unexpected tb5 corrupted

[Yinhou_Jia]

Hi,

I usually run vtune(9.1) vtl sample on linux and pack the result to vxp file which is then copied to XP vtune(9.1 Build:210) for unpacking and viewing.All is good.However,a few days ago,I run into some trouble.

Unpack seems good to me as vtune says"Unpacking file x\\x\\x\\tbs522a.tb5","Unpacking file x\\x\\x\\Modules.xml","Unpack is finished","The unpack process completed successfully".After I double click "Run 1" to view the events,vtune shows "Failed to create sampling data base. Probably .tb5 files are corrupted or don't exist"


I tried to unpack and view the previous vxp files and all succeed.I uninstall/reinstall vtune on WindowsXP/Linux but failed yet.

The size of tb5 file between linux and winxp are same.However modules.xml is different


Linux""
WinXP""


Does anyone can help me solve this problem?

Thanks in advance

[Peter_W_Intel]

Hi,

I don't know why you can unpack .vxp file from Linux* and view data well before, but failed on it for now.

In general speaking, the user should use same versions of VTune Analyzer for Windows* and for Linux*, that is to keep reading same formatof data file- for example, I use v9.1 U7 (build #385) for Windows* and v9.1 U7 (build #405) for Linux*.

I suggest to do one of below options -
1) Copy right modules.xml from Linux to Windows, and retry.
2) Unpack .vxp file again, intoa new project (for generating new modules.xml)
3) Open .tb5 file directly on VTune Analyzer for Windows*, that is also helpful to read results. (In most time,the user doesn't care aboutActivity's Configuration)

Hope it helps.

Regards, Peter

[Yinhou_Jia]

>I don't know why you can unpack .vxp file from Linux* and view data well before, but failed on it for now.

Me too. I intalled intel thread profiler for linux some days ago ,but now I have uninstalled it .

>In general speaking, the user should use same versions of VTune Analyzer for Windows* and for Linux*, that is to keep reading same formatof data file- for example, I use v9.1 U7 (build #385) for Windows* and v9.1 U7 (build #405) for Linux*.


I use v9.1 build 226 for Linux and v9.1 build 210 for windows. Do them match?

>1) Copy right modules.xml from Linux to Windows, and retry.

failed.


>2) Unpack .vxp file again, intoa new project (for generating new modules.xml)
>3) Open .tb5 file directly on VTune Analyzer for Windows*, that is also helpful to read results. (In most time,the user doesn't care aboutActivity's Configuration)

failed.


I use the following command on Linux(failed):

/opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl activity test -d 10 -c sampling -of event_mem.cfg -app "/bin/sleep,10,/bin/" run
/opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl activity pack test

-bash-3.00$ cat event_mem.cfg
-cal yes
-avail-cpu-mask all
-si 1
-sb 2000
-sd 0
-term yes
-ttc yes
-sm ebs
-sterm yes
-msc 0
-ec en='CPU_CLK_UNHALTED.CORE':sa=1,en='INST_RETIRED.ANY':sa=1,en='B:sa=1,en='BUS_TRANS_MEM.ALL_AGENTS':sa=1

However,if I make some change on event_mem.cfg,it will succeed

en='CPU_CLK_UNHALTED.CORE':sa=1
or
en='INST_RETIRED.ANY':sa=1

(en='the other':sa=1 failed)



I want to view some more events ,say l2miss or bus_trans. Does anyone know what happend ?


Thanks

[Peter_W_Intel]

"sa=1" - too small Sample After Value (SAV)for ticks for interruption!

"en='CPU_CLK_UNHALTED.CORE':sa=1" is wrong, please do "en='CPU_CLK_UNHALTED.CORE':sa=2000000"
Interval for capturing samples should be reasonable!

In general we hope to get 1000 samples per second, if CPU frequency is 2G Hz, so SAV should be 2,000,000,000/1000 = 2,000,000.Same SAVcould be used for INST_RETIRED.ANY event.Other events' SAV coulduse 10,000 as default setting.

Regards, Peter

[Yinhou_Jia]

I use "-cal yes" to do calibration first .

Ok, I changed event_mem.cfg and it failed again

-cal yes(or no)
-avail-cpu-mask all
-si 1
-sb 2000
-sd 0
-term yes
-ttc yes
-sm ebs
-sterm yes
-msc 0
-ec en='CPU_CLK_UNHALTED.CORE':sa=2000000,en='INST_RETIRED.ANY':sa=2000000,en='BUS_TRANS_BURST.ALL_AGENTS':sa=2000000,en='BUS_TRANS_MEM.ALL_AGENTS':sa=2000000



Thanks
zhenyu.ren

[Peter_W_Intel]

I used your event_mem.cfg (should change "-cal yes(or no)" to "-cal yes" in file), and couldn't reproduce this problem. I can generate right .vxp file and open it on Windows* side.

I doubt that your product is too old - it cant runon latest processors. Please use v9.1 Update 7 for both Windows* and Linux*.

Regards, Peter

[Yinhou_Jia]

> I doubt that your product is too old - it cant runon latest processors.

No, I have said that I can use it before.

>Please use v9.1 Update 7 for both Windows* and Linux*.

I tried to use v9.1 u7 but failed ...


Thanks

[Peter_W_Intel]

Could you please provide info, like as error message from outputs?

[Yinhou_Jia]

Sorry,What I want to say is I unpacked vxp on windows but failed to view the result.Vtune show me the same error message as before("Failed to create sampling data base. Probably .tb5 files are corrupted or don't exist").

[Yinhou_Jia]

I come out with a workaround

(1) /opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl activity test -d 5 -c sampling -of event_mem.cfg -app "/bin/sleep,5,/bin/" run
(2) /opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl activity pack test
(3) scp test.vxp to winxp vtune then unpack it
(4) close winxp vtune
(5) /opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl delete -a
(6) /opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl unpack test.vxp
(7) /opt/intel/vtune/bin/vtl view a1::r1 -processes -sea 11
(8) scp unpacking dir(ie. VTune/Projects/Sampling/arc7d7/) to windows vtune Sampling dir (in project dir)
(9) double click winxp vtune "Run $name" then you can view all evens


So what I do is run "vtl view a1::r1 -processes -sea 11" on Linux then scp the *.sdb,*.tb5,*.tsc to windows vtune.Why I can't unpack/view vxp file on windows?

Thanks
zhenyu.ren

[Peter_W_Intel]

vtl default project on Linux* includes ALL old activities, probably some old results are damaged to cause failure when opening the result on Windows*.

So before doing data collection on Linux - do "vtl delete -a" to empty old results. That could be a workaround to generate a .VXP file which has only one activity and its result.

Thank youfor the update.

Regards, Peter