Troubleshooting

Nothing is Running

Maybe you do not have tasker connected to the project. Check the Tasker page. You will need to have administrator privileges to start the taskers.

A Particular Job is not Running

If you try to run a job and nothing happens, a number of things may be going on:
  • The job may be blocked because some of its inputs are not VALID and FlowTracer does not know how to make them VALID.
  • The job requires resources that are not available. You need to check:
    • The resources requested by the job; the page associated with the job has a URL of the form /node/<jobid>.
    • The resources map
    • The resources offered by the taskers

The Job Runs But Fails

The job page typically contains information about the reason for the failure. Go to the job page and then check the job outputs. In many cases, the reason for the failure is spelled out in either stderr or stdout.

The Job Runs but Fails with No Information

  • Check the taskers log.
  • The working directory for the job may have insufficient "write" permission (typically the stderr and stdout log files are written in the working directory of the job)

The Job Complains about a Missing File, but the File Exists

This problem is typically related to a faulty setting of the equivalence rules.

Troubleshooting the Retrace

If retracing does not make forward progress toward completion (that is, if you repeatedly request a run and VOV executes the same jobs), you probably have an incomplete flow. This could be caused by a number of reasons.

A job will only be executed if all inputs are VALID and if all outputs are either INVALID or MISSING. If an input for the job is also a primary input and is INVALID or MISSING, then the job is blocked. You must use one of the following options:
  • If you think the job should be executed now, simply execute it manually, for example with vovfire. If the job needs an input which is invalid, you will get an explicit warning. In this case, first solve the problem of validating the input.
  • Remove the dependency on an input that is INVALID if that input is not required for the job. Edit the input list of the job using the navigation dialog, disconnect the inputs that are not VALID, then request the retracing.
The situation where the output of a job is VALID and the job itself is not, occurs either because some jobs have not been run or because someone or something has changed the output file without VOV's knowledge. VOV cannot distinguish between the two cases and refuses to execute the job because it would overwrite the output and lose all changes. If you want the job to be executed again, you can:
  • Run the job manually (for example, vovfire jobId)
  • Ask VOV to bring the flow in a consistent status with vovproject sanity and then request a run.