Job or Queue Reported in Error State E

Job or queue errors are indicated by an uppercase E in the qstat output.

A job enters the error state when the grid engine system tries to run a job but fails for a reason that is specific to the job.

A queue enters the error state when the grid engine system tries to run a job but fails for a reason that is specific to the queue.

The grid engine system offers a set of possibilities for users and administrators to gather diagnosis information in case of job execution errors. Both the queue and the job error states result from a failed job execution. Therefore the diagnosis possibilities are applicable to both types of error states.

• User abort mail. If jobs are submitted with the qsub -m a command, abort mail is sent to the address specified with the -M user[@host] option. The abort mail contains diagnosis information about job errors. Abort mail is the recommended source of information for users.

• qacct accounting. If no abort mail is available, the user can run the qacct -j command. This command gets information about the job error from the grid engine system's job accounting function.

• Administrator abort mail. An administrator can order administrator mails about job execution problems by specifying an appropriate email address. See under administrator_mail on the sge_conf(5) man page. Administrator mail contains more detailed diagnosis information than user abort mail. Administrator mail is the recommended method in case of frequent job execution errors.

• Messages files. If no administrator mail is available, you should investigate the qmaster messages file first. You can find entries that are related to a certain job by searching for the appropriate job ID. In the default installation, the qmaster messages file is sge-root/cell/spool/qmaster/messages.

  You can sometimes find additional information in the messages of the execd daemon from which the job was started. Use qacct -j job-id to discover the host from which the job was started, and search in sge-root/cell/spool/host/messages for the job ID.