Another "The Analysis has stopped because the Solver has exited unexpectedly"

[pmorganTCSVA]

Hello hello,

I am new to the CFD software and tried running through the manifold tutorial. The instructions were pretty straightforward, however, when I attempted to Solve it, I immediately get the error: "The Analysis has stopped because the Solver has exited unexpectedly." I tried another tutorial and also tried a simple box exported from inventor with the same result.

Some background information: This is a computer I inherited from my predecessor and is currently running CFD 2016. I believe this computer has run CFD before, as there are projects that were created on a previous version with view-able results sitting on the hard drive. If I convert and import those older files into the current version and attempt to rerun some scenarios, I get the solver error again.

Being a tutorial file, which I'd like to assume I set up properly, it must be some sort of local problem.

I've gone through the troubleshooting steps here.

It seems possible there is a file I/O problem, although I disabled my firewall and I'm running my files from the local C drive.
I think we are using a floating license and my suspicion is that it that this issue may be related to updating the software. I'm considering contacting IT and reinstalling the software, but I'd like to do a sanity check here to see if there are any glaring mistakes I'm making.

I've attached the manifold and box .cfz files but not the old files I was referring to, as they contain proprietary information. Any insight would be appreciated.

-Patrick

[Amal.C]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for reaching out to our Community 🙂

I just tested the support file on my computer. They are fine!

You can figure out the reason of the solver crash by knowing when the error message did pop up by following the messages (during the run) of the Output Bar. I doubt that it's related to the license.

You can check also if you find useful information in the bottom lines of the status file (Results tab > Review>Status File)

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Amal

[pmorganTCSVA]

Unfortunately Solver crashes before anything in the Output Message window has a chance to populate (less than 1 second).

Most everything in the Results tab is greyed out, including the Status File option.

[Amal.C]

Hi, 

Thanks for your update 🙂 

Although the firewall is turned off,  please make sure to add the. exe files to the exception list. 

Thanks, 

Amal

[pmorganTCSVA]

Our systems admin added the exceptions mentioned to my Sophos Endpoint Protection a couple days ago and that has made no change.

[Jon.Wilde]

Might I make a suggestion?

Close CFD and CAD and run CFDconfig.exe (I think that is the right name, if not it is similar!) from the CFD installation folder. Be sure to right click and run as admin.

[pmorganTCSVA]

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately I am still having the same issue.

I made sure all Autodesk software, including the desktop app and 360 was closed. I've attached screen captures of what running CFDConfig.exe ended up doing for me. I was hopeful afterwards, yet solver crashed again. I tried running CFD2Config.exe for a single node using the settings in the attached screen capture with results I've also included. Solver crashed after trying that as well.

[Jon.Wilde]

This still makes no sense to me, let's keep trying 🙂

Do you have any flags assigned? (Open interface -> Launch -> Flags)

Are you trying to use CFD2, the scalable solver?

[pmorganTCSVA]

No flags, although at one point I had set Max_Pseudo_Time_Step_Size to 60 as was suggested in a troubleshooting guide. Since this isn't doing any thermal analysis I realized that wouldn't help anything anyway and removed it.
More specifically: the CFD-flags.txt file in my AppData is blank.

As to CFD2, I just saw it next to the other config setup and thought it was worth giving a shot. I don't know what the Scalable solver is, so I'm going to go with no, I'm not using it.

[Jon.Wilde]

Is Sophos Endpoint Protection acting as both firewall and antivirus? I ask incase there is still something blocking CFD somehow.

When you run the analysis, does the solver.exe appear in the task manager and is it under the same account as the CFD.exe? (Might need to switch one so they are both the same, let's see).

(We can also run a test without the UI to see if we can kick off the solver, that can come later though)

If you right click on the CFD installation folder, can you check that the 'user' account has full security rights?

Did you already try right clicking to run CFD as administrator?

I am really leaning towards this being an admin rights issue, we just need to identify it.

Thanks for your patience!

Jon

[pmorganTCSVA]

I think we're on to something here. I see CDF 2016 Server running in my services but I do not see Solver.exe or CFDSolver.exe in Processes, Services, or applications.

I did notice that Solver wasn't running when going through the I/O error troubleshooting steps and attempted running it through the command prompt as was suggested. I didn't have a similar path to the stated "C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Simulation CFD 2016\Tutorials\testdata" so I used the directory where my manifold_tutorial.cfdst file was located. Attached is what my command prompt spits out. I don't know what exactly it did, but some new files showed up in that directory, so I chalked that up to a job well done and moved on to the next troubleshooting suggestion. HOWEVER, I overlooked the fact that solver.exe still isn't running, which is probably significant.

Edit: I should have full admin right. I attached another image showing I my pmorgan user with all but the "special permissions" option checked which should be good enough.

Edit edit: Also have right clicked and run CFD as admin

[Jon.Wilde]

Hey,

Thanks for testing!

I just saw your edit, was about to suggest it 

OK, for the installation folder - check the 'user' account, not the admin one.

Going back to antivirus and Firewall, are the exceptions here added to both? Or does Sophos act as both at once? I see that it can be both Firewall and Antivirus - maybe there are two different lists?

When you run CFD, can you see in Sophos that it is (or isn't) scanning the files? I am not sure what capability it has to know.

Also, are you on the latest service pack for CFD2016?

Thanks,

Jon

[pmorganTCSVA]

The User account only has Read & execute, List folder contents, and Read permissions. I was able to write and modify files in that folder by pushing continue in the Access Denied popup to provide administrative permission. I added all permissions to User for that folder just to check but no change.

I ran the service pack update and rebooted my computer.

I'll pass along that Sophos link you sent and get back to you when IT is done. Could take a couple hours... or days.

[Jon.Wilde]

There were access denied pop ups though? Did these go away once you enabled the rights?

Were you able to change this to that the user account has full rights? This sounds like the issue.

What happens if you log onto your machine as an admin then? Maybe this is related.

[pmorganTCSVA · Accepted solution]

SOLVED

It took several calls and remote sessions with Matt Bremis, but we got CFD working. To provide some closure, and in case some other user is reading this looking for answers, here is what was causing the Solver error for us:

The first issue was the CFD solver license wasn't showing up from the license server. I wasn't involved with how IT fixed that, but they did fix it.

While that as definitely a problem that needed to be address, the same error continued to persist after we had the license running properly.

The second issue turned out to be the CFD 2016 Server service not running. We had to edit the service properties: Going into the  "Log On" tab and entering my login credentials manually, and restarting the process fixed it.

[matt.bemis]

Hi @pmorganTCSVA,

Thanks for posting here! Yes, Moving CFDServer.exe from running on SYSTEM to user windows account (which was also an admin) fix the issue.

[fildip]

I have this problem and I can't recreate the solution. Any help?

[jesus.solis]

It works, thanks for the help.