What to Do When a Job Fails with a Bad X11 Display? (NetworkComputer & FlowTracer)


Sometimes jobs fail and show the following error:

Bad X11 Display

VOV_JOB_XTERM: Cannot use DISPLAY=vl-c-abpate-gridsdca:12.0 with XTERM=/usr/bin/xterm: child process exited abnormally

This is not a tool error, but an error generated by FlowTracer. When the vovproject is created, the display for xterms is set. You need to check it.

If the display has been changed, xterms and other windows may show different display variables. This may be because of a new remote connection. In this case, the user needs to change the display variable to a new display.

vovprop set 1 X11_DISPLAY "new display"

Find out the current display setting by echoing the content of your env variable $DISPLAY, in csh echo $DISPLAY. If you are running as a different user, you also need to open permissions on your display, for the job to open a display. A basic command is:

xhost +

There may be more sophisticated methods in place, involving settings of X11_AUTHORITY, and other methods. Note that we currently do not support remote displays using ssh -Y.

The display could no longer be available if the current user does not have access permissions. To debug this, try another command that opens something. Commands commonly available that open a new window in Unix include:

xclock

xterm

You can also override the DISPLAY variable for a specific job by using the vovconsole GUI. To do so, perform the following steps:

  1. Double-click the job to open the NodeEditor and select tab Execution & Impact.
  2. Insert the available DISPLAY in X11 Display right above the Default X11 Display.
  3. Retrace the job after saving the new setting.