Installing MFC in ubuntu about mfc

[henryleberre]

Hello Syam, documentation on how to build and install MFC can be found under doc/documentation/building.md or on our website.

If you are still getting an error, please post what you have tried and what error you are receiving so we can better assist you!

[syam-s]

Thank you and I appreciate your swift response. I will get back to you soon.

[henryleberre]

@syam-s are you still having trouble building MFC ?

[syam-s]

Sorry for the delay in the response @henryleberre...

I am still facing some issues. The errors I am having are at the end of the installation and are pasted below,

---

CMake Error: Problem with archive_read_open_file(): Unrecognized archive format
CMake Error: Problem extracting tar: /xxxxxxxx/Downloads/MFC/build/fftw/fftw-prefix/src/fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz
-- extracting... [error clean up]
CMake Error at fftw-stamp/extract-fftw.cmake:33 (message):
error: extract of
'/xxxxxxxx/Downloads/MFC/build/fftw/fftw-prefix/src/fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz'
failed

gmake[3]: *** [CMakeFiles/fftw.dir/build.make:100: fftw-prefix/src/fftw-stamp/fftw-download] Error 1
gmake[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:83: CMakeFiles/fftw.dir/all] Error 2
gmake[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:90: CMakeFiles/fftw.dir/rule] Error 2
gmake: *** [Makefile:124: fftw] Error 2

Error: Failed to build the fftw target.

Terminated
mfc: Exiting the Python virtual environment.

---

Please comment your thought on these issues.

[syam-s]

I also tried to install MGC with CMake and I am getting this error,

xxxxxxxx~/Downloads/MFC-4.1.2$ cmake .
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 11.3.0
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 11.3.0
-- The Fortran compiler identification is GNU 11.3.0
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc - skipped
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ - skipped
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- Detecting Fortran compiler ABI info
-- Detecting Fortran compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working Fortran compiler: /usr/bin/gfortran - skipped
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:55 (find_program):
Could not find FYPP_EXE using the following names: fypp

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "/xxxxxxxx/Downloads/MFC-4.1.2/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
xxxxxxxx:~/Downloads/MFC-4.1.2$

[henryleberre]

@syam-s Could you try running:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install tar wget make cmake gcc g++ \
                   python3 python3-dev         \
                   "openmpi-*" libopenmpi-dev

(from https://mflowcode.github.io/documentation/md_building.html)

Notice that tar is a dependency. I am guessing that CMake can't find tar to untar the FFTW source archive.

If you want to run CMake manually, you will have to install Fypp using pip3 install fypp. We use it to pre-process Fortran source files.

I hope this resolves your issue!

[syam-s]

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install tar wget make cmake gcc g++
python3 python3-dev
"openmpi-*" libopenmpi-dev

I am getting the same error after following the above instructions. I have checked the availability of the file in the destination folder and found "fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz" there. When I tried to untar the file I received the error below,

/Downloads/MFC/build/fftw/fftw-prefix/src$ tar -xvzf fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

Then I downloaded it from "http://www.fftw.org/fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz" and extracted it. The extraction process worked. I think there is an issue with the "fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz" file present at the "MFC/build/fftw/fftw-prefix/src".

Also, please instruct me on how to install with CMakeList.txt too.

[henryleberre]

This error is interesting, I have never seen it before. The archive appears to be corrupted. I apologize you ran into this issue.

Solution 1

$ rm -rf build/fftw
$ ./mfc.sh build <your arguments here - if any>

This will give CMake another chance at downloading and extracting the FFTW source archive. It will then proceed as usual.

Solution 2

Replace /Downloads/MFC/build/fftw/fftw-prefix/src/fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz with the archive you downloaded (and were able to extract successfully).

Solution 3

$ sudo apt install libfftw3-dev
$ rm -rf build/fftw
$ ./mfc.sh build <your arguments here - if any> --no-fftw

It requests that MFC not download and install FFTW from source. It will instead search for a version already installed on your system (e.g from sudo apt install libfftw3-dev).

Building without mfc.sh (not recommended)

The error isn't with mfc.sh itself so I wouldn't advise using CMake directly, as you lose the ability to easily run cases and test MFC. Building MFC (and not its dependencies: Silo and FFTW) can be done via

rm -rf build && cmake -B build -S . -DMFC_BUILD_ALL=ON

You will have to manually install FFTW (if you want to build Simulation or Post-Process) and Silo (for Post-Process). mfc.sh uses the CMake super-build file from toolchain/dependencies/CMakeLists.txt.

Please let me know if this resolves your issue (or not) !

[syam-s]

Good news @henryleberre...

I have tried Solutions 1 & 2, but they didn't work.

So, I have tried to find where the "fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz" downloading command comes from. I have found that the downloading link is given in the "MFC/toolchain/dependencies". Then I checked the "fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz" repository link, which is given in the dependencies file was "http://www.fftw.org/fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz". Even though I could download the file from this link and extract it manually, the actual public release link is not this. The real link for the public release is "https://fftw.org/pub/fftw/fftw-3.3.10.tar.gz". Then I edited the "MFC/toolchain/dependencies" file and replaced the old link with the new one. After saving the file, I followed the Solution 1 instruction. Finally, the MFC build was successful and finished without any errors.

So, please check the "MFC/toolchain/dependencies" file and make suitable changes if t is a real issue for everyone. If it is only my issue, please ignore the suggestion.

@henryleberre, thank you for your support and swift replies in solving this issue. I am looking forward to exploring MFC capabilities and trying to use for my research work.

Thank you MFC team.

[henryleberre]

Thank you for the update @syam-s. I am unable to reproduce the issue you faced with downloading the FFTW source archive. I originally obtained the link from http://www.fftw.org/download.html. If others encounter this issue in the future, I will take a closer look. We build on many different systems and we have never seen this before..

We are looking forward to reading about your research using MFC!

I am closing this issue as "can't reproduce" for now so it can be reopened if we can.