Re: [gentoo-science] Mathematica issue

[christoph irrenfried]

First of all thanks for your great help!

On 02/06/2015 12:24 AM, Andrew Savchenko wrote:

> 1) Run Mathematica from console. It may drop to the terminal some
> useful messages (errors, warngings, etc) which may give a clue.
There is no output at all.

> 2) If any security mechanisms are engaged (e.g. SELinux, PaX,
> GrSecurity, Yama framework and so on), please disable all of them
> for testing. They may interfere with complex proprietary software
> badly.
>
> 3) Please be sure, that iptables on your host are not a hinder
> (e.g. disable iptables for testing, if in use).
I can work with Mathematica on my VirtualBox where I have Win7
installed, therefore I assume that cant be the problem.
> 4) Run tcpdump (net-analyzer/tcpdump) to see what Mathematica tries
> to do on the net, in particular what ip and port it tries to
> access. Verify that they are accessible using netcat or telnet.
I looked through the output and tried to telnet all addresses and it
worked. There is a lot of communication going on between the host and
the server. On Monday when my colleague is back I will compare my output
against his.
> 5) Try to run Mathematica in terminal in debug mode. Since I don't
> have this app right now I can't tell you exactly how to enable it,
> but looking for --help output (or in Mathematica docs) may help.
> Maybe it supports something like --verbose or --debug, which will
> help you to get more information, then in step 1).
/chi@fslgdpc46 ~ $ math -lmverbose//
//Mathematica 10.0 for Linux x86 (64-bit)//
//Copyright 1988-2014 Wolfram Research, Inc.//
//Talk to server 'lizenzxxxxxx.at' on port 16286 ...//
//Error reading: Success.//
//Talk to server '///lizenzxxxxxx/.at' on port 16286 ...//
//Error reading: Success.//
//
//Mathematica cannot find a valid password.//
//
//For automatic Web Activation enter your activation key//
//(enter return to skip Web Activation): /
It looks like the connection is fine but can't find a password which is
wired because with the VirtualBox it worked and that is the same ip
which requests a password.
> 6) Inspect Mathematica requirements from its docs, maybe some
> package or tool is missed, maybe version is wrong.
Thats the wired thing because everything worked fine and it stopped
working after I did a world update. But I will try to find out what
packages Mathematica needs and look if i have them all.

>
> 7) If anything above fails, there is one more step, an ultimate one.
> Run (assuming Mathematica command runs it):
>
> $ strace -ff Mathematica -o mathematica
> (install dev-util/strace if you don't have it)
>
> And look through all mathematica.$pid files. They will contain
> every system call. You will be able to see what files application
> tries to access, what network actions it tries to perform and so
> on. The answer will be there, but it will not be very easy to find.
>
> A good start will be to grep trough all file and socket access (or
> use -e filter of strace itself). Maybe it tries to load some
> library, or to run some tool and fails. Maybe required component is
> present on your system, but version is different from what is
> needed.
>
> 8) As a complementary to strace you may use dev-util/ltrace. ltrace
> will print you *each* library call made buy an application. Output
> data will be enormous, but will contain a very detail fingerprint
> of what application does. With some effort this should help to
> understand what is wrong.
>
> Best regards,
> Andrew Savchenko

These steps I try on the weekend.

Thanks for you afford it is greatly appreciated!!!!

chi