3353114 - RFC Connections are failing intermittently from one ABAP system to another

When performing a Connection Test in a SM59 RFC Destination of type 3 - ABAP Connection, sometimes it fails with a "Client has not answered PING messages and was logged out." message.

Most of the times the connection is successful, which means that this issue is intermittent.

There is messages similar to the below at the RFC Gateway trace files from source and target system, during the timeframe that the issue was reproduced:

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

• dev_rd from source instance
  • ***LOG Q0I=> NiIRead: P=<target RFC Gateway IP address>:<target RFC Gateway port>; L=<source RFC Gateway IP address>:<random port number>: recv (104: Connection reset by peer) [/bas/753_REL/src/base/ni/nixxi.cpp 5434]
    *** ERROR => NiIRead: SiRecv failed for hdl 473/sock 16
        (SI_ECONN_BROKEN/104; I4; ST; P=<target RFC Gateway IP address>:<target RFC Gateway port>; L=<source RFC Gateway IP address>:<random port number>) [nixxi.cpp    5434]

    *****************************************************************************
    *
    *  LOCATION    SAP-Gateway on host <source instance hostname> / sapgw<instance number>
    *  ERROR       read from SAP gateway failed
    *
    *  TIME        Fri Mar  3 09:49:09 2023
    *  RELEASE     753
    *  COMPONENT   SAP-Gateway
    *  VERSION     2
    *  RC          239
    *  MODULE      /bas/753_REL/src/krn/si/gw/gwdp.c
    *  LINE        4959
    *  DETAIL      connection to gateway on host <target RFC Gateway IP address> /<target RFC Gateway port> broken
    *  COUNTER     1328
    *
    *****************************************************************************

    ***LOG Q0R=> GwReadFromRemGw, GwRead ( GwRead-006) [gwdp.c       4989]

• dev_rd from target instance
  • *** WARNING => GwITracePingWarning: delete client NORMAL_CLIENT (idx=2197) due to missing PONG (ping:1, period:60) [gwxxrd.c     1067]
    GwITracePingWarning: HOST=<source instance hostname> 
    *** WARNING => GwITracePingWarning: delete remote Gateway (via saprouter) (idx=23) due to missing PONG (ping:1, period:60) [gwxxrd.c     1083]
    GwITracePingWarning: rem GW HOST/PORT: <source RFC Gateway IP address>:<source RFC Gateway port>
    GwDiscRemGw: diconnnect gw with id 23, host <source RFC Gateway IP address>, service 33<instance number>, 0 connections

SAP NetWeaver ABAP all versions.

ABAP Platform all versions.

SAP Kernel all versions.

rfc, connection test, sm59, abap, intermittent, tcp ports reused, network issue, os , KBA , BC-NET , Network Infrastructure , BC-CST-GW , Gateway/CPIC , BC-MID-RFC , RFC , Problem