Are spiceInterface modules thread safe ?

[bbercoviciUspace]

Hello everyone,

I'm encountering an issue while running parallel simulations by spawning multiple instances of SimulationBaseClass in parallel using multiprocessing.imap. I've since run into a number of cases where the parallel execution sometimes stalls, and I'm trying to narrow down on what could be the culprit.

One I would like to rule out is Spice : I see that the example MC scenarii do make use of underlying spiceInterfaces inside the gravFactory class (the fact that the instantiation of these interfaces is hidden inside of the factory class was a surprise, since it feels natural to declare this interface at the same level as other simulation modules).

Anyhow, has this ever been identified as an issue before ?

Thanks,
Ben

[bbercoviciUspace]

I just had spice crash on me with the following error : looks like a race condition with Qt (?!)

================================================================================
 
Toolkit version: N0065
 
SPICE(RECORDNOTFOUND) --
 
Attempt to read descriptor record 0 of DAF '/home/benjamin/Development/BSK/basi
lisk/dist3/Basilisk/supportData/EphemerisData/de430.bsp' failed; record was not
found. This condition may indicate a corrupted DAF.
 
A traceback follows.  The name of the highest level module is first.
spkezr_c --> SPKEZR --> SPKEZ --> SPKGEO --> SPKSFS --> DAFBBS
 
Oh, by the way:  The SPICELIB error handling actions are USER-TAILORABLE.  You
can choose whether the Toolkit aborts or continues when errors occur, which
error messages to output, and where to send the output.  Please read the ERROR
"Required Reading" file, or see the routines ERRACT, ERRDEV, and ERRPRT.
 
================================================================================
QObject::~QObject: Timers cannot be stopped from another thread

[bbercoviciUspace]

#211 (comment)

Accessing spice in parallel led to the corruption of data kernels.

[schaubh]

I don't think spice is thread-safe. I would use other tools to setup the planet motion in these cases.