Issues with Catalyst 2.0 Installation & Failing Tests (ctest)

In Situ Support
1

Hi everyone,

I am trying to install Catalyst 2.0 and run ctest, but I am encountering multiple test failures. I have followed the official documentation:
:link: Catalyst 2.0 Build & Install Guide

System Information:

  • OS: Windows 11
  • ParaView Version: 5.12.1
  • Python Version: 3.13.1
  • CMake Version: 3.31.4
  • Ninja Version: Latest via winget install Ninja-build.Ninja
  • Compilers: GCC 14.2.0 (from MSYS2)

Installation Process I Followed:

  1. Created 3 directories:

    • catalyst/ → Cloned the Catalyst repository using git clone
    • catalyst-build/ → For building
    • catalyst-install/ → Installation directory

  2. Ran CMake (Inside catalyst-build/):

    cmake -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE=ON -DCATALYST_WRAP_PYTHON=ON 
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\Users\bhave\OneDrive\Documents\Catalyst\catalyst-install 
-Wno-dev ../catalyst

    :white_check_mark: This step was completed successfully.

  3. Ran Ninja Build & Install:

    ninja
ninja install

    :white_check_mark: Build and install worked fine.

  4. Ran Tests Using CTest:

    ctest

    :x: A lot of test cases failed (~50%).

I got the following output when I ran ctest.

The following tests FAILED:
          4 - example-build-about (Failed)
          6 - example-install-about (Failed)
          8 - example-build-adaptor0 (Failed)
         10 - example-install-adaptor0 (Failed)
         12 - example-build-replay (Failed)
         14 - example-install-replay (Failed)
         17 - catalyst-abi-nm (Failed)
         18 - catalyst-impl-double (Failed)
         19 - catalyst-results (Failed)
         21 - catalyst-impl-external-conduit (Failed)
         22 - catalyst-impl-internal-conduit (Failed)
         23 - test_conduit_import_python (Failed)               Python
         24 - test_catalyst_import_python (Failed)              Python
         25 - test_double_impl_python (Failed)                  Python
         26 - t_conduit_node (Failed)
         35 - test-build-replay_high_num_execute_invc (Failed)
         37 - test-install-replay_high_num_execute_invc (Failed)
         43 - test-build-replay_missing_initialize_data (Failed)
         45 - test-install-replay_missing_initialize_data (Failed)
         47 - test-build-replay_missing_execute_invc (Failed)
         49 - test-install-replay_missing_execute_invc (Failed)
         51 - test-build-replay_high_num_execute_invc_python (Failed)
         53 - test-install-replay_high_num_execute_invc_python (Failed)
         55 - test-build-replay_no_data_dump_dir_python (Failed)
         57 - test-install-replay_no_data_dump_dir_python (Failed)
         59 - test-build-replay_missing_initialize_data_python (Failed)
         61 - test-install-replay_missing_initialize_data_python (Failed)
         63 - test-build-replay_missing_execute_invc_python (Failed)
         65 - test-install-replay_missing_execute_invc_python (Failed)
Errors while running CTest
Output from these tests are in: C:/Users/bhave/OneDrive/Documents/Catalyst/catalyst-build/Testing/Temporary/LastTest.log

I have added catalyst-build/bin to PATH.

Attached is the LastTest.log file which contains the verbose of all the test cases.
LastTest.log (3.2 MB)

I would really appreciate any insights from the community on how to fix all these errors. Let me know if you need more information!

Thanks,
Bhavesh

2

It looks like this is a debug build. I see d suffixes on the DLLs that probably need accounted for.

3

Yes indeed. The default CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is Debug. I didn’t specify anything unique, so the default value was used.

4

Looks like we should add a CI test for that.

5

Adding it here: https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/catalyst/-/merge_requests/126

6

So what should I do now to fix my problems? Even with the ctest errors, I tried to proceed and run the CxxFullExampleV2 example from Getting Started — ParaView Documentation 5.12.0 documentation.

I even followed the suggestions from these forum posts:

I have set the following environment variables:

  • CATALYST_IMPLEMENTATION_PATHS to C:\Program Files\ParaView 5.13.25022\bin\catalyst-paraview.dll
  • CATALYST_IMPLEMENTATION_NAME to paraview

Despite this, I’m still seeing the Failed to initialize Catalyst: 3 error.

7

I even changed my CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to Release (while building and installing catalyst), but still encountering the same errors and problems.

8

A Windows Debug build is certainly not going to work until that MR lands. As for using Release…make sure things actually got rebuilt? “3” means that the implementation was not found. There is the CATALYST_DEBUG=1 environment variable you can set that can help inform what libcatalyst is doing.

9

Hmm. It looks like I already fixed it a while ago. Python support is still untested as our Python lacks the _d versions of libraries. What version of libcatalyst are you using?

10

CATALYST_IMPLEMENTATION_PATHS should be just C:\Program Files\ParaView 5.13.25022\bin\

Also you may need to prepend the path C:\Program Files\ParaView 5.13.25022\bin\ to the system PATH.

11

I am using the latest version of libcatalyst, which is available here.

12

I updated CATALYST_IMPLEMENTATION_PATHS like you said and got the following output:

catalyst debug: implementation name from `catalyst_load/implementation`: paraview
catalyst debug: search path from `catalyst_load/search_paths`: ``
catalyst debug: search paths from `CATALYST_IMPLEMENTATION_PATHS`
WRN - The configuration file has not been found, using default parameters.
catalyst debug: trying to load `C:\Program Files\ParaView 5.13.25022\bin\/catalyst-paraview.dll`: valid
catalyst debug: loaded implementation: 00007ffd1b9c8000

So clearly, the errors about Failed to initialize Catalyst: 3 are gone, but nothing happens after this command. I don’t see anything new popping up or any simulation running.

13

Ok, so it is finding the DLL now at least. I’m not sure where that WRN line comes from; I don’t see the text in VTK or ParaView.

@Christos_Tsolakis Thoughts here?

14

The WRN error is indeed strange.

Is this the output of CxxFullExampleV2 ?

Are you passing the default script to CxxFullExampleV2 ?

15

I don’t think that the WRN is an error, so to say.
This is the output of running .\bin\CxxFullExampleV2 catalyst_pipeline.py.

16

That’s correct, but this warning does not come from ParaView or catalyst from what I can see. So it is strange that it is there.

This is the output of running .\bin\CxxFullExampleV2 catalyst_pipeline.py.

This looks right. Does the issue happen will other examples as well ?
Can you try this https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/tree/master/Examples/Catalyst2/CxxImageDataExample
The setup should be the similar.

17

That’s correct, but this warning does not come from ParaView or catalyst from what I can see. So it is strange that it is there.

Not directly related to the problem. But it looks like using paraview can indeed cause this warning. https://open.cdash.org/tests/1904815534

18

I tried the example you mentioned but got the same output. Do you think it has something to do with stub implementation or something? I was just looking up other forum posts, so thought so.

19

The stub implementation is the default one that indeed produces no results.
But these lines :

catalyst debug: implementation name from `catalyst_load/implementation`: paraview
...
catalyst debug: trying to load `C:\Program Files\ParaView 5.13.25022\bin\/catalyst-paraview.dll`: valid

show that you are using the ParaView implementation. So you should see the script executed.

Not sure what is going wrong here…

20

I just looked back in the ctest errors you get. It looks like PYTHONPATH is not properly set up.
Can you trying building catalyst with -DCATALYST_WRAP_PYTHON=OFF. Do the catalyst tests succeed in this case ?