix . t) (adaptive-fill-mode)  
(indent-line-function quote sas-indent-line) (require-final-newline .  
t) (comment-start . \*\|/\*) (comment-start-skip . \*+) (comment-end .  
;\|\*/) (comment-column . 40) (parse-sexp-ignore-comments . t)  
(ess-set-style . ess-default-style) (ess-local-process-name)  
(tab-stop-list . ess-sas-tab-stop-list) (ess-mode-syntax-table .  
SAS-syntax-table) (font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search . t)  
(font-lock-defaults quote (SAS-mode-font-lock-keywords)))
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send

Finished setting up ESS-mode.
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send
(ess-mode-1): ess-language=SAS, ess-dialect=SAS buf=tryit2.sas
(ess-mode-1.5): alist=((ess-local-customize-alist quote  
SAS-customize-alist) (ess-language . SAS) (ess-dialect . SAS)  
(ess-mode-editing-alist . SAS-editing-alist) (ess-mode-syntax-table .  
SAS-syntax-table) (inferior-ess-program . inferior-SAS-program-name)  
(ess-help-sec-regex . ^[A-Z. ---]+:$) (ess-help-sec-keys-alist .  )  
(ess-object-name-db-file . ess-sas-namedb.el)  
(inferior-ess-objects-command . objects(%d)) (inferior-ess-help-command  
. help("%s",pager="cat",window=F)
) (inferior-ess-exit-command . endsas;
) (ess-loop-timeout . 500000) (inferior-ess-primary-prompt . ^)  
(inferior-ess-secondary-prompt . ^)  
(comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields . t)  
(inferior-ess-start-file) (inferior-ess-start-args .  
inferior-SAS-args-temp) (ess-local-process-name))
(ess-mode-1.6): editing-alist=((sentence-end . ;[	
  */]*) (paragraph-start . ^[ 	]*$) (paragraph-separate . ^[ 	]*$)  
(paragraph-ignore-fill-prefix . t) (adaptive-fill-mode)  
(indent-line-function quote sas-indent-line) (require-final-newline .  
t) (comment-start . \*\|/\*) (comment-start-skip . \*+) (comment-end .  
;\|\*/) (comment-column . 40) (parse-sexp-ignore-comments . t)  
(ess-set-style . ess-default-style) (ess-local-process-name)  
(tab-stop-list . ess-sas-tab-stop-list) (ess-mode-syntax-table .  
SAS-syntax-table) (font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search . t)  
(font-lock-defaults quote (SAS-mode-font-lock-keywords)))
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send

Finished setting up ESS-mode.
(SAS): ess-dial=SAS, temp-dial=SAS
(ess-SAS-pre-run-hook 1): ess-lang=SAS, ess-dialect=SAS,  
temp-dialect=SAS, buf=tryit2.sas
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send
(ess-mode-1): ess-language=SAS, ess-dialect=SAS buf=*shell*
(ess-mode-1.5): alist=((ess-local-customize-alist quote  
SAS-customize-alist) (ess-language . SAS) (ess-dialect . SAS)  
(ess-mode-editing-alist . SAS-editing-alist) (ess-mode-syntax-table .  
SAS-syntax-table) (inferior-ess-program . inferior-SAS-program-name)  
(ess-help-sec-regex . ^[A-Z. ---]+:$) (ess-help-sec-keys-alist .  )  
(ess-object-name-db-file . ess-sas-namedb.el)  
(inferior-ess-objects-command . objects(%d)) (inferior-ess-help-command  
. help("%s",pager="cat",window=F)
) (inferior-ess-exit-command . endsas;
) (ess-loop-timeout . 500000) (inferior-ess-primary-prompt . ^)  
(inferior-ess-secondary-prompt . ^)  
(comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields . t)  
(inferior-ess-start-file) (inferior-ess-start-args .  
inferior-SAS-args-temp) (ess-local-process-name))
(ess-mode-1.6): editing-alist=((sentence-end . ;[	
  */]*) (paragraph-start . ^[ 	]*$) (paragraph-separate . ^[ 	]*$)  
(paragraph-ignore-fill-prefix . t) (adaptive-fill-mode)  
(indent-line-function quote sas-indent-line) (require-final-newline .  
t) (comment-start . \*\|/\*) (comment-start-skip . \*+) (comment-end .  
;\|\*/) (comment-column . 40) (parse-sexp-ignore-comments . t)  
(ess-set-style . ess-default-style) (ess-local-process-name)  
(tab-stop-list . ess-sas-tab-stop-list) (ess-mode-syntax-table .  
SAS-syntax-table) (font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search . t)  
(font-lock-defaults quote (SAS-mode-font-lock-keywords)))
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send

Finished setting up ESS-mode.
(inferior-ess 0): ess-start-args=nil
ess-setq-vars-default 0: ess-language=Initial, -dialect=nil, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send
ess-setq-vars-default 1: ess-language=SAS, -dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send
(inf-ess 1): lang=SAS, dialect=SAS, tmp-dialect=SAS, buf=*SAS.log*
(inf-ess 1.1): procname=SAS temp-dialect=SAS, buf-name=*SAS*
(inferior-ess) Method #3 start=/home/usr07/chooper/projects/base/src/  
buf=*SAS*
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send
(inf-ess 2.1): ess-language=SAS, ess-dialect=SAS buf=*SAS*
(inf-ess 2.2): start args = nil, inf-ess-start-args= /dev/pts/4  
/dev/pts/7 -stdio -linesize 80 -noovp -nosyntaxcheck
(inf-ess finish [SAS(SAS),  
/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/emacs-ess-5.2.10/etc/ess-sas-sh- 
command(nil,nil)]
(ess-multi 0):  inf-ess-start-args= /dev/pts/4 /dev/pts/7 -stdio  
-linesize 80 -noovp -nosyntaxcheck, comint-..echoes=nil
(i-ess 1): buf=*SAS*, lang=SAS, comint..echo=nil,  
comint..sender=comint-simple-send,
(i-ess 2): buf=*SAS*, lang=SAS, comint..echo=nil,  
comint..sender=comint-simple-send,
(ess-setq-vars-LOCAL): language=SAS, dialect=SAS, buf=nil,  
comint..echoes=nil, comint..sender=comint-simple-send
(i-ess 3): curr-buf=*SAS*, comint..echo=nil,  
comint..sender=comint-simple-send,
(ess-multi post inf-ess: start-args= /dev/pts/4 /dev/pts/7 -stdio  
-linesize 80 -noovp -nosyntaxcheck, comint-echoes=nil
(ess-multi 1):  start-args= /dev/pts/4 /dev/pts/7 -stdio -linesize 80  
-noovp -nosyntaxcheck
Making Process...Buf *SAS*, Proc SAS, Prog  
/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/emacs-ess-5.2.10/etc/ess-sas-sh-command
  Start File=nil, Args=  /dev/pts/4 /dev/pts/7 -stdio -linesize 80  
-noovp -nosyntaxcheck.

Cameron