Debugging

This chapter contains information that may be helpful in resolving a problem or filing a bug report.

How to Debug

Log files may contain very useful information when reporting problems. The log files are contained in the logs sub-directory of the FOQUS working directory. To change the log message levels in FOQUS go to the FOQUS Settings button from the Home window. From there various log settings can be changed. The debugging log level provides the highest level of information.

Almost any error that occurs in FOQUS should be logged. Occasionally, an error may occur that is difficult to find, or causes FOQUS to crash before logging it. In that case the “FOQUS Console” application can be used. All output from FOQUS, including messages that cannot be seen otherwise will be shown in a “cmd” window which will remain open even after FOQUS closes.

When running heat integration, the debugging information can be found in
\gamsHeatIntegration.lst. This file includes detailed results and errors returned by GAMS.

Most UQ routines interact with PSUADE via Python wrappers. When PSUADE is running, the stdout is written to psuadelog in the working directory. (At present, only some PSUADE commands write to this log; however, this will be standardized in the near future so that all PSUADE commands write to this log.) Other errors that are due to the Python wrappers or PySide GUI components are written to the logs subdirectory in the working directory.

Known Issues

The following are known unresolved issues:

  • Calculator blocks that use Excel in Aspen Plus do not work in FOQUS, because they are not supported by the Aspen Plus COM interface, and can only be used in interactive mode.

  • The FOQUS flowsheet can be edited while a flowsheet evaluation, optimization, or UQ is running. This should not be allowed, and may cause unexpected behaviors. Currently changes to a flowsheet while running an evaluation will be ignored and reset when the evaluation is completed.

  • The win32com module generates Python code, which it needs to run. This code is generated in the FOQUS install location “\distwin32comgen_py.” In some cases there may be a problem writing to that directory due to permission settings. This will prevent FOQUS from running simulations locally. If this error is encountered the solution is to make the “gen_py” directory user writable. So far, in testing, this error seems to occur in Windows 8 and 10, but not 7.

  • FOQUS has trouble getting files from Turbine and saving them to the DMF when dealing with files in Turbine involving directories.

  • The default port for TurbineLite is 8080. If another program is already using port 8080, there will be an error in FOQUS when connecting to TurbineLite. In the Turbine Tab of the Settings window, there is a tool to change the TurbineLite port. If the TurbineLite port is changed the configuration file that FOQUS uses to connect to TurbineLite, must also be changed.

Turbine Configuration

Turbine Lite uses a configuration file to set many runtime options for submitted jobs, most of which are pre-set server information based on the software version. However, there are a few options which control the run behavior that users can modify to suit their needs. The “User Settings” section of the file passes timeout values which cap how many minutes Turbine will let a certain action occur before force-stopping.

On a local machine, the file is located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Turbine\Lite\Clients\AspenSinterConsumerConsole.exe.config and requires administrative access to save edits. FOQUS and Aspen need to be closed when you save the file so Turbine can update its config for new instances. Lines 93-108 set the “User Settings”, which include the timeout for the total run, the timeout for the run setup, and the timeout for the post initialization run. These values are all in minutes.

Contact and Support

There are multiple ways to contact the development team, get support, file a bug, make a feature request and even contribute code changes to FOQUS:

  • Send a private email to ccsi-support@acceleratecarboncapture.org for contacting an internal set of developers.

  • Subscribe to and send an email to our ccsi-users@acceleratecarboncapture.org public discussion forum to ask a question of the existing user base.

  • Use any of the public GitHub features:

    • Read or start a new Discussion

    • Open a new Issue if you believe you’ve found a bug (please include detailed steps on how to reproduce the error, including if possible, screenshots and log files.) This is also where you can make feature requests.

    • Contribute changes to the FOQUS project by opening a Pull Request

General information about the Carbon Capture Simulation for Industry Impact (CCSI2) project, of which FOQUS is a part, can be found on the https://www.acceleratecarboncapture.org/ web site.