Troubleshooting VTune Amplifier collection issues

[robert-reed]

Has your attempt to install and use VTune Amplifier XE been side-tracked by errors such as the following? “Error Connecting to MIC card.”    

Normally the regular installation of VTune Amplifier XE, when performed on a host that includes an Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor, will automatically perform the steps to install the coprocessor collection driver without user intervention (or at most, it will only prompt the user whether they want to restart the service that provides access to the coprocessor in order to complete the conversion).  Sometimes people will resort to the use of the installation scripts that used to have to be invoked manually, but which now happen automatically as part of the VTune Amplifier XE install:

[bash]

$ cd  <vtune_install_dir>/bin64/k1om

$ sudo ./sep_micboot_uninstall.sh  --clean

$ sudo ./sep_micboot_create.sh

$ sudo ./sep_micboot_install.sh

$ sudo  service mpss restart

$ micctrl –w 

[/bash]

The --clean argument above should clear out any old driver versions (assuming you're upgrading the installation rather than doing it for the first time).  If you are still having trouble after performing these steps, perhaps there's a more fundamental configuration issue.  Have you recently upgraded the version of Intel MPSS (Intel Manycore Platform Software Stack)?  Did you complete the configuration process, after replacing the RPMs and reflashing the coprocessor if necessary?  micctrl can be used to wait for the coprocessor to be ready, as demonstrated in the example above, but it has other powers, particularly over the configuration of the coprocessor system.  The usual sequence to set up an Intel MPSS configuration is to run micctrl --initdefaults the first time the new software stack is installed, and then, after configuration changes to run micctrl --resetconfig to restore those defaults.  Problems in the configuration can manifest in the  “Error Connecting to MIC card” error mentioned at the start of this note.  Hopefully these hints will help you overcome collection issues if you should encounter them after a fresh install.