Sort has been at "100%" for over two hours...what is going on?

Question

Is it on some step that isn't part of the counting?
Is it dead?

The process shows some CPU use.
The gdb has two lock files with modified times of an hour ago
Everything else shows longer ago that that (hours)

To me, either Sort is:
a) dead, in which case I should see an error
b) still working, in which case, it should NOT say 100%, because that is misleading
c) complete, in which case it should finish scrolling, give my a succeeded message and let me go on my way.

gpnobbir · Answer

Thanks Harry. Your observation will help us improve both messaging and performance - I'll update the thread.

HarryBowman · Answer

Could you provide me with more information so that I can try to repro it locally? Are you using the Sort geoprocessing tool? If so, what type of geometry you are working? How many fields or what types of fields you are using? How big (number of features) is your data? We'll really appreciate your help in figuring out a repro case. Thanks.

There are about 35 million line features, with many fields, most of which are "Y" or "N." The sort was on a seven character string field. It was the Sort geoprocessing tool. Eventually Sort did complete, overnight, but had been on 100% for hours. My beef isn't with the speed (though that seems pretty darned slow) itself, this time, but that the GP status message was "100%" a long time before the operation was really finished.

gpnobbir · Answer

Could you provide me with more information so that I can try to repro it locally? Are you using the Sort geoprocessing tool? If so, what type of geometry you are working? How many fields or what types of fields you are using? How big (number of features) is your data? We'll really appreciate your help in figuring out a repro case. Thanks.