Errata/Troubleshooting for NetSolve, version 2.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History of NetSolve releases Version 1.0 : ?? Version 1.1 : January, 1998 Version 1.2 : February 15, 1999 Version 1.3beta1-6: sporadically in 2000 Version 1.4 : July 31, 2001 Version 1.4.1 : June 5, 2002 Version 2.0 : Oct 13, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To better address the needs of our NetSolve users, we're in the process of creating this Errata/Troubleshooting webpage. This file provides diagnostic help in explaining the reasons for specific NetSolve run-time error messages, gives a list of known deficiencies in the NetSolve system, and provides up-to-date information on bugs reported and how to download patches to NetSolve. This file contains: Errata for NetSolve Users' Guide Errata for NetSolve, Version 2.0 Bug Report Checklist Troubleshooting Run-Time Error Messages for NetSolve, Version 2.0 Known Deficiencies in NetSolve, Version 2.0 NetSolve has been tested on a variety of architectures. Pentium Linux 2.4 (Redhat 7.3, Redhat 9.0) Solaris 2.7 and 2.8 Aix 4.3.3.0 Tru64/OSF1 V5.1 Alpha Linux 2.2.14-6.0 IRIX 6.5 FreeBSD 4.5 NetBSD 1.5.2 Windows 2000, XP (client interface) Mac OSX Windows 2000, XP (cygwin interface) In addition, testing was performed using Mathematica version 4.0 for Linux and MathLink version 3.8, and Matlab Release 12 and 13 (Unix and Windows versions), NWS release 2.6, IBP version 1.3.1, PETSc 2.1.5, Aztec version 2.1, SuperLU version 1.1, ScaLAPACK version 1.6 and Gnu Privacy Guard(GPG 1.2.3), Kerberos-5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug Report Checklist When reporting a suspected bug to the netsolve mailing alias, please supply the following information. These are the first questions that we will ask. On what type of machine did you install NetSolve (os and compiler)? What is the exact configure line used to configure NetSolve (config.status)? Did you compile client only or client/agent/server? Did you send us the cut-and-paste of the error message encountered? If the error occurred at runtime, did you consult the "Troubleshooting" section of this Errata file? If the error occurred at runtime, did you check for more information in the nsagent.log and nsserver.log files? What was the text found in these log files? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Troubleshooting Run-Time Error Messages in NetSolve, version 2.0 If an error occurs during the invocation of NetSolve, a variety of diagnostic runtime error messages, as well as error codes that can be returned when calling a NetSolve function from the C or Fortran interfaces, are provided. The error codes and runtime error messages are listed in Chapter 24 of the NetSolve Users' Guide, and may have several possible explanations/causes. If one of these error messages occurs, the user should first check the agent and server log files, $NETSOLVE_ROOT/nsagent.log or $NETSOLVE_ROOT/nsserver.log, respectively. These files may contain more information to clarify the reason for the error message. NS: unknown problem Possible causes: The user has requested a problem that is not serviced by any of the available servers. To check for this possibility, the user can invoke the NS_problems command, and see if the problem requested is included in the list of available services. To expand a server's capabilities, the user should refer to Chapter 13 of the NetSolve Users' Guide. NS: no available server Possible causes: Service zombie, i.e., a process that has gone awry and can be seen using ps -ef or ps -augx, and must be killed using kill -9 pid. This can occur if a service hangs or is abnormally terminated. The user could have requested a problem that is not serviced by any of the available servers. To check for this possibility, the user can invoke the NS_problems command, and see if the problem requested is included in the list of available services. NS: impossible to bind to port Possible causes: This error usually occurs when the user is trying to start an agent on a machine to which an agent is already running. The process could be owned by the user or by another user. Or, it is possible that another user is running a process on the port that you have requested for the agent process. NS: Cannot contact agent Possible causes: This error will occur if there is a conflict in the agent specified by the NETSOLVE_AGENT environment variable, and the @AGENT that is specified in the $NETSOLVE_ROOT/server_config file. Or, it is possible (for whatever reason) that the agent is not responding. The user could query with the NS_config command to request the list of reachable agents/servers in the NetSolve configuration, or simply issue the NS_killall command to kill the agent and server and then restart the processes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Known Deficiencies in NetSolve, version 2.0 The following caveats exist in the NetSolve code, and will be fixed in an upcoming release. Requires (PETSc, Aztec, and ITPACK) to all be installed in order to use the sparse_iterative_solve PDF. Likewise, requires MA28 and SuperLU to both be installed in order to use the sparse_direct_solve PDF. Need to incorporate sparse wrapper modification so that the pdf can be enabled if only one of the libraries is installed. Inconsistent printed error message between C, Fortran, Matlab, Mathematica, and Windows client interfaces. Missing "NS:" prepended to error messages. Windows client interface is still prefixed with "NetSolve:". When running multiple servers within the same tree, if a log file isn't explicitly chosen, the newest server will take over the log file and you won't get logs of messages from other servers. You should explicitly direct the log of each server to a unique file. Combine all server log information into one log file or should be maintain separate logs for each server? There is currently no limit on the size of the nsserver.log and nsagent.log files. We should incorporate some mechanism to limit the size of those files, and have it start overwriting the file at a certain point. The size of the problem_init.o grows with the number of pdf services enabled. Depending upon the amount of memory available on a given architecture, it may be possible that not all pdfs can be enabled. @COMP limited functionality in PDFs. Its functionality needs to be expanded. COMPILER FLAG / MATLAB MISMATCH ON IRIX -- If you wish to compile the MATLAB interface to netsolve, you must select a compiler flag setting for NetSolve that matches that used by MATLAB. If you have the IRIX version of MATLAB, you can use the NetSolve default flags. If you have the IRIX64 version of MATLAB, you will need to override NetSolve's flags to select the -64 during the configure step. See the Users' Guide to Netsolve for details on using Netsolve's configure. Windows client software currently only works with Windows2000 and XP. It will not work on Windows98 or earlier. The port used by the NetSolve Agent is currently hardwired to that specified in NetSolve/include/general.h. In a future release, the port number for the agent will be configurable when the agent is started. If you install NetSolve on laptops without registered DNS name, NS_killserver and NS_killall will fail. If you kill the server process manually, using "ps" or "pkill" or "killall", the agent might report "A server is already running on this machine" error message. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------