Is there a setting to attempt to keep ParaView alive after a server disconnect?

ParaView Support
1

I often run into the issue where ParaView client/server will disconnect for some reason, e.g., put my client (laptop) to sleep/hibernate, WiFi network blips / changes. Whenever the server disconnects, you get the message that ParaView will quit since it may be in an unrecoverable state:

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My question is whether it’s possible to ask it not to quit, but to either

  1. Attempt to reconnect to the server
  2. Issue a “Reset Session” command and attempt to stay alive.

Either one of these being possible would save me considerable pain.

2

Is the server still running ?

In any case, there is no server recovery code in ParaView where a disconnected server and client could reconnect. This is maybe implementable.

The dialog you see is usually received when the server stopped for some reason, which is a typical usecase with HPC node reserver finishing.

3

In many cases, yes (or at least it appears to be). Here’s an example where I’ve spun up pvserver via my workstation (VS Code remote shell) and then connected a ParaView client on my laptop. After connecting I then disconnected and reconnected the laptop’s VPN temporarily, simulating going through a short tunnel while on the train – causing the client to crash (note the VPN has reconnected):

Here’s the VS Code session on the workstation that launched pvserver in the background. Note that I’ve aliased my pvserver command:

alias pvserver='/path/to/paraview_headless/bin/mpiexec -n 8 /path/to/paraview_headless/bin/pvserver --server-port=14774'

This screenshot was taken ~30 seconds after the client ParaView crashed… looks like pvserver is still running.

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Though launching a new client and trying to connect fails to connect:

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4

In many cases, yes (or at least it appears to be).

Then it truly means that there is a transient disconnection that unsynchronize the server and the client.

I see two ways forward:

  1. Being more resilient to disconnection
  2. Add some kind of recovery code so that client and server can reset session and connect again