SAP Note 11838 - Deleting short dumps from the SNAP table.

Symptom

The SNAP table is very large. It contains many (very old) records that are no longer required.

Reason and Prerequisites

Writing short dumps. Normal growth.

Solution
There are different ways of deleting short dumps from the SNAP table. However, before you delete them, you must analyze the cause of the short dump (using transaction ST22).
1.) Dump analysis: Reorganization
Go to 'ABAP/4 dump analysis' (in transaction ST22). Choose 'Reorganization'. You can now select all short dumps older than n days (default 7) for deletion.
CAUTION: If a large amount of records are deleted simultaneously during the reorganization, ORACLE error ora1562 'failed to extend rollback segment ...' may occur. In this case, refer to error Note 6328.
2.) Drop and recreate the SNAP table
With the database utility (transaction SE14), you can drop and recreate the SNAP table.
CAUTION: When you do this, ALL short dumps are deleted.
3.) Reorganization program RSSNAPDL
To avoid database problems, this program deletes old short dumps gradually from the SNAP table unless they are selected for retention. With standard setting all short dumps that are older than 7 days (28 days as of Release 7.00) and that are not flagged are deleted. Since this program occupies the database when large datasets are processed, it should be scheduled to run overnight. Use program RSNAPJOB to set a standard scheduling: the program RSSNAPDL is started every day at 1:00 o'clock in the morning.
These reorganization programs are available at the latest as of Release 2.1G/2.2A.
4.) The SNAP is also automatically reorganized. With each short dump that occurs in the dialog box (the dump is displayed as soon as it occurs), a maximum of 20 short dumps are deleted from the SNAP that are older than 7 days. In normal production operation this reorganization should be sufficient.

Keyword: SNAP