[Condor-users] USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP stops working after a while

["Ian Chesal" <ICHESAL@xxxxxxxxxx>]

We've been trying to use the USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP setting to run our GUI
tests. Works well up to a point. After a while Condor starts to complain
that it can no longer get a visible desktop and runs the job without it.
This is a single VM machine. We've tried to pinpoint just when the
visible desktop sessions will cease to work but it doesn't occur with
any predictable frequency. Machines are all running WinXP SP2 32-bit.

Anyone else run into this with visible desktops?

I'm including a snippet of the StarterLog file from a machine where this
problem occurred. You can see the "Unable to use visible desktop" error.

4/20 19:39:08 ******************************************************
4/20 19:39:08 ** condor_starter (CONDOR_STARTER) STARTING UP
4/20 19:39:08 ** d:\abc\condor\bin\condor_starter.exe
4/20 19:39:08 ** $CondorVersion: 6.8.0 Jul 19 2006 $
4/20 19:39:08 ** $CondorPlatform: INTEL-WINNT50 $
4/20 19:39:08 ** PID = 508
4/20 19:39:08 ** Log last touched 4/20 19:38:45
4/20 19:39:08 ******************************************************
4/20 19:39:08 Using config source:
\\ttc-negotiator\condor\configs\condor_config.WINNT51
4/20 19:39:08 Using local config sources: 
4/20 19:39:08    d:/abc/condor/local.TTC-BS3066-114/condor_config.local
4/20 19:39:08    d:\abc\condor/condor_config.local
4/20 19:39:08 DaemonCore: Command Socket at <137.57.176.224:3826>
4/20 19:39:08 Setting resource limits not implemented!
4/20 19:39:08 Communicating with shadow <137.57.176.238:38053>
4/20 19:39:08 Submitting machine is "ttc-schedd1.altera.com"
4/20 19:39:08 File transfer completed successfully.
4/20 19:39:09 Starting a VANILLA universe job with ID: 42392.11
4/20 19:39:09 IWD: d:\abc\condor/execute\dir_508
4/20 19:39:09 Output file: d:\abc\condor/execute\dir_508\wrapper.log
4/20 19:39:09 Error file: d:\abc\condor/execute\dir_508\wrapper.err
4/20 19:39:09 Renice expr "((False =?= True) * 10)" evaluated to 0
4/20 19:39:09 About to exec C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /Q /C
condor_exec.bat
/experiments/akashiga/connection_optimization/lock_blocks/lock_blocks_mo
dified_apr20/no_sweep_parameter/panda_top
4/20 19:39:09 Create_Process: Unable to use visible desktop
4/20 19:39:09 Create_Process succeeded, pid=3980
4/20 19:49:09 Process exited, pid=3980, status=1
4/20 19:49:09 Got SIGQUIT.  Performing fast shutdown.
4/20 19:49:09 ShutdownFast all jobs.
4/20 19:49:09 **** condor_starter (condor_STARTER) EXITING WITH STATUS 0

And as a slight tangent to this: It'd be nice if you could set visible
desktop use on a per-job basis. Allow machines to advertise that they
are willing to let the job use a visible desktop, but let the job choose
whether or not it actually wants to use a visible desktop. We really
only want the GUI tests to use this approach.

- Ian

--
Ian R. Chesal <ichesal@xxxxxxxxxx>
Senior Software Engineer

Altera Corporation
Toronto Technology Center
Tel: (416) 926-8300