# BUILD\_TESTING no longer an option?
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [March 14, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476 "2019-03-14T19:40:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@EthanStam](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/EthanStam)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/1 "2019-03-14T19:40:48Z")
I am building paraview master branch commit 77afed7ca10ebd83a1816d0024d5f121e3d4aef0 and I’m not seeing the option BUILD\_TESTING anymore. I tried setting the options PARAVIEW\_BUILD\_TESTING and PARAVIEW\_BUILD\_VTK\_TESTING on, but ExternalData doesn’t build.
How do I build testing with ExternalData?
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2019, 9:20am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/2 "2019-03-15T09:20:02Z")
The following works on master and generates ExternalData :
`PARAVIEW_BUILD_TESTING="WANT"`
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/3 "2019-03-15T17:45:33Z")
WANT? That is NOT intuitive. Why not YES or NO?
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2019, 8:48am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/4 "2019-03-18T08:48:38Z")
@ben.boeckel
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### Author:  [@EthanStam](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/EthanStam)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2019, 6:27pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/5 "2019-03-20T18:27:21Z")
I tried ON and WANT for PARAVIEW\_BUILD\_TESTING.
Neither generated ExternalData. Are there any other options I should be enabling?
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### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2019, 6:51pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/6 "2019-03-20T18:51:06Z")
@wascott `ON` means “force testing to be on” which can conflict with settings like MPI being off. `WANT` says “enable testing and their dependencies, but skip if some required module is disabled”. As for why the tests aren’t showing up, that’s interesting. The buildbots (and I at least) are using it just fine. Is there a `ParaViewData` target generated?
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### Author:  [@EthanStam](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/EthanStam)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2019, 7:13pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/7 "2019-03-20T19:13:58Z")
It actually did generate. I just thought it wasn’t, because my ctest IO tests were failing. Ctest is looking for the VTK data in build\_root/VTK/ExternalData/Testing/Data but it is generated in build\_root/ExternalData/VTK/Testing/Data.
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### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2019, 7:49pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/8 "2019-03-20T19:49:51Z")
I just fixed this today 🙂 . [https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/merge\_requests/3125](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/merge_requests/3125)
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### Author:  [@EthanStam](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/EthanStam)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2019, 7:52pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/9 "2019-03-20T19:52:01Z")
Oh cool! I’ll pull the master and try that. Thanks Ben
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### Author:  [@olesenm](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/olesenm)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2020, 8:39am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/10 "2020-03-17T08:39:26Z")
Not sure if this is related, but with paraview 5.8 now getting some build failures. As per paraview 5.7 and earlier I’ve disabled testing with this
```auto
-DBUILD_TESTING=OFF
```
Nonetheless, the testing parts attempt to build, and after some build time things bomb out with an error:
```auto
fatal error: ../../ParaView-v5.8.0/ThirdParty/QtTesting/vtkqttesting/pq3DViewEventPlayer.h: No such file or directory
```
I used `ccmake` to inspect which variables are actually available. There is a whole myriad of paraview and vtk testing variables. I really hope that I don’t need to disable each and every one of them.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/11 "2020-03-17T08:43:30Z")
Can you try from scratch ?
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### Author:  [@olesenm](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/olesenm)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2020, 12:47pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/build-testing-no-longer-an-option/1476/12 "2020-03-17T12:47:47Z")
Thanks for the hint!
Indeed caused by a dirty build. Must have had something still lurking in one of the directories.
/mark