HEAsoft v6.12 - Known Issues

If you are using HEASOFT v6.11.1 and don't want to upgrade to v6.12 just yet, see the HEASOFT 6.11.1 Bug List.

Please visit the HEASOFT Supported Platforms page for current information about supported operating systems and compilers.

Several packages track issues separately from this page:

The following is a list of known issues in v6.12 of HEAsoft not covered by the above pages.


Last modified Thursday, 27-Dec-2012 14:18:24 EST
  • ftabcopy:

    The task ftabcopy fails to preserve string column entries (beyond the first letter) when copying an ASCII table to a BINARY table. An update to the format processing in ftabcopy.f addresses this issue, and users may fix their source code installation with the following procedure:

    Download the updated version of ftabcopy.f, then:
      Copy this new ftabcopy.f into your heasoft-6.12/ftools/futils/src/ftabcopy/ directory.
    
      Initialize HEASoft in your environment
    
      cd heasoft-6.12/ftools/futils/src/ftabcopy/
      hmake all
      hmake install
    

  • xstar2table:

    The xstar task xstar2table may fail with a segmentation fault under some operating systems due to some extraneous debug statements in the code. In cases where xstar2xspec runs without failing, this bug does not affect the results. A patch to xstar2table.c which fixes this problem has been applied to the HEASoft 6.12 source code downloads (as of 30 March 2012), but users may fix their source code installation with the following procedure:

    Download the updated version of xstar2table.c, then:
      Copy this new xstar2table.c into your heasoft-6.12/ftools/xstar/src/xstar2table/ directory.
    
      Initialize HEASoft in your environment
    
      cd heasoft-6.12/ftools/xstar/src/xstar2table/
      hmake all
      hmake install
    

  • xrtcalcpi (source code distribution only):

    The Swift/XRT task xrtcalcpi (used by xrtpipeline) may fail under some operating systems (e.g. Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 13) due to an incorrect random number generator initialization. A patch to the xrtcalcpi code which fixes this problem has been applied to the HEASoft 6.12 source code downloads (as of 30 March 2012, 12 noon EDT), but users may fix their installation with the following procedure:

    Download the updated version of xrtcalcpi.c, then:
      Copy this new xrtcalcpi.c into your heasoft-6.12/swift/xrt/tasks/xrtcalcpi/ directory.
    
      Initialize HEASoft in your environment
    
      cd heasoft-6.12/swift/xrt/tasks/xrtcalcpi/
      hmake all
      hmake install
    
    If you are using HEASoft v6.11.1, please use this version of xrtcalcpi.c instead.


  • sec2time (TIME), nh (HEASARC), earth2sun (XRONOS), fxbary (XTE):

    Changes to the parameter interface for older ftools packages in HEASoft 6.12 necessitated some parameter file updates which were erroneously not propagated to a handful of ".parin" files. The result is that some parameters previously written by the tasks listed above to their respective .par files (in e.g. your $HOME/pfiles directory) are no longer written.

    This problem is resolved by applying the patch described below. All new HEASoft downloads contain this update. To patch an installation acquired prior to 22 March 2012 (~16:20 EDT), see below.

    • If you are using the HEASOFT 6.12 source code distribution:

      Download the ftools .parin patch for HEASOFT 6.12. Unpack this patch file on top of your existing heasoft-6.12 source code directory, then:
        Initialize HEASoft in your environment
      
        cd heasoft-6.12/ftools/heasarc/src/nh/
        hmake install
      
        cd ../../../xte/src/fxbary/
        hmake install
      
        cd ../../../time/src/sec2time/
        hmake install
      
        cd ../../../timing/xronos/src/earth2sun/
        hmake install
      
        cd ../../../../BUILD_DIR/   (i.e. now in heasoft-6.12/ftools/BUILD_DIR)
        hmake fixpfiles
      
        The screen output from hmake should end with these messages:
        ...
        ...
        lhea-fixpfiles: generating earth2sun.par from earth2sun.parin
        lhea-fixpfiles: generating fxbary.par from fxbary.parin
        lhea-fixpfiles: generating nh.par from nh.parin
        lhea-fixpfiles: generating sec2time.par from sec2time.parin
      

    • If you are using a HEASOFT 6.12 pre-compiled binary distribution, choose the patch file appropriate for your existing installation,

      PC Linux
      PC Linux 64-bit
      PC Cygwin
      Mac Intel - Darwin 10.x, 11.x
      Sparc - Solaris/SunOS

      then, unpack the patch file on top of your existing heasoft-6.12 binary directory. Next, change directory to the binary BUILD_DIR and re-run the configure script there:
        cd heasoft-6.12/<architecture>/BUILD_DIR/
        ./configure
      


If you have any questions about the information above, please write to us at the FTOOLS help desk.
FTOOLS HELP DESK

If FTOOLS has been useful in your research, please reference this site (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftools) and use the ASCL reference for HEASoft [ascl:1408.004] or the ASCL reference for the original FTOOLs paper [ascl:9912.002]:

Blackburn, J. K. 1995, in ASP Conf. Ser., Vol. 77, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems IV, ed. R. A. Shaw, H. E. Payne, and J. J. E. Hayes (San Francisco: ASP), 367.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby