[daip] Brinks TV problem

Wed Jun 20 10:41:02 EDT 2007

------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Return-Path: <egreisen at aoc.nrao.edu>
Received: from polaris.cv.nrao.edu (polaris.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.101])
	by dropbox.aoc.nrao.edu (8.13.1/8.13.1/smtp-gateway) with ESMTP id l5KEeWJ5008272
	for <egreisen at aoc.nrao.edu>; Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:40:32 -0600
Received: from revere.aoc.nrao.edu (revere.aoc.nrao.edu [146.88.1.15])
	by polaris.cv.nrao.edu (8.13.1/8.13.1/smtp-gateway) with ESMTP id l5KEeVUo012470
	for <egreisen at nrao.edu>; Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:40:31 -0400
Received: from primate.aoc.nrao.edu (primate.aoc.nrao.edu [146.88.3.100])
	by revere.aoc.nrao.edu (8.13.1/8.13.1/cv-ws-8.12) with ESMTP id l5KEeIdT016621;
	Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:40:18 -0600
Received: (from egreisen at localhost)
	by primate.aoc.nrao.edu (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id l5KEeIKw002101;
	Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:40:18 -0600
Message-ID: <18041.15442.129291.740677 at primate.aoc.nrao.edu>
In-Reply-To: <62D143BB-D4CD-41C3-9493-B17E73743AB7 at herts.ac.uk>
References: <62D143BB-D4CD-41C3-9493-B17E73743AB7 at herts.ac.uk>
X-Mailer: VM 7.00 under Emacs 21.3.1
X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the postmaster at aoc.nrao.edu for more information
X-MailScanner: Found to be clean
X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=-101.44,
	required 5, autolearn=disabled, ALL_TRUSTED -1.44,
	USER_IN_WHITELIST -100.00)
X-MailScanner-From: egreisen at aoc.nrao.edu
X-Spam-Status: No
From: Eric Greisen <egreisen at nrao.edu>
To: Elias Brinks <E.Brinks at herts.ac.uk>
Cc: Eric Greisen <egreisen at nrao.edu>
Subject: Re: TV problem on the Mac
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:40:18 -0600

Elias Brinks writes:
 > Hi Eric,
 > 
 > For reasons I don;t understand the AIPS (XAS) TV doesn't pop up
 > anymore when starting up AIPS on my Mac. I'm running 31DEC06
 > and didn't change or update anything since last time AIPS
 > worked. It says:
 > 
 > 	Shared memory id failure: Invalid argument
 > 
 > I had this once before and logging in and out cleared the problem.
 > Now I even restarted the machine, but to no avail.
 > 
 > What might be bothering the XAS?
 > 
 > Below I append the startup messages.
 > 
 > Many thanks for looking into this,
 > 
 > Cheers,
 > 
 > Elias
 > 
 > XAS: ** TrueColor FOUND!!!
 > XAS: ***  Using shared memory option for speed ***
 > XAS: Using screen width height 1270 924, max grey level 255
 > Shared memory id failure: Invalid argument

My bet is that you updated the OS in some way.  (Mac is always sending
little updates and perhaps one of them hit the relevant file.)  

 <dt> <strong>Shared memory id failure: Invalid Argument</strong>
 <dd><p>If you see this when the system is trying to fire up the AIPS TV
     (<code>XAS</code>) on a Solaris system, then your X11 display does
     not support more than the default of 1 Megabyte maximum for shared
     memory segment.  If your monitor displays 1280x1024 or larger, the
     sizes of the shared memory segments XAS wants will exceed a
     Megabyte.  Solution: have your sysadmin edit <code>/etc/system</code>
     and put this line somewhere near the end:</p>
     <blockquote><code>
     set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax=8388608</code></blockquote>
     <p>While there, you may want to also add these if you have more than
     64 Mbytes of real memory:</p>
     <blockquote><code>
     set ufs:ufs_HW=6291456<br>
     set ufs:ufs_LW=4194304<br>
     set priority_paging=1
     </code></blockquote>
     <p>Only add the last one if you are running Solaris 7 or later.
     These three settings will boost your overall AIPS
     performance.</p>

 <dd><p>If you see this on a Mac, congratulations; you have one of the
      larger display screens.  The default Mac system limits shared
      memory pages to 4 Mbytes.  When XAS starts it tells you that it
      is making a screen x pixels by y pixels.  The memory you will
      need is at least <code> 4 x y </code> bytes.  For the new large
      screens this is more than 8 Mbytes.  On 10.3 and 10.4 systems,
      you can change this limit by changing (as root or admin) the rc
      file in /etc, adjusting the <code>kern.sysv.shm*</code> line to
      <pre>
         #Setting the shared memory to something a bit more reasonable.
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=10485760
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmin=1
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmni=32
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmseg=8
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=4096
         </pre>
         If you are really lucky and have a 30-inch screen (2550 by
         1500 pixels) then you will have to make the shmmax line even
         larger<pre>
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=16777216
         </pre>
         On older Jaguar systems (X 10.2), you can change this limit
         by changing the SystemTuning file in <pre> 
            /System/Library/StartupItems/SystemTuning
         </pre>Look for the lines<pre>
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=4194304
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=1024
         </pre>Change the 4194304 to 10485760 (for 10 Mbytes) and
         change the 1024 to 4096 (allows 16 Megabytes).  You must then
         re-boot the computer to have these changes take effect.</p>     

I hope you can read this ignoring the html mark ups.  This is from our
auips manager FAQ page.

Eric Greisen
------- end -------