[TeresaT]

Dear all,

I fail to understand a problem that occurred two times on different occasions during simulations on a linux cluster

[9] --> FOAM FATAL ERROR: (openfoam-2012)
[9] Couldn't create directory "/aName/aName/aName/caseName/processor9/3e-05/uniform/functionObjects"
[9]
[9] From bool Foam::mkDir(const Foam::fileName&, mode_t)
[9] in file POSIX.C at line 664.
[9]
FOAM parallel run exiting

The folder names are changed for privacy.

I tried to create the folder manually using mkdir and it worked as intended.
The folder was created correctly during the two prior timesteps.
There is plenty of free disk space.

Edit: one more thing, functions {} in contolDict looks basically like this:
functions
{
/*
lots of turned of stuff
*/
}

What else can I do to understand this problem?
Kind Regards,
Teresa

[TeresaT]

Dear all,

some information in case someone encounters something similar:

- solver is icoReactingMultiphaseInterFoam
- simulation redos crashed at different timeSteps with the same error msg
- simulation redo on a different filesystem on the same cluster worked without errors
- simulation redo on same filesystem deleting " functionObjects{}" worked without errors

- our current idea is a problem with the network file system
v1912:Updated file modification skew

Regards,
Teresa

[BenjaminK]

Hi TeresaT,

were you able to solve that problem?
I encounter the same problem on a new cluster too.

In most steps it works fine, but then sometimes and randomly the simulation get stuck. If I attach a debugger to the stuck job I get the same error as you.

If I run a large and long job, it rarely ends successful.

OpenFoam version is v2212,
built with AOCC or different GCC Compilers.

[AtoHM]

Some clusters enforce hard limits on number of files that a certain user is able to create. Maybe you run into it with large simulations because of all the files/folders that are generated during the decomposition and running in parallel?
Otherwise it seems like a case to contact the provider of the cluster and ask. I doubt it's an OpenFOAM problem.

[BenjaminK]

Luckily, there is no files/folders limit on the system.

The problem of not being able to create a folder only appears running OpenFoam, interestingly only 1 thread wasn't able to create a folder, while all other processes proceeded and were able to create the folder.
The error occured randomly during the write steps.
Some times it may occur after the 8th write interval, at other times after the 25th write interval.
Also on random nodes or processes.