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IRAF ‘PANIC’ error

craigswenson wrote on Jun 22, 2008

Every now and then I come across the


PANIC in `/iraf/iraf/bin.linux/x_system.e': Write to IPC with no reader


error, but it seems to come at random times and doesn't have any apparent adverse consequences, so I generally ignore it and continue on (I just assume I must have done something to upset IRAF without realizing it). However, I just installed IRAF on a new machine and every time I break out of a command (using ctrl-c), and then logout, I get the PANIC error. Is there something wrong with my installation? What does this error mean? I'm using v2.14 (which I haven't ever used before) if that helps.

Thanks.

-Craig

Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Jun 22, 2008

The error generically means that something was being written to a file descriptor when the connection was suddenly lost (e.g. because of the Ctrl-C). Usually this happens with something like e.g. displaying an image but the display server crashes, but it can also happen with stdout/stderr streams.

If you Ctrl-C out of a task it is best to use 'flpr' to clean-up (or 'flpr 0' (zero not oh) to clear the system process), but without know exactly which task you were using or when you hit the Ctrl-C I can't really comment further.

Cheers,
-Mike

craigswenson wrote on Jun 22, 2008

Mike-

It doesn't matter what task I run. Any time I use Ctrl-C (and I always use 'flpr' afterwards) I get the 'PANIC' error. It doesn't seem to inhibit me from running further tasks, in fact, it doesn't seem to really do ANYTHING. In fact, I can log into IRAF, immediately hit Ctrl-C, use 'flpr', log out and I still get the PANIC error.
With that in mind, it doesn't seem to be associated with any particular task, but is a general error.

I know that this is really kind of vague, but I'm not sure how I could try and further isolated the problem if it isn't associated with a particular task. Any ideas?

Thanks.

-Craig

Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Jun 22, 2008

Craig,

Since you're using the bin.linux binaries, what distribution of Linux is this? I tried the Ctrl-C thing on Redhat and OSX systems without seeing the problem, but if it is as easy as you describe to reproduce I should be able to track it down. Since this is v2.14, does logging in using "cl -old" vs just "cl" make a difference (i.e. old CL versus ECL)??

Cheers,
-Mike

craigswenson wrote on Jun 22, 2008

Mike-

I've been on vacation, but thanks for replying. I'm running Ubuntu 6.06. I don't have access to the computer right now, but I'll try using the old CL next time I can and see if that makes any difference.

Thanks
-Craig

Last post on Jun 22, 2008