Experimenter crashes on Citrix environment

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Sebastián Cañas asked Jan 23, '23 Jordan Johnson commented Jan 30, '23

Experimenter crashes on Citrix environment

Hi all,

A customer is running FlexSim on Citrix. It runs smoothly, but they are having problems with Experimenter, since it crashes when they try to run it.

Client computer information is as such:

Processor: Intel Xeon w-2133 CPU 3.6 Ghz
RAM: 32 GB
GPU: Nvidia Quadro p4000 8 GB

They found out that something related with XenDesktop of Citrix is causing the Experimenter to crash. From this post and this one, I know there is no test done on any virtualize environment, however, do you have any idea how to solve this issue? or could you recommend anything to try out or considered when FlexSim is used on a virtualize environment.

@Ben Wilson

Thanks!

Software Version:

FlexSim 23.0.0

citrix virtualization machine

error-flexim-1.png (258.7 KiB)

error-flexim-2.png (465.2 KiB)

· 6

Ben Wilson ♦♦ commented · Jan 23, 2023 at 02:44 PM

Hi @Sebastián Cañas,

Please look at this post in a different browser, or a private session of your main browser. You'll see that the images you pasted in are broken. Can you please edit your post to resubmit these images?

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Sebastián Cañas Ben Wilson ♦♦ commented · Jan 23, 2023 at 02:50 PM

@Ben Wilson , I've just uploaded them again

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Ben Wilson ♦♦ commented · Jan 23, 2023 at 03:32 PM

@Jordan Johnson, Any thoughts on why FlexSim used normally would work fine in their Citrix environment, but running the Experimenter crashes?

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Sebastián Cañas Ben Wilson ♦♦ commented · Jan 23, 2023 at 03:59 PM

In addition, the client told me that they'd had this problems before with previous version, but the Experimenter crashed during the first run and then it worked. Now with 23.0 it keeps crashing all the time.

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Jeanette F ♦♦ commented · Jan 26, 2023 at 05:31 PM

Hello @Sebastián Cañas,

Do you have an update from the client about Jordan's suggestions?

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Sebastián Cañas Jeanette F ♦♦ commented · Jan 26, 2023 at 06:16 PM

Hello @Jeanette F,

I haven't receive any feedback yet. I will let you know as soon as I hear from them.
Thanks

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Answer 1 · 2023-01-23T16:48:07Z

Jordan Johnson answered Jan 23, '23 Jordan Johnson commented Jan 30, '23

Hi @Sebastián Cañas,

It's difficult to say with virtual environments because there are so many configurations for each environment. Here are some ideas:

Verify that FlexSim has permission to write the database file. The experimenter now uses an output file. When you click the run button, FlexSim attempts to create that file and to write a bunch of data to it. If for some reason the user doesn't have permission to create that file, then the Experimenter won't work.
Verify that no other software attempts to use that file while the Experimenter is running. Sometimes, there is anti-virus software or file-backup software that opens the file. If that happens, FlexSim won't be able to open the file for writing.
Verify that FlexSim has permission to bind listening sockets to ports 9000 through 9100. The child processes of FlexSim become servers that the main FlexSim process connects to. If they don't have permission to become servers on those sockets, or if those sockets are already taken by another process, then the Experimenter might not work.
Try running FlexSim as an administrator. Does the Experimenter work in that case?
Try running the Experimenter with only one CPU (on the Advanced tab). Does the Experimenter work in that case?
Try changing the path for the Experiment results file to the desktop. Does the Experimenter work in that case?
You can do some debugging. All the Experimenter functions that write to the database are in this node in the tree: MAIN:/project/library/Experimenter>behaviour/eventfunctions. Try adding breakpoints to "initializeDatabase" through "assertTask". Which of those functions are called before the crash? Which ones finish before the crash?

Let me know what you can find out.

· 2

Sebastián Cañas commented · Jan 30, 2023 at 06:53 PM

Hi @Jordan Johnson,

The client asked me whether there is a log where they can see the child processes of the Experimenter.

They said they're facing the problem during the first time the Experimenter is used, but after they close it using the Task Manager, it works fine.

Thanks!

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Jordan Johnson ♦♦ Sebastián Cañas commented · Jan 30, 2023 at 07:50 PM

There isn't really a log for the child processes, sorry. This is a strange issue, but I'm glad they have a workaround.

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