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HEAsoft v6.1.x Bug List

Last modified Monday, 21-Apr-2025 17:48:36 EDT

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

Several packages track bugs separately from this page:

The following is a list of known bugs in v6.1.x of HEAsoft not covered by the above pages.

  • pquery2: In HEASoft 6.1.2, when the parameter file query task pquery2 is run it resets the value of the mode parameter in the queried parameter file to "ql". Users of the source code distribution may download this source code patch for the parameter interface library to fix this bug. To apply the patch: 
    - cd to the directory containing your headas-6.1.2/ sub-directory.
- Unpack the tar file you downloaded above
- cd headas-6.1.2/heacore/ape/src/
- hmake
- hmake install
  • Source builds on Mac OS X 10.3.x / Darwin 7.x (PANTHER):

    Panther users may hit a build error in the newmakefilter task, stating: 
    ComplexData.hh:153: error: `isnan' undeclared (first use this function)
    To fix this problem, edit the file

    headas-6.1.2/attitude/tasks/newmakefilter/ComplexData.hh

    and remove lines 9 and 13, i.e. uncomment the #ifdef __APPLE_CC__ section: 
    09: /*
10: #ifdef __APPLE_CC__
11: static long isnan(double value) { return __isnand(value); }
12: #endif
13: */
    This code is only necessary on Panther (and breaks builds with newer versions of the Xcode compilers). After making this edit, the build should hopefully go smoothly.

  • XSELECT v2.4: ----- FIXED IN HEASOFT 6.1.2

    XSELECT v2.4 has a number of minor problems with filter time and filter intensity: 
    1. Using 'r' as the second option when specifying a time range doesn't
   work. This has been corrected.
2. Filter time scc requires times to be entered in absolute spacecraft
   time units. In earlier versions of xselect the times were relative
   to the offset given in the header of the lightcurve plot. This
   earlier behaviour has been restored.
3. Filter intensity loses a small amount of time (half a lightcurve
   bin) at the beginning and end of each good time interval in the
   lightcurve. This has been corrected.
    To fix these problems, please download this source code patch for XSELECT and unpack it in the directory containing your headas-6.1.1 source code tree. Then, perform the following steps (which assume C-Shell syntax) to update your installation: 
       (1) setenv HEADAS /path/to/your/installed/headas/<PLATFORM>
   (2) source $HEADAS/headas-init.csh

   (3) cd headas-6.1.1/ftools/xselect
   (4) hmake
   (5) hmake install
    Xselect source code patch for HEASOFT 6.1 users

  • EXTRACTOR v4.67: ----- FIXED IN HEASOFT 6.1.2

    When reading merging event files in extractor to create a new event file the sky positions are not corrected if the event files have different world coordinate system keywords. Using the merged event file to create an image will then show multiple copies of a source. This has been corrected in Extractor v4.68 although we caution that merging such event files has other dangers so should only be done after careful thought.

    Download EXTRACTOR 4.68 (source code) here and unpack it in the directory containing your headas-6.1.1 source code tree. Then, perform the following steps (which assume C-Shell syntax) to install extractor v4.68: 
       (1) setenv HEADAS /path/to/your/installed/headas/<PLATFORM>
   (2) source $HEADAS/headas-init.csh

   (3) cd headas-6.1.1/ftools/heasarc/src/extractor
   (4) hmake
   (5) hmake install
  • PGPLOT: ----- FIXED IN HEASOFT 6.1.2

    There are two problems with the version of PGPLOT in HEASOFT 6.1.x:

    • The grfont.dat file changed from native-format binary to ASCII in the 6.1 release, which renders it incompatible with any PGPLOT program which was not compiled against the PGPLOT library supplied in HEASOFT 6.1.

    • The Roman font ('font roman' command) characters are not displayed correctly when using the postscript display ('hard' command, or 'cpd /ps' or 'cpd /cps').

    To fix these problems, please download either the source code patch for HEASoft v6.1.1 or the source code patch for HEASoft v6.1 and unpack it in the directory containing your headas-6.1.1 (or headas-6.1) source code tree. Then, perform the following steps (which assume C-Shell syntax) to update the PGPLOT library: 
       (1) setenv HEADAS /path/to/your/installed/headas/<PLATFORM>
   (2) source $HEADAS/headas-init.csh

   (3) cd headas-6.1.1/tcltk/pgplot/  (or headas-6.1/tcltk/pgplot/)
   (4) touch fonts/grfont.txt
   (5) hmake clean
   (6) hmake all
   (7) hmake install
    Note that if you are using Mac OS X, the PGPLOT library is static, which means that you will also need to re-link any task for which you want to see the corrected behavior. For example, if you want to re-link ximage, you would do the following (after the steps listed above): 
       (1) cd headas-6.1.1/ftools/image/ximage/src/
   (2) rm ximage
   (3) hmake all
   (4) hmake install
  • XDF (RXTE): ----- FIXED IN HEASOFT 6.1.2

    The HEASOFT 6.1.x release is missing the iwidgets package version 2.2.0, which is required by the RXTE GUI xdf. In order to run xdf, please download this iwidgets 2.2.0 patch and unpack it in your $HEADAS/lib/ directory.


  • ABC (ROSAT):

    The ROSAT task abc suffers a failure ("In specified FITS extension xxxxxxx") in HEASoft v6.1.x. Please download this source code patch for abc and unpack it in the directory containing your headas-6.1.1 source code tree. Then, perform the following steps (which assume C-Shell syntax) to update the ROSAT library and abc task: 
       (1) setenv HEADAS /path/to/your/installed/headas/<PLATFORM>
   (2) source $HEADAS/headas-init.csh

   (3) cd headas-6.1.1/ftools/roslib/
   (4) hmake
   (5) hmake install

   (6) cd ../rosat/src/abc
   (7) hmake
   (8) hmake install