HEAsoft v6.16 - Known Issues

If you are using HEASOFT v6.15 and don't want to upgrade to v6.16 just yet, see the HEASOFT 6.15.1 Issues List.

Several packages track issues separately from this page:

• Swift
• CALDB
• fv
• XSPEC
• XRONOS
• XIMAGE

The following is a list of known issues in v6.16 of HEAsoft not covered by the above pages.

• ftcreate:
  
  The task ftcreate (heatools) may misinterpret non-hexadecimal formats in input data, particularly for On/Off bit data. To fix your source code distribution:

    1) Initialize your environment to use HEASoft.
  
    2) Download the update to ftcreate.c: ftcreate.c
  
    3) Copy the new ftcreate.c into your heasoft-6.16/heatools/ftcreate/
       directory, overwriting the previous version,
  
       heasoft-6.16/heatools/ftcreate
  
    4) Rebuild ftcreate:
  
       % cd heasoft-6.16/heatools/ftcreate
       % hmake clean
       % hmake all install
  

• cmprmf:
  
  The task cmprmf (caltools) does not update the NUMGRP and NUMELT keywords, which may lead to problems when later running (for example) marfrmf, producing an error e.g. "Group Array dimension is too small". To fix your source code distribution:

    1) Initialize your environment to use HEASoft.
  
    2) Download the update to cmprmf.f: cmprmf.f
  
    3) Copy the new cmprmf.f into your heasoft-6.16/ftools/caltools/src/cmprmf/
       directory, overwriting the previous version,
  
       heasoft-6.16/ftools/caltools/src/cmprmf/cmprmf.f
  
    4) Rebuild cmprmf:
  
       % cd heasoft-6.16/ftools/caltools/src/cmprmf/
       % hmake clean
       % hmake all install
  

• nuexpomap (PC Cygwin):
  
  The NuSTAR task "nuexpomap" may fail with a segmentation fault in the Cygwin environment for Windows. To get past the error, users may increase the stack size for that task in the following way:

     Edit the file
  
        heasoft-6.16/nustar/BUILD_DIR/hmakerc 
  
     to add "-Wl,--stack,10000000" to the CFLAGS and LDFLAGS_C
     variables (on lines 81 and 107, respectively), then:
  
     % cd heasoft-6.16/nustar/tasks/nuexpomap
     % hmake clean
     % hmake all install
  

• ximage:
  
  HEASoft includes Tcl/Tk version 8.5.15, which may result in a known but apparently harmless issue on some platforms. After using the /XTK plot device, the following message may be displayed upon exit:

      [XIMAGE> quit
      X Error of failed request:  RenderBadPicture (invalid Picture parameter)
        Major opcode of failed request:  ### (RENDER)
        Minor opcode of failed request:  # (RenderFreePicture)
        Picture id in failed request: #########
        Serial number of failed request:  ####
        Current serial number in output stream:  ####
  

• Perl version mismatch::
  
  Pre-compiled Perl libraries used extensively by mission software (Swift, Suzaku, NuSTAR) and other packages are not especially portable, so we generally recommend building HEASoft from the source code distribution.



• uvotgrplot:
  
  This Swift/UVOT task may fail with a Fortran runtime error while generating a postscript plot when compiled using certain versions of gfortran (e.g. v4.6.2 installed via fink) on Mac OS X. At present we suspect a compiler bug and recommend using an alternate compiler from the options on our support page.



• xspec / PLT - wenv, whead, wdata:
  
  Some GNU Fortran compilers (gfortran 4.4.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x) appear to have internal issues which prevent the PLT commands wenv, whead and wdata from working unless an output file is specified; i.e. attempts at producing terminal output may fail with "Fortran runtime error: Invalid argument". To get around this, provide an output file name when using these commands, for example:

       wenv myFile1.qdp
       whead myFile2.qdp
       wdata myFile3.qdp
  




• HEASoft and other software packages (CIAO, XMM-SAS):
  
  

  Please note:

  Users may wish to download and run our hwrap script to create an alternate runtime environment for HEASOFT to help avoid conflicts with other software packages, but if not, please take note of the potential pitfalls below:
  
  
  • CIAO:
    
    Please see the following notes at the CXC website regarding the potential dangers of using CIAO and HEASOFT together in the same session:
    
    
    • FTOOLS & CIAO
      
    • Parameter file conflicts
  
  
  
  • XMM:
    
    When the XMM-SAS is initialized after HEASoft (when both are used in the same session), the SAS setup changes the value of the environment variable PGPLOT_FONT with the result that plots in e.g. Xspec may (or may not, depending on the software distributions in use) have no axis labels or values. Users can fix this by resetting PGPLOT_FONT to point to the HEASoft location:

         C-shell:
    
             setenv PGPLOT_FONT $HEADAS/lib/grfont.dat
    
         Bourne shell:
    
             export PGPLOT_FONT=$HEADAS/lib/grfont.dat
    
      

    or by simply re-initializing HEASoft:

         C-shell:
    
             source $HEADAS/headas-init.csh
    
         Bourne shell:
    
             . $HEADAS/headas-init.sh
      

    This may in turn have consequences for plotting in XMM-SAS, in which case users may need to return PGPLOT_FONT to the SAS setting when using it for data analysis.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby