[daip] AIPS timeout

[Anita M. S. Richards]

Dear 'Daip',

We have a recurrent error with Dec08 AIPS, in that tasks time out
AIPS 1: TASK HAS NOT BEGUN IN   15.1 SECONDS
AIPS 1: Begin check for any 'standard' scratch files
AIPS 1: Scratch files -- destroyed:    0  still active:    0

The task itself sometimes runs to completion but terminates any runfile or 
script.  This makes it impossible to run the MERLIN archive pipeline so it 
is quite a nuisance for a lot of people.  The error is sporadic but 
frequent and is seen on a number of Linux workstations for a wide variety 
of tasks and datasets and AIPS numbers and users.  We have a central 
(binary) installation and Ant has recently updated it in an unsuccessful 
effort to solve the problem.

There is no obvious cause, such as processor/memory overload, AIPS 
confilcts or anything else.

We have Dec07 installed and working without this problem; however it is 
the version prior to the patch for the CLCAL bug and we are reluctant to 
upgrade it in case that also breaks everything!

The only help which we have managed to find suggests using compress, which 
does not help.

Two questions:

It is possible that this is a local problem.  In that case, how can we 
increase the timeout time, please? (I had a quick look at Going Aips but 
could not find anything).

Please do you have any idea what is causing the problem and if so, whether 
it is an AIPS bug or something which we are doing?

thanks very much

Anita

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dr. A.M.S. Richards, UK ARC Node/AstroGrid,
Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Alan Turing Building, 
University of Manchester, M13 9PL
+44 (0)161 275 4124
and
MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, Jodrell Bank Observatory, 
Cheshire SK11 9DL, U.K. +44 (0)1477 571321 (tel) 571618 (fax)

"Socialism or barbarism?" Rosa Luxemburg (1915)