[FWTools] FWTools 1.0.0a7 Problems on Linux

[Ed McNierney]

Bryan -

Yes, those sound very similar to my symptoms.  I am running on SMP
servers, as it appears your (from the SMP kernel) so the usage in
gdal_translate was 100% of a single CPU, which (when viewed with top)
appeared to be 25% CPU usage as 1 of 4 virtual CPUs were busy.

Here's the ID for the system that now works:
Linux version 2.6.9-22.0.1.ELsmp (bhcompile at hs20-bc1-1.build.redhat.com)
(gcc version 3.4.4 20050721 (Red Hat 3.4.4-2)) #1 SMP Tue Oct 18
18:39:27 EDT 2005

And here's what it is on an older system that does not work:
Linux version 2.4.21-4.ELsmp (bhcompile at daffy.perf.redhat.com) (gcc
version 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-20)) #1 SMP Fri Oct 3
17:52:56 EDT 2003 

As I said, I really do not know where the problem lies, and an upgrade
changes lots of things, of course.  As a result, while I think a system
upgrade is likely to fix your problem, there is probably a less
intrusive upgrade that will also work; I just can't tell you what it is.

	- Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
Phone: +1 (978) 251-4242
Fax: +1 (978) 251-1396
ed at topozone.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Keith [mailto:bryan at geomega.com] 
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 4:32 PM
To: Ed McNierney
Cc: Frank Warmerdam; fwtools at lists.maptools.org
Subject: Re: [FWTools] FWTools 1.0.0a7 Problems on Linux

Ed et al,

Hmmm.  This could be my problem as well.  I sent a couple e-mails to
this list (12/1/05 and 12/6/05), and I didn't get any replies.

When I try to copy a dataset with gdal_translate, the tool hangs but not
(when I've checked) with 100% CPU usage.  Sometimes the tool will finish
with Segmentation fault.

I updated from FWTools-linux-1.0.0a1 to FWTools-linux-1.0.0a7, but that
didn't change the problem.

Here's my RH info:

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.4.20-8smp (bhcompile at porky.devel.redhat.com) (gcc
version 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)) #1 SMP Thu Mar 13
17:45:54 EST 2003
$

Ed, it sounds like I should upgrade to RH ES 4, Update 2, right?  Do the
symptoms I've having sound like the same problem that you fixed with the
upgrade?

Bryan

Bryan Keith
GIS Specialist
Geomega, Inc.
Boulder, CO, USA

Ed McNierney wrote:

>Frank et al. -
>
>A few weeks ago I reported some problems with FWTools 1.0.0a7 running 
>on my Red Hat ES 3 systems.  Frank generously spent some time looking 
>into it, and I've been working on the problems on and off ever since.  
>I don't know much, but here's what I do know (or think I know):
>
>1. The problems seem to be GDAL-based, popping up in tools using GDAL.
>I particularly ran into trouble working with GeoTIFF data sets, but 
>that's really all I was testing on so I can't say whether these seemed 
>to be GeoTIFF-specific.  Tools would hang with 100% CPU use, or crash.
>
>2. Various debug tools gave me reason to suspect libtiff and/or the 
>compiler runtime libraries.  RH ES 3 ships with libtiff 3.5 which might

>have been a problem.  However, I upgraded various TIFF and related 
>libraries, then selected compiler libraries, then finally upgraded the 
>whole compiler suite to 3.4.5.  Nothing fixed the problem.
>
>3. I then put FWTools on a back burner and did a refresh and rebuild of

>my MapServer source tree, including GDAL and its utilities.  I 
>continued to have exactly the same problems.
>
>4. Since I was going to do it anyway, and since Frank suspected 
>problems with "older Red Hat" systems, I upgraded to RH EL 4, Update 2.

>This made the problems go away, and all the tools work fine.
>
>Unfortunately, I don't know what the problem really was and I can't 
>continue to investigate now that it's "fixed".  But I'd add this data 
>to the belief that RH ES 3 (and perhaps other releases) may be 
>troublesome, while RH ES 4, Update 2, seems to work fine.
>
>At the same time I also reported that the link to the FWTools 
>distribution had a typo and linked to a file ending in ".tar.tar"
>instead of ".tar.gz"  When I tried later that day (on a different
>system) the problem had already been "fixed".  I have since discovered 
>that there is something wrong with my browser on one particular 
>machine, and it was that browser that was mangling the filename (it 
>does it to anything ending in ".tar.gz".  There actually wasn't (and 
>isn't) any problem on the FWTools site at all.
>
>Thanks to Frank for the help!
>
>	- Ed
>
>Ed McNierney
>President and Chief Mapmaker
>TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
>73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
>North Chelmsford, MA  01863
>Phone: +1 (978) 251-4242
>Fax: +1 (978) 251-1396
>ed at topozone.com
>
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