New Windows installers

[raback]

Hi

There has been some new Windows installers available for testing:

https://www.nic.funet.fi/index/elmer/bin/windows-test/

The installer has still problem with Qt5 bundled files. So the "gui" version is yet not operational. However, the MS MPI and gfortran seem to be working ok. So if these are sufficient for you then you can probably use the "nogui_mpi" version.

Hopefully bundling of Qt5 libraries will be resolved soon and the fresh installer will be available with all the goodies.

-Peter

[raback]

Hi

ElmerGUI seems to work now as well. Unfortunately without OCC and QWT.

If you install manully then add these (here I've assumed installation path c:\Elmer8.4)

Code: Select all

set ELMER_HOME=c:\Elmer8.4
set ELMERGUI_HOME=%ELMER_HOME%\share\ElmerGUI
set ELMER_LIB=%ELMER_HOME%\share\elmersolver\lib
set PATH=%PATH%;%ELMER_HOME%\bin;%ELMER_HOME%\lib

If you are not interested in parallel computation the nompi version may be better for you. The mpi version requires MSMPI 10.1.1. to be installed. The installer tries to do this automatically.

-Peter

[mzenker]

Hi,

I have just tried the new installer on a Win10 machine. ElmerGUI does not start ("no Qt platform plugin could be initialized").
ElmerSolver works.
Do I need to install Qt separately? If so, which package?

Matthias

[kevinarden]

I have the same issue on windows 10, solver works fine. GUI has a QT issue. On unix, GUI works but Ububtu 18 or later the convergence tracking plot doesn't work due to a QT issue. W10, Ubuntu 18, QT is out of sorts for GUI.

[mzenker]

Hi,

I tried to find out something about the qt issue. It might have to do with the deployment process of qt. It seems that for Windows, qwindows.dll is needed, and that it has to reside in $ELMERHOME\bin\platforms.
I didn't find a possibility to download the dll in the right version (5.13.2) without installing the whole qt separately. It might also be necessary to create a qt.conf file as described here: https://github.com/owncloud/client/issues/7034
Maybe you could quickly try if copying the dll to a platforms directory solves the problem?
If so, the qt deployment might need to be fixed for ElmerGUI...

HTH,
Matthias

[mzenker]

Update:
I managed to find qwindows.dll in the right version and copied it into a platforms folder in the bin directory. The error message is the same, but now it additionnally says that a platform plugin for windows is found. In a forum I have found the remark that if the application is compiled in debug mode, qwindowsd.dll (note the "d") is also needed. I did not find this dll with the correct version. Using another version did not work.
But I am rather sure that the problem comes from the qt deployment. There are tools to help determine which dlls are needed, etc.
If the corresponding expert from the Elmer team looks into it, we will very likely get a fix for the benefit of all...

Matthias

P. S.: There seems to be a new mechanism in this forum to prevent spam, which consists in blacklisting IP addresses. I have run into it for the second time within a few days. You have to go to the website spamhaus.org and request removal, which seems to last for a short time only. This is rather annoying...

[raback]

Hi All,

Thanx for testing out these installers. I can confirm that I still have the same problem myself too. The problem is not present on the virtual machine. I figured out that the reason is that it still accesses the plugins there used in the build phase. My suspicion is that QT_PLUGIN_PATH is herited from the system and not relative to the installation. I will look into it

EDIT: It turned out that if the plugins are copied to $ELMER_HOME\plugins and the QT_PLUGINS_HOME is set to the same directory this works. I.e.

Code: Select all

set QT_PLUGIN_PATH=%ELMER_HOME%\plugins

I will add the relevant plugins to the distro later. However, if you want to test this fix already the "plugins.zip" is there already. Just unzip it under $ELMER_HOME.

-Peter

[raback]

Hi

About the plugin directory: "In Qt, when an application starts, the application's executable directory is the base directory where Qt searches for plugins. For example, on Windows, if the application is in C:\Program Files\MyApp and it has a style plugin, Qt looks in C:\Program Files\MyApp\styles ."

Hence, if you have $ELMER_HOME\bin\platforms\qwindows.dll that is automatically found and no path definition is needed.

There are now updated installers available for testing. The plugin should be automatically found, no need to tamper with the plugin directory.

-Peter

[mzenker]

Hi,

I have just installed the latest nightly build. Now ElmerGUI works on my Windoze 10 machine. Thankx for fixing!
ElmerGUI has got a new tree view which looks very promising! I will test it as soon as I can and report back in another thread.

Matthias

PS: The domain IP addresses of my company seem to be systematically blocked by the spamhaus mechanism. I have to request unblocking again...

[raback]

Hi

Yes, Saeki has made nice new developments. Its about time that these are available.

Look at GitHub pull requests for more detailed list of new features:

https://github.com/ElmerCSC/elmerfem/pull/194 & 192 & 193

-Peter