S722- Sysout Limit Exceeded

S722 means your job wrote more SYSOUT output lines than the installation allows, so the system killed it before it finished.

What it means

• S722 is a system abend issued when a job step exceeds the output line limit.
• Every site sets a maximum number of SYSOUT lines per job; go past it and the job is abended.
• The job log shows IEC142I S722 (or S722 with reason code) in the JES messages.

Common causes

• A program is writing far too much output - the classic culprit is a DISPLAY inside a loop that prints on every iteration.
• Debug DISPLAY statements left in production code.
• A report program processing a huge file with no page limits.
• The installation limit is simply low and the job's normal output exceeds it.

How to find it

• Look for S722 in the job log (JES2/JES3 messages).
• Check which DD name was writing heavily when the abend hit.
• Review the program for DISPLAY or WRITE statements inside loops.

How to fix it

• Reduce the program output - remove debug DISPLAYs and avoid printing every loop iteration.
• If the output is genuinely needed, ask your operations team to raise the output limit for the job.
• Consider writing large reports to a dataset instead of SYSOUT.

Example

• The SYSOUT DD in your JCL looks like this:-
  
  //SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
• The typical culprit is a DISPLAY inside a loop, which floods SYSOUT:-
  
  PERFORM 100000 TIMES DISPLAY 'PROCESSING RECORD: ' WS-REC-COUNT END-PERFORM.
• Fix: print only a summary after the loop, not every record:-
  
  PERFORM 100000 TIMES ADD 1 TO WS-REC-COUNT END-PERFORM. DISPLAY 'TOTAL RECORDS PROCESSED: ' WS-REC-COUNT.