Troubleshooting

Common problems and how to resolve them. If your issue is not here, see Getting help.

command not found: simdb

The install location’s bin directory is not on your PATH.

  • Activate the virtual environment you installed into (source venv/bin/activate), or

  • add the pip script directory to your PATH.

See Installation.

Configuration file permission errors

On Linux and macOS the user config file must be readable only by you. If SimDB complains about incorrect permissions:

chmod 600 "$(simdb config path)"

See Client configuration.

Cannot connect to a remote / SSL certificate errors

  • Check the remote URL: simdb remote config list, then simdb remote test.

  • On an ITER HPC node, install the ITER CA bundle and set SIMDB_REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE. See Connect to ITER.

  • For remote IMAS data, make sure the data server’s port is reachable through your firewall. Contact your system administrator if not.

Authentication keeps prompting

If the server supports tokens, create one so you are not asked every time:

simdb remote token new

Servers behind an F5 firewall (including simdb.iter.org) do not support tokens; you authenticate at the firewall each session. See Authenticate.

Validation fails

The two usual causes:

  • A data source is missing or its checksum changed since ingestion. Restore the file or re-ingest from an updated manifest.

  • Required metadata is missing. Check the server’s requirements with simdb remote schema -d 10 and add the fields.

See Validate a simulation.

Cannot read MDSplus (AL4) data

SimDB reads Access Layer 5 (AL5) data or later. Migrate AL4 MDSplus data first. See Migrate AL4 MDSplus data.

Server will not start: port already in use

Another service is using port 5000. Stop it, or change the port. For the built-in server set [server] port in app.cfg; behind Nginx/Gunicorn change the bind address. See Run a development server.

PostgreSQL connection refused

For a local database, check pg_hba.conf in the PostgreSQL data directory and ensure the connection method is trust (or another you can authenticate with) rather than ident. See Set up PostgreSQL.

Getting help