PYRAF exits on epar

jcely wrote on Mar 27, 2010

Just installed IRAF and Pyraf on Ubuntu 9.10. Everything seemed to work fine, except needed to use one of those statically linked ecl.e files.

starting and running IRAF is fine, starting PYRAF is fine, using epar is not fine. Pyraf stops and my xgterm dissapears. I'm thinking its the graphical interface as the command line epar on IRAF runs fine but i have no idea what caused this or how to fix this.

Thanks
Justin

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Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Mar 27, 2010

You may have better luck writing to the help desk at STScI (help@stsci.edu). 'Epar' is not an iraf task, it's a functionality in the CL or PyRAF itself. If you started the window with something like "xgterm -e pyraf" then the window goes away because pyraf crashed, but pyraf shouldn't be able to crash the window itself. Do you see the same thing from XTerm or any other terminal window? Are there any error messages?

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jcely wrote on Mar 27, 2010

If i start a separate xterm window and try it again, it still disappears. However, if i start pyraf in the standard ubuntu terminal (sorry i don't know what kind of terminal it is) i get this: (the error is at the bottom)

justin@justin-laptop:~$ pyraf
setting terminal type to xgterm...

IRAFNET PC-IRAF Revision 2.13-BETA2 Wed Apr 19 21:21:13 MST 2006
This is the IRAFNET version of IRAF V2.13 supporting PC systems.
_ _
(_) _ _ __ _ / _| _ _ ___ | |_ http://iraf.net
| || '_|/ _` || _| | ' \ / -_)| _| IRAF Software and
|_||_| \__,_||_| ()|_||_|\___| \__| User Support

Welcome to IRAF. To list the available commands, type ? or ??. To get
detailed information about a command, type `help <command>'. To run a
command or load a package, type its name. Type `bye' to exit a
package, or `logout' to get out of the CL.

Please visit http://iraf.net if you have questions, to report problems,
or would like to help to support this project.

The following commands or packages are currently defined:

clpackage/:
ace/ fitsutil/ lists/ plot/ user/
clpackage/ fuzzy/ mscred/ proto/ utilities/
color/ gemini/ mxtools/ softools/ vol/
ctio/ gmisc/ nlocal/ spectime/ websvc/
dataio/ guiapps/ nmisc/ stsdas/
dbms/ images/ noao/ system/
dimsum/ language/ obsolete/ tables/
PyRAF 1.8.1 Copyright (c) 2002 AURA
Python 2.5.4 Copyright (c) 2001-2008 Python Software Foundation.
Python/CL command line wrapper
.help describes executive commands

--> epar imarith
X Error of failed request: BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
Major opcode of failed request: 91 (X_QueryColors)
Value in failed request: 0xff000000
Serial number of failed request: 1538
Current serial number in output stream: 1538

justin@justin-laptop:~$

A little bit of googleling (sp?) on the error code finds alot of results but most of them are over my head. It appears to be an X11 problem, not PYRAF. I'll keep looking but maybe this will make sense to someone.

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Mike Fitzpatrick wrote on Mar 27, 2010

Pyraf implements its own graphics system and epar GUI. The message basically means a color was requested that is an error in the X server. This usually happens when e.g. you're using a 24-bit display but the application can only handle 8-bit displays. In any case, it is a problem in Pyraf to be fixed. When you write to them, you may want to include this last bit of info as well as the output of an 'xdpyinfo' command so they can see what your X server is doing.

BTW, IRAF v2.13 is rather old, I'd recommend getting at least the latest v2.14.1. None of that is related to the problem you're having however (unless perhaps you also have an equally old Pyraf version).

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jcely wrote on Mar 27, 2010

haha! i fixed it. of course it turns out stsci already had a solution. Turns out some Fedora installs and new Ubuntu has no xorg.conf file and there is some color thing. If you see this on ubuntu just go to /etc/X11 and create an xorg.conf that includes the following:

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

and that's all you need.

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Last post on Mar 27, 2010