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[IDV #XVT-855811]: IDv problems

Hi Bill-

I started to answer this earlier in the day and then
we had a hardware problem on our main server and I lost my
response.  So, let's try again.
 
> When asked at my first Unidata Users Committee meeting last week about my
> IDV experiences, I remarked I've found it unuseable lately, and I was told
> instead of getting frustrated to email support.  So, here it goes...

It's common to be frustrated when learning a new package and you run into
problems, but please feel to ask questions and not let the frustration
level reach too high.

> I am trying to run IDV right now, and I selected the first of the bundles
> that show up for NAM211 - th ewinds/heights (default 500 mb).  It looked
> as though it was loading lots of things fairly quickly, but then got to a
> point where it just kept saying it was reading data, reading data, etc.  I
> let it sit there for 20 minutes, and it never completed.  I was able to go
> into the map window and click on arrows to advance it, or turn off an
> overlay even though the cursor arrow had the rotating circle around it,
> indicating it was still loading.  Since it seems as though it will never
> finish, I went ahead to the window that was present showing 3D or 2D
> fields, and selected a geopotential height field to load, and I wanted to
> do a 3D surface (color-filled contour plan view over topo...).  Because
> IDV has always seemed ridiculously slow to me, I turned off the default of
> all times and just selected the initial time.  But when I hit create
> display, it just kept running and running and running, and after 10 more
> minutes, nothing new has happened.

Unfortunately, it sounds like you've run into an intermittent problem that 
we are trying to track down where connections to our motherlode server hang
(especially from Linux systems).  It's only been recently that
we've been able to reliably reproduce this problem locally.  And,
the only option is to exit the IDV when this happens because the
connection locks up the rest of the system.  Further attempts to 
display data are locked by the initial hangup (althought they
shouldn't be), which explains the failure of your later attempt.
Some systems have this happen frequently (like yours apparently),
others never exhibit the problem.  

So, what can you do about this?  Right now, if the system hangs on
one of these loads, the only option is to restart the IDV.  You 
can also try loading in the data not through a bundle.  Go to the
Data Chooser tab of the Dashboard window and select the Catalog
tab on the side.  In the chooser, expand the tab labeled Model Data
and then expand the tab for the Unidata IDD Model Data (NSF-ATM).
Work your way down to the NCEP 80 km GFS and select the 
Latest option and click Add Data Source.  Then try to load in
your color filled contours over topography, selecting the 
Geopotential height @ isobaric field.   If you only want 500 mb,
you can select a subset of the data, but you must (at this point)
select at least 3 contiguous levels in the Data Subset tab.  You'll
need to set the vertical scale to the range of your height data
to exaggerate the effect of the pressure surface topography.  You
can do this through the View->Viewpoint->Vertical Scale menu or
by clicking on the icon that looks like a comb (but is really
supposed to be a ruler) in the Viewpoint Toolbar.

> I notice that a warning appears on my linux screen after launching IDV
> which says...
> 
> Java 3D WARNING : reported GLX version = 1.2
> GLX version 1.3 or higher is required
> The reported version number may be incorrect.  There is a known
> ATI driver bug in glXQueryVersion that incorrectly reports the GLX
> version as 1.2 when it really is 1.3, so Java 3D will attempt to
> run anyway.

I get that on my system also and it just means what it says - the
ATI driver reports the wrong version.  It isn't the cause of your
hang, though. 
> 
> I am not sure if this is the problem or not.   Something is terribly
> wrong, however, as this problem has prevented me from using IDV for about
> the last month.  Prior to that time, I was at least able to load an image
> or two, although I generally have always avoided doing loops since it
> seemed to take forever.  My machine is a rather new linux box - purchased
> just last Dec.

Does this happen every time you try to load that particular bundle?
Have you tried the Sample Displays under the Favorite Bundles?

BTW, how much memory does your system have?

Sorry for the problems.  Please don't give up though.

Don Murray

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: XVT-855811
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Normal
Status: Open