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:
The following is a list of known issues in v6.16 of HEAsoft not covered
by the above pages.
Last modified Sunday, 06-Dec-2015 22:47:59 EST
- 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:
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
|