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Problem with VS Release 15.8.0

David_DiLaura1
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Colleagues,

Is anyone (else) having problems with VS Release 15.8.0?  One of our team installed that update this morning and now any attempt to display elements in an array variable in debug mode (hover with the mouse, click on the expand arrow) crashes VS -- brings it down completely.

 

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mecej4
Honored Contributor III
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Magnus, thanks for the link for downgrading to an older version of VS2017.

In many instances, I think that the problems are created when the user's PC has a working combination of VS and Parallel Studio, and does not exercise caution in allowing or asking VS to update -- i.e., allows VS to update without ascertaining whether the new release is supported by the currently installed version of PS. In such instances I don't think that it is fair to blame Intel, although, in a business sense, users could urge, "Would the two of you, Intel and Microsoft, coordinate your software releases, given the dependence of PS on VS, please?".

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Steve_Lionel
Honored Contributor III
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Intel absolutely does test with prerelease versions of VS. The problem is that Microsoft releases VS updates (to released versions) so often now that it’s a constant game of catch-up. Intel doesn’t release anywhere near that often.  I’ve also seen multiple times that Microsoft makes a breaking change to VS between the last Release Candidate and the public release. 

It used to be that updates to VS were infrequent and rarely broke the Intel integration. That has changed. Having the installer check for “known good” updates will create more hassles when a new update doesn’t break anything (usually the case) and would require Intel to spend a lot of effort to keep its installer synced to Microsoft changes. I don’t see that happening.

In my opinion, Intel and Microsoft need to work together to understand what is creating this instability and both companies need to take steps to eliminate it.

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gib
New Contributor II
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I'm guessing that Microsoft doesn't really care much about Intel Fortran integration any more, Fortran is such a small part of the company's business.  A contributing factor is that as software systems grow and become more complex they become harder to maintain.

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mecej4
Honored Contributor III
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David DiLaura wrote:
... The rest of our Team is using VS 15.7.5 with both Release 18.3 and 19.1 of the Fortran compiler without a problem.
Unfortunately, 15.7.5 is no longer available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/installing-an-earlier-release-of-vs2017. Among the versions available, for 15.7.x, we have x = 7. Similarly, for 15.6.x, we have x = 7. I found the hard way that there is no guarantee that if A.B.c works fine, version A.B.d will also work, for d > c.

After one of my laptops died last weekend (it lived 4-1/2 years), I bought a new mini-desktop PC. I installed 15.6.7, since an earlier version of 15.6 on another PC worked fine. I then installed Parallel Studio 18.0.3, and ran into a number of incompatibilities. I believe that the ParStu installer switched to installing its own VS Shell about half way, but seems to have failed.

Fortunately for me, all the command line tools work fine, but symbolic debugging will be feasible only after Intel+Microsoft fix the problems.I hope that Intel will release ParStu 18.0.4, never mind 19.0. For most users, who rely on VS as the front end to Ifort, it must feel similar to having a car with a flat tire and a spare wheel of the wrong size, and being told to get a new wheel or a new car, or both!

PS (13 Sep 2018): I had to uninstall PS2018, install VS2015 Community, and reinstall PS2018 in order to have a working installation of Intel Fortran on Windows. Many wasted hours doing gigabyte downloads and installing!

 

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NotThatItMatters
Beginner
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For your information, 15.8.4 does not settle the issue either.

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nordkvist__patric
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For information: VS 15.8.5 does not solve the problem.

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WSinc
New Contributor I
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I like Steve's approach -

Since compatibility between version versions of VS and Parallel studio seems to be a major

issue, a chart showing WHAT is compatible with WHAT would be very helpful.

Might keep a lot of users from stepping into a "rabbit hole."

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mecej4
Honored Contributor III
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nordkvist, patric wrote:

For information: VS 15.8.5 does not solve the problem.

I am afraid that there is no surprise there, since releases made by MS would be intended to fix issues reported to them by their customers. If MS does not bother to coordinate with Intel to see if there are any regressions w.r.t. Fortran integration, etc., new releases of VS can be expected to break more Fortran-related things, not fewer. Meanwhile, Intel folks get the blame.

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NotThatItMatters
Beginner
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Admittedly, VS 15.8.5 does not solve the problem.  However, I successfully gave the MS folks a core dump of the crash, so perhaps in the near future there could be progress.  I anxiously await 15.8.6.

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Devorah_H_Intel
Moderator
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Please refer to this article for VS versions currently supported:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-compilers-integration-support-for-microsoft-visual-studio-2017

This article will be updated as we add additional VS versions.

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mecej4
Honored Contributor III
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Devorah H.: Perhaps you are not aware of this, but the Intel page that you refer to says that VS versions 15.6, 15.5, 15.4 are compatible with Intel Fortran, 18.0 Update 3, 19.0 Initial Release. That is no longer true.

As of today (Sep. 23), the VS 2017 downloads available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/installing-an-earlier-release-of-vs2017 are 15.6.7 and 15.7.6. As I noted in #25 and others have experienced, neither of these is compatible with Intel Fortran 18.0 Update 3 and 19.0 Initial Release.

Since Igor V (Intel) wrote that page on August 20, Microsoft has changed the versions of VS 2017 available for download. The ones available on that date, which were compatible with Intel Fortran, are no longer available. The ones available now are incompatible.

If you wish to make Igor's page current, you have to augment the VS version numbers given there with the third part of the version number, e.g., 15.6.6, instead of just 15.6, and making sure about that third part being correct for compatibility.

 

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Devorah_H_Intel
Moderator
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The linked article indicates that 15.7 (all flavors) is not supported at this point.

Regarding 15.6.7 -  we didn't receive any reports of broken integration for 15.6 (including 15.6.7). We have reports for issues with 15.7 and 15.8  -both are being fixed. 

mecej4 wrote:

Devorah H.: Perhaps you are not aware of this, but the Intel page that you refer to says that VS versions 15.6, 15.5, 15.4 are compatible with Intel Fortran, 18.0 Update 3, 19.0 Initial Release. That is no longer true.

As of today (Sep. 23), the VS 2017 downloads available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/installing-an-... are 15.6.7 and 15.7.6. As I noted in #25 and others have experienced, neither of these is compatible with Intel Fortran 18.0 Update 3 and 19.0 Initial Release.

Since Igor V (Intel) wrote that page on August 20, Microsoft has changed the versions of VS 2017 available for download. The ones available on that date, which were compatible with Intel Fortran, are no longer available. The ones available now are incompatible.

If you wish to make Igor's page current, you have to augment the VS version numbers given there with the third part of the version number, e.g., 15.6.6, instead of just 15.6, and making sure about that third part being correct for compatibility.

 

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S__MPay
Beginner
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I updated Visual Studio to resolve an issue but now I have same problem as other users.

Updating to PS 2019 will solve this issue?

______________________________________________

I can also use visual studio 2015; But I think it is not safe to open a solution that is already saved by VS2017 in an older version.

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NotThatItMatters
Beginner
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No, updating to PS 2019 will not solve the problem.

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S__MPay
Beginner
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Thanks for the information and also uploading the dump file to MS.

Can anyone verify that it is safe to revert to VS 2015 for a solution last saved in VS2017?

I tried and except the bookmarks and breakpoints gone I cannot see any visible issue.

NotThatItMatters wrote:

No, updating to PS 2019 will not solve the problem.

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NotThatItMatters
Beginner
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I continue to struggle with this.  I uninstalled every bit of Intel Fortran software except 19.0.  I then "repaired" 19.0 being as VS 2017 apparently lost it.  I then attempted debugging Fortran and VS 2017 again cratered.

I then used wmic on my old compiler machine.  One of the apps it says is on this machine is

Intel Debugger Extension 7.8 for Microsoft Visual Studio* 2013 for Intel(R) MIC Architecture, version 7.10.4.051.  I have tried to uninstall this app without luck.  I just cannot find this app in the standard "uninstall".

Might this be the cause of my grief?

 

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Steve_Lionel
Honored Contributor III
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No, that doesn't matter. It's a component of Intel Parallel Studio XE that is used only when debugging applications that run on an Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor/accelerator. It isn't involved in the debugger crash issue.

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NotThatItMatters
Beginner
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Thanks, Doctor Fortran.  I believe the fix on this one is in.  Thanks, Devorah, for pointing it out.  I await Update 1 with bated breath.

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Benedicto__Enrique
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@NotThatItMatters  Where is that fix? Is it only for 2019?  That would really be unfortunate (to say the least) as we have upgraded to 2018 early this year, but are just coming around to actually upgrading the code.

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David_DiLaura1
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Intel folks,

I see that another update has been issue for Release 18, PS 2018. Does this contain a fix for the unhappy problem/conflict of the Fortran Expression Evaluator with recent releases of Visual Studio?

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S__MPay
Beginner
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The status of VS 15.8 is not changed in this page

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-compilers-integration-support-for-microsoft-visual-studio-2017

so probably the update is not relevant to the issue.

Here are the update highlights not mentioning that issue:

  • Fixed security vulnerabilities in the installer.
  • Added support for parallel and vector execution policies in more functions in Parallel STL in the Intel® C/C++ compiler.
  • Improved performance in various functions in Intel® Math Kernel Library.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 All tools updated to current versions.  Fixed security vulnerabilities in the installer.  Added digital certificates for IDE integration to Microsoft Visual Studio* 2017 on hosts without internet access.  Intel® Advisor: o Integer Roofline Analysis enables integer calculation optimization. o Added Integrated Roofline preview feature showing which memory layer is the bottleneck for each loop. o Enabled more accurate memory footprint and checking multiple hardware configurations with cache simulation.  Intel® C/C++ Compiler: o Added support for parallel and vector execution policies in more functions in Parallel STL. o Split algorithm declarations and implementation by files in Parallel STL.  Intel® Inspector: o Intel® Inspector debugger add-on now support Microsoft Visual Studio* 2017. o Added support for Fedora Core* 28, Ubuntu* 18.04 LTS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux* 7.5, SUSE Enterprise Linux Server* 12 SP3, and Microsoft Windows* 10 April Update.  Intel® Math Kernel Library:

 Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2018 Update 4 Release Notes    
6
o Improved performance in various BLAS, Sparse BLAS, FFT, and Sparse Solver functions. o Introduced consistent NaN handling for certain BLAS functions. o Addressed reproducibility and accuracy issues found on certain architectures.  Intel® Threading Building Blocks: o Added preview feature of user event tracing API for Intel® VTune™ Amplifier and Flow Graph Analyzer.  Intel® VTune™ Amplifier: o Added support for Fedora* 28, SUSE Enterprise Linux Server* 15, and Microsoft Windows* 10 RS4.

It does not say which version of VS 2017 is supported.

https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/managed/7a/24/IPSXE_2018_Update_4_Release_Notes_EN.pdf

_____________________________________________________________________________

Update: I performed the update and debugging still impossible in VS 2017 15.8.5

David DiLaura wrote:

Intel folks,

I see that another update has been issue for Release 18, PS 2018. Does this contain a fix for the unhappy problem/conflict of the Fortran Expression Evaluator with recent releases of Visual Studio?

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