Learning Forum

[rainwadj]

I have a researcher who is unable to use Ansys 2022/R2, specifically the Mechanical application.  After entering the 'runwb2' command, he opens his project file, then double-clicks the Model entry under Static Structural.  The first issue is that we see no geometry model in the viewer like we should (circled red). This is confirmed by hitting the 'Zoom-To-Fit' button which will fit the imported geometry in the graphics viewer (crcled yellow). Secondly, a 'Ruler' should be located in the black circled area. Third, a 'Triad' (3D axis showing direction of x, y, and, z) should appear in the green circled area. I ensured that those options are enabled so they should be in the graphics window. Lastly, if you click the '+' next to 'Geometry Imports' (circled purple) to expand the list of geometry imports and click on 'Geometry Import (B3)', the Mechanical application crashes and the terminal reports the fatal error.

This is all on Linux (CentOS 7).

Any ideas?

 

[rainwadj]

We also tested this with 19.2, and it works as it's supposed to.

[Rob]

I suspect it's OS graphics related, which verson of CentOS 7 are you using?  https://www.ansys.com/content/dam/it-solutions/platform-support/ansys-2022r2-platform-support-by-application-product.pdf

[rainwadj]

I'm on version 7.9 of CentOS.

[Rob]

It should work, I'll flag for installation to check. 

[George Karnos]

Hello,
If the graphics card is listed as tested:
https://www.ansys.com/content/dam/it-solutions/platform-support/ansys-2023-r1-graphical-display-graphics-cards-tested.pdf

I would recommend updating the graphics card driver to the latest.

[rainwadj]

I have found that it works correctly if I run it directly on the physical workstation.  The problem only seems to occur when I connect to the workstation with VNC to run it remotely.  This worked correctly in 19.2.

 

[George Karnos]

Which version of VNC are you using?
https://www.ansys.com/content/dam/it-solutions/platform-support/previous-releases/ansys-2022-r2-remote-display-and-virtual-desktop-support.pdf

[rainwadj]

On the workstation, I have tigervnc-server installed.  On the client, a lot of the users are on Windows with RealVNC.  I'm a Mac guy myself, so I've tried with the built-in Screen Sharing app over an ssh tunnel.

I've also tried using RDP, with xrdp installed on the workstation and Microsoft Remote Desktop as the client.  This fails... differently. After loading the project, I double-click the Model line, and it says "Starting Mechnical" at the bottom of that window, but when it opens the second window, it's mostly just a smear.  See attached.

[rainwadj]

Any ideas on this?

[MangeshANSYS]

Please try prepending the path to Mesa folder to LD_LIBRARY_PATH

example: Is Ansys is installed to /nfs/apps/ansys_inc/v221/Framework/bin/Linux64/Mesa and LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set to say /a/b:/1/2 etc etc
then set

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/nfs/apps/ansys_inc/v221/Framework/bin/Linux64/Mesa:/a/b:/1/2 etc etc

then try launching Workbench. I would expect Mechanical to show graphics, but this will be using software rendering and slow. if slow, please look into graphics hardware and remote display methods which support hardware graphics acceleration

Note: a and b and 1 and 2 are not real folders and you need not set those, this is just an example to denote your existing path which may contain many such eentries separated by a colon

[rainwadj]

Most of the workstations have AMD Radeon RX 4xx cards in them.  I have updated one of them to the latest driver (version 22.40 released 12/13/2022).  No luck with either VNC (black panel where the graphics should be, but the rest of the interface is normal) or RDP (smeared graphics when the Mechanical window is opened).

I tried adding the Mesa directory to LD_LIBRARY_PATH just before running Ansys, on both a VNC connection and an RDP connection, and the results are the same as above.

 

[rainwadj]

I also tried running the same project on that system with Ubuntu 20.04, and the results are the same for VNC.

[rainwadj]

I also had one of the researchers try a different CentOS workstation with an NVIDIA card instead of the Radeon.  Same results.

Any other ideas?

[MangeshANSYS]

Hello,

Have you tried Virtual GL 3.0 ?

Regards

 

 

[rainwadj]

No, I'm not familiar with that, and we haven't needed it in previous versions (specifically 19.2).  How would that work in this scenario?

 

[MangeshANSYS]

Please refer
23 R1  https://www.ansys.com/content/dam/it-solutions/platform-support/ansys-2023-r1-remote-display-and-virtual-desktop-support.pdf
&
19.2   https://www.ansys.com/content/dam/it-solutions/platform-support/previous-releases/remote-display-virtual-desktop-support-2019-r2.pdf
Virtual GL is listed as a supported remote Display method in both above.


for information on Virtual GL see
https://www.virtualgl.org/vgldoc/2_2_1/#hd002

[rainwadj]

So I tried VirtualGL.  I installed and configured it on the remote workstation according to the instructions on the web site.  I opened a secure tunnel to the remote workstation (ssh -L 5907:localhost:5907 host.domain), started a VNC server (vncserver :7), and opened a VNC session to localhost:5907.  I then tried various ways of using VirtualGL:

With '/opt/VirtualGL/bin/vglrun runwb2', it complains that it 'Could not open display :0.'

With '/opt/VirtualGL/bin/vglrun -d :7 runwb2', it complains that 'VirtualGL attempted to load the real glXQueryExtension function and got the fake one instead.'

Any ideas?

[MangeshANSYS]

Hi,

These seem like Virtual GL setup / remote display config issues

please check if DISPLAY environment variable is set correctly. if tests like  "glxgears" or "glxspheres" work. check path which can affect the order in which the libries get loaded. you can try using "ldd " to see which libraries are getting used.

Hope this helps

[rainwadj]

glxgears runs, and DISPLAY seems to be set correctly.  vglrun still fails.  The VirtualGL configuration script only asks 3 questions, and I answered 'no' to all 3.

[rainwadj]

Any other ideas on this? I've tried it on the existing CentOS workstations, and also on a new installation of Ubuntu.  The results are the same.

[rainwadj]

Any more suggestions on this?