Severity Levels

The severity level of a message indicates the type and severity of the problem that SAP ASE has encountered.

For maximum integrity, when SAP ASE responds to error conditions, it displays messages from sysmessages, but takes action according to an internal table. A few corresponding messages differ in severity levels, so you may occasionally notice a difference in expected behavior if you are developing applications or procedures that refer to SAP ASE messages and severity levels.

Warning! You can create your own error numbers and messages based on SAP ASE error numbers (for example, by adding 20,000 to the SAP ASE value). However, you cannot alter the SAP ASE-supplied system messages in the sysmessages system table.

You can add user-defined error messages to sysusermessages with sp_addmessage. See the Reference Manual: Procedures.

Users should inform the system administrator whenever problems that generate severity levels of 17 and higher occur. The system administrator is responsible for resolving them and tracking their frequency.

If the problem has affected an entire database, the system administrator may have to use the database consistency checker (dbcc) to determine the extent of the damage. The dbcc may identify some objects that have to be removed. It can repair some damage, but you may have to reload the database.

For more information, see the following chapters in the System Administration Guide: Volume 2:

Checking Database Consistency – dbcc
Backing Upa and Restoring User Databases – loading a user database
Restoring the System Databases – loading system databases