Difference between revisions of "Submitting GEOS-Chem support requests"

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Revision as of 21:24, 3 July 2019

On this page we provide information about how to report any GEOS-Chem issues that you may encounter.

Contacting the GEOS-Chem Support Team for assistance

Please send all GEOS-Chem support requests to the GEOS-Chem Support Team (aka GCST) at: geos-chem-support [at] g.harvard.edu. This will send your request to the entire GCST.

NOTE: We have retired the geos-chem-support [at] as.harvard.edu email address in favor of geos-chem-support [at] g.harvard.edu. Please update your email contacts list. Email sent to the old address will still forward properly for the time being.

Should I first try to solve my issue by myself?

The GCST encourages all GEOS-Chem users to try to debug issues to the greatest extent possible. Please see our our Debugging GEOS-Chem wiki page for a list of useful tips that you can use to help identify the source of your bug or technical issue. Also see our our Common GEOS-Chem error messages wiki page for a list of several commonly-encountered issues and fixes.

You can also check if your issue was resolved in a later GEOS-Chem version by consulting our Bugs and fixes wiki page.

If you still cannot resolve your issue on your own, then please do not hesitate to submit a GEOS-Chem support request. More information about what to include in your support request is provided in the following sections.

What type of support can I expect?

The GCST will be happy to assist you in resolving bugs and technical issues that may arise when compiling or running GEOS-Chem. User support and outreach is an important part of the GCST's mission to support the International GEOS-Chem User Community.

Even though the GCST can assist in many different ways, it cannot possibly do everything. GEOS-Chem users are expected to take on certain responsibilities. For example, the GCST relies on users to make sure that their computer system has all of the software libraries needed to run GEOS-Chem.

Also keep in mind that the GCST focuses primarily on software development and user support rather than on scientific research. If your question is more scientific in nature (e.g. "What happens if I change this reaction rate from X to Y?", or "Is emissions inventory A better than inventory B?", etc.), then we recommend that you contact the relevant GEOS-Chem Working Group(s) for assistance. If you are not sure of whom to contact, then send your question to the GCST, who will be happy to forward it to the appropriate person(s).

What do I need to include in my support request?

Here is a quick list of information that you should send to the GCST (at geos-chem-suppport [at] g.harvard.edu) when submitting a support request.

# Item Filename(s) Description / Notes
1 A description of the issue Please include a brief description of the issue and any error messages that you encountered. Also include the steps (e.g. compile and run commands) that you used.

Of particular importance: The GCST needs to know if you are using an unmodified (aka "out-of-the-box") version of GEOS-Chem, or if you have made any modifications to the code or input data. If you have modified GEOS-Chem, then please take a moment to doublecheck your modified code or data to make sure that it is not the source of the error.

2 input.geos file input.geos File containing the various input options for your simulation.
3 HEMCO configuration file HEMCO_Config.rc File containing input information for the HEMCO emissions component.
4 Lastbuild file lastbuild or
lastbuild.mp or
lastbuild.sp
File containing a summary of all of the options that were used to build the GEOS-Chem executable

NOTE: For GCHP simulations, this file is just named lastbuild, without any suffixes.

5 GEOS-Chem "Classic" log file GC_*.log or
GC_*.log.mp or
GC_*.log.sp
Contains an "echo-back" of all input options that were specified in input.geos, the list of diagnostic quantities that are being archived, the list of files that are being read, and information about the operations that are being done at each GEOS-Chem timestep. If you run dies with an error, a detailed error message should be printed here.
6 HEMCO log file HEMCO.log or
HEMCO.log.mp or
HEMCO.log.sp
Contains information about how emissions, met fields, and other relevant data are read from disk and processed by HEMCO for input into GEOS-Chem.
7 Output file from your job scheduler
  • Only if you ran GEOS-Chem with a batch scheduler (e.g. SLURM, PBS, LSF, etc.)
slurm-JOBID.out Contains stdout and/or stderr output from the your job scheduler. May contain important error messages.
8 Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ID
  • Only if you ran GEOS-Chem on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.
The AMI ID string that was used to initialize your AWS cloud instance. This will allow us to login to the AWS cloud with the same environment that your run used.
List of additional information to include when submitting GCHP support requests
9 GCHP environment file gchp.env The file used to load libraries and set module variables for GCHP simulations.
10 Run configuration log file runConfig.log Contains echo-back output from the ./createRunDir.sh script. This contains information about the compute resources, grid information, restart and checkpoint files, outputs, timesteps, and operations that are selected for the GCHP simulation.
11 GCHP compilation log file compile.log Log file containing output from the GCHP compilation. Compilation errors would show up here.
12 GCHP log file gchp.log Log file containing GCHP standard output including what would typically go to a GEOS-Chem Classic log file.
13 CAP restart file cap_restart MAPL output text file containing GCHP run end time to be used as the next run's start time if doing multi-segmented runs. If not doing multi-segmented runs then this file should be deleted prior to rerunning so that start information in CAP.rc is used instead.

How long will I wait for a reply?

The GCST will endeavor to respond to your request as soon as possible. Typically we try to turn around requests within 2 business days or sooner. During times of high workload the wait may be longer.