Firefox is hanging/becoming unresponsive due to javascript code. After stopping the script manually to get firefox back in control I have the following message in the console

17:21:28.821 Script terminated by timeout at:
MhistoryGraph.prototype.drawTAxis@http://lem03.psi.ch:8081/mhistory.js:2828:7
MhistoryGraph.prototype.draw@http://lem03.psi.ch:8081/mhistory.js:1792:9
mhistory.js:2828:7

Any ideas how to resolve this??

> > Firefox is hanging/becoming unresponsive due to javascript code. After stopping the script manually to get firefox back in control I have the following message in the console
> > 
> > 17:21:28.821 Script terminated by timeout at:
> > MhistoryGraph.prototype.drawTAxis@http://lem03.psi.ch:8081/mhistory.js:2828:7
> > MhistoryGraph.prototype.draw@http://lem03.psi.ch:8081/mhistory.js:1792:9
> > mhistory.js:2828:7
> > 
> > Any ideas how to resolve this??
> 
> I have to reproduce the problem. Can you send me the full URL from your browser when you see that problem? Probably you have some "special" axis limits, so we don't see that 
> problem anywhere else.
> 
> Stefan

Hi Stefan and Konstantin,

The URL (reachable only within PSI) is http://lem03.psi.ch:8081/?cmd=custom&page=Mudas
Firefox is version 91.12.0esr (64-bit), but I had similar issues with chrome/chromium too.
The hangs seem to happen randomly so I have not been able to reproduce it yet. 
I have histories here  http://lem03.psi.ch:8081/?cmd=custom&page=Mudas&tab=3 (30 minutes each), but I have also histories popping up in modals though they do not cause any issues. 
I'll try to reproduce it in the coming few days and report again.

thanks,
Zaher

I found the bug. The problem is triggered by changing the firefox window. This calls a function that is supposed to change the size of the history plot and it works well when the history plots are visible but not if the history plots are hidden in a javascript tab (not another firefox tab).

Is there a clean way to resize the history plot if the parent div changes size?? The offending code is
mhist[i].mhg = new MhistoryGraph(mhist[i]);
mhist[i].mhg.initializePanel(i);
mhist[i].mhg.resize();
mhist[i].resize = function () {
   mhis.mhg.resize();
};

> The problem lies in your function mhistory_init_one() in Mudas.js:1965. You can only call "new MhistoryGraph(e)" with an element "e" which is something like
> 
> <div class="mjshistory" data-group="..." data-panel="..." data-base-u-r-l="https://host.psi.ch/?cmd=history" title="">
> 
> Please note the "data-base-u-r-l". This gets automatically added by the function mhistory_init() in mhistory.js:48. The URL is necessary sot that the upper right button in a history graph works which goes to a history page only showing the current graph.
> 
> In you function mhistory_init_one() you forgot the call
> 
>    mhist.dataset.baseURL = baseURL; 
> 
> where baseURL has to come from the current address bar like
> 
>    let baseURL = window.location.href;
>    if (baseURL.indexOf("?cmd") > 0)
>       baseURL = baseURL.substr(0, baseURL.indexOf("?cmd"));
>    baseURL += "?cmd=history";
> 
> If you duplicate some functionality from mhistory.js, please make sure to duplicate it completely.
> 

Thanks Stefan, but this was not the problem since I am setting the baseURL. You may have looked at the code during my debugging.

Some of my histories are placed in an IFrame object. I eventually realized that my code fails when it tries to resize a history which is placed in an invisible IFrame. I resolved the issue by making sure that I am resizing plots only if they are in a visible IFrame.
  

Hello ,

The midas sequencer uses the function js_seq_list_files to get a list of files in the /Sequencer/State/Path with extension *.msl. It would be nice to generalize this function to be able to read files with other (or any) extension.

Based on the js_seq_list_files I added a function in js_any_list_files mjsonrpc_user.cxx (attached) which does the job. Maybe a better/safer implementation can be made in midas. Are there any plans to do this?

thanks.

The histories capture key events from 'r' 'u' 'y' and 'Escape' for various functions like rescaling etc. However, this also means that if we include an editable modbvalue and a history in the same custom page then changing the modbvalue to something that includes 'ruy' is not possible.

In mhistory.js we have

// Keyboard event handler (has to be on the window!)
window.addEventListener("keydown", this.keyDown.bind(this));

I am not sure why it "has to be on the window". For now, I am bypassing this issue by changing the event listener to "keyup" but maybe there is a more elegant solution for this. Adding the event listener to the div element that includes the history does not seem to work.

I agree with you, option 2 is better and works well. 
The only problem is that if you are showing multiple histograms in the same window the keyDown even will affect all of the histories in the window. 
This may be the intended behaviour, but I think that if we can find a way to have the event affecting only the intended history (focused element for example) it would be better.

Zaher 

> > The histories capture key events from 'r' 'u' 'y' and 'Escape' for various functions like rescaling etc. However, this also means that if we include an editable modbvalue and a history in the same custom page then changing the modbvalue to something that includes 'ruy' is not possible.
> > 
> > In mhistory.js we have
> > 
> > // Keyboard event handler (has to be on the window!)
> > window.addEventListener("keydown", this.keyDown.bind(this));
> > 
> > I am not sure why it "has to be on the window". For now, I am bypassing this issue by changing the event listener to "keyup" but maybe there is a more elegant solution for this. Adding the event listener to the div element that includes the history does not seem to work.
> 
> I could reproduce the problem. I see two options there:
> 
> 1) We replace 'r' with 'Ctrl-r' etc. 
> 
> 2) We change the history JS code not to process keyboard inputs if we are currently editing a value.
> 
> I added 2) to give it a try. It works fine for me. The additional code is
> 
> MhistoryGraph.prototype.keyDown = function (e) {
>    // don't consume events if we are editing a value
>    if (e.target.tagName === "INPUT")
>       return;
>    ...
> }
> 
> 
> Feedback is welcome.
> 
> Stefan

Have you actually been able to read /etc/passwd this way? I tested this on a few of our servers and it does not work. As far as I know, there is access to files in resources, custom pages etc.

Other possible ways to access the file system is via mjsonrpc calls, but again these are restricted to certain folders.

Can you please give us more details about this.

Zaher

> > (e.g. http://midas.host:8080/etc/passwd)
> 
> not again! I complained about this before, and I added a fix, but it must be broken again.
> 
> getting a copy of /etc/passwd is reasonably benign, but getting a copy of 
> /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa, id_rsa.pub, knownhosts and authorized_keys is a disaster.
> 
> (running mhttpd behind a web proxy does not solve the problem, number of attackers is 
> reduced to only the people who know the proxy password and to local users).
> 
> K.O.

Hello,

Since commit bc227a8a34def271a598c0200ca30d73223c3373 I've been getting the compilation error below (on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3).

The fix is obvious from the reported error, but I am wondering whether this should be fixed in the main git??

Thanks,

Zaher

Hello everyone,

It seems that if a frontend is started automatically by using Program->Auto start then the status page does not show it as started. This is since the FE name has a number after the name. If I stop and start manually then the status page shows the correct state of the FE. Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug somewhere?

thanks,
Zaher

Could you please export and send me the /Sequencer ODB tree (or just /Sequencer/Param and /Sequencer/Variables) in both cases while the sequence is running. 

thanks,
Zaher


> Good afternoon,
> 
> After updating Midas to the latest develop commit 
> (0f5436d901a1dfaf6da2b94e2d87f870e3611cf1) we found out a bug when starting 
> sequencer. If we have a simple loop from start value to stop value and step 
> size, just printing the value at each iteration, we see everything good (see 
> first attachment). Then we included another script though, which contains 
> several subroutines we defined for our detector, and we try to run the same 
> script. Unfortunately after this the parameters seem uninitialized, and the 
> value at each loop does not make sense (see second attachment). Also, sometimes 
> when pressing run the set parameter window would pop-up, but sometimes not.
> 
> The script is this one:
> 
> >>>
> COMMENT Test script to check for a specific bug
> 
> INCLUDE global_basic_functions
> 
> #CALL setup_paths
> #CALL generate_DUT_params
> 
> PARAM lv_start, "Start of LV", 1.8
> PARAM lv_stop, "Stop of LV", 2.1
> PARAM lv_step, "Step of LV", 0.02
> 
> n_iterations = (($lv_stop - $lv_start)/$lv_step)
> 
> MSG "Parameters:"
> MSG $lv_start
> MSG $lv_stop
> MSG $lv_step
> MSG $n_iterations
> 
> MSG "Start of looping"
> 
> LOOP n, $n_iterations
>    lv_now = $lv_start + $n * $lv_step
>    MSG $lv_now
>    WAIT SECONDS, 1
> ENDLOOP
> <<<
> 
> and the only difference comes from commenting the line:
> 
> >>>
> INCLUDE global_basic_functions
> <<<
> 
> as global_basic_functions is defined as a LIBRARY and it includes 75 (!) 
> subroutines...
> 
> Is it possible that when loading a large script it messes up the loading of 
> parameters?
> 
> Thank you very much,
> Regards,
> Luigi.

I have been able to reproduce the problem only once. From what I see, it seems that the Variables ODB tree is not initialized properly from the Param tree. Below are the messages from the failed run compared to a successful one. As far as I could see, the javascript code does not change anything in the Variables ODB tree (only monitors it). The actual changes are done by the sequencer program, or am I wrong?

Failed run:
16:14:25.849 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO]  + 3 * 
16:14:24.722 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO]  + 2 * 
16:14:23.594 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO]  + 1 * 
16:14:23.592 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] Start of looping
16:14:23.591 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] (( - )/)
16:14:23.591 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 
16:14:23.590 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 
16:14:23.590 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 
16:14:23.589 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] Parameters:
16:14:23.562 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,TALK] Sequencer started with script "testpars.msl".


Successful run:
16:15:37.472 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 1.820000
16:15:37.471 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] Start of looping
16:15:37.471 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 15
16:15:37.470 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 0.020000
16:15:37.470 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 2.100000
16:15:37.469 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] 1.800000
16:15:37.469 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,INFO] Parameters:
16:15:37.450 2024/05/03 [Sequencer,TALK] Sequencer started with script "testpars.msl".

Thanks for the hint Stefan. I pushed a possible fix but I cannot test it since I cannot reproduce the issue.

> Ahh, that rings a bell:
> 
> 1) JS opens start dialog box
> 2) User enters parameters and presses start
> 3) JS writes parameters
> 4) JS starts sequencer
> 5) Sequencer copies parameters to variables
> 
> Now how do you handle 3) and 4). Just issue two mjsonrpc commands together? What then could happen is that 4) is executed before 3) and we get the garbage.
> You have to do 3) and WAIT for the return ("then" in the JS promise), and only then issue 4) from there.
> 
> Stefan

Dear friends,

We have some questions on using midas.
We use a Caen digitizer V1751 to take waveforms.
When testing with caen provided programs, we roughly know it can work fine at 1000 Hz event rate, and 30 M/s data can be written to disk.
The test with Midas, however, is a little confusing. We use CAENDigitizer library with Midas. First, it works, data were taken, and there seems no error.
The only problem is we cannot go to a higher event rate, for example we can only work on a rate of 40 Hz, and only 3 M/s data recording. Otherwise it will crush.

We may miss something really simple. Would you please give some suggestions? for example, other people's discussions or documents?

Thank you very much.

Dear friends,

I may add a little more information.
For polling event, we check the data-ready register for the status of the digitizer.
In the readout routine, we create a bank, readout the data and write it out.

We commented out or made some replacement for each part of the subroutines to figure our where exactly goes wrong.
for example, replace the readout from the digitizer with a random generation of some fake events.
By replacing the readout by a random generation, the program runs fine and reach a very high event rates.

Any suggestions or ideas from experts?

Thank you very much.

--
Best regards,
Zhe Wang


> Dear friends,
> 
> We have some questions on using midas.
> We use a Caen digitizer V1751 to take waveforms.
> When testing with caen provided programs, we roughly know it can work fine at 1000 Hz event rate, and 30 M/s data can be written to disk.
> The test with Midas, however, is a little confusing. We use CAENDigitizer library with Midas. First, it works, data were taken, and there seems no error.
> The only problem is we cannot go to a higher event rate, for example we can only work on a rate of 40 Hz, and only 3 M/s data recording. Otherwise it will crush.
> 
> We may miss something really simple. Would you please give some suggestions? for example, other people's discussions or documents?
> 
> Thank you very much.

Dear friends,

In case anyone need the source code, it is attached. 
We use optic fiber to connect to a VME controler, which talks to V1751 via VME bus.

--
Zhe Wang

> Dear friends,
> 
> I may add a little more information.
> For polling event, we check the data-ready register for the status of the digitizer.
> In the readout routine, we create a bank, readout the data and write it out.
> 
> We commented out or made some replacement for each part of the subroutines to figure our where exactly goes wrong.
> for example, replace the readout from the digitizer with a random generation of some fake events.
> By replacing the readout by a random generation, the program runs fine and reach a very high event rates.
> 
> Any suggestions or ideas from experts?
> 
> Thank you very much.
> 
> --
> Best regards,
> Zhe Wang
> 
> 
> > Dear friends,
> > 
> > We have some questions on using midas.
> > We use a Caen digitizer V1751 to take waveforms.
> > When testing with caen provided programs, we roughly know it can work fine at 1000 Hz event rate, and 30 M/s data can be written to disk.
> > The test with Midas, however, is a little confusing. We use CAENDigitizer library with Midas. First, it works, data were taken, and there seems no error.
> > The only problem is we cannot go to a higher event rate, for example we can only work on a rate of 40 Hz, and only 3 M/s data recording. Otherwise it will crush.
> > 
> > We may miss something really simple. Would you please give some suggestions? for example, other people's discussions or documents?
> > 
> > Thank you very much.

Somehow I don't understand why people's reply is only in my mail box.
So I pasted them here. I hope they don't mind and these information may be useful for others.

The following is some discussion.
==========================================================================================
> In read_trigger_event(), you creating a secondary bank with time in
> second. For your information, this time in second is already written in
> the event header. You can retrieve the time using macros from the
> midas.h   time = TIME_STAMP(pevent)

Removed.

>
> In frontend_init() you loop over NFADC (1) and call for each loop
> frontend_config() after opening the device on that card. In
> frontend_config() you redo a loop over NFADC, meaning that in case of
> more than one card you will find the second one not open on the first
> frontend_config (ok for one card though).
>

Corrected.

> In frontend_config() what is the return sCAEN from MallocReadoutBuffer()?
> What is the size of the requested allocated buffer?

The return size of allocated buffer is 134936.

>
> What is the value of the sCAEN from the ReadData() function in
> read_trigger_event()?

It is always 0 for success until it crashes.
However, even for the event it crashes, it also appears as 0.

>
> I didn't check all the config parameters!
>
> What is the value of count in the poll_event(). It is true if the test
> in poll_event() is too short, it cause timing corruption during
> calibration. 

Do you mean Midas timing calibration for poll_event() before all finally start up?
We havn't observed corruption at this stage.

> This never happen during CAMAC time... to be fixed!
> The alternative is to include a ss_sleep(1) instead of the prescale.
> a 1ms delay between every poll is short enough to ensure your 1KHz trigger.

We tried ss_sleep(1) in poll_event(), and it doesn't help.
We also tried add a ss_sleep(10) in the read_trigger_event().
This may work. But we can only reach 100 Hz and 1 MB/s rate. Still low.

>
> How long do you spend in the read_trigger_event()? To be measured.

We add some timers in this part of the program.
The time spent on CAEN_DGTZ_ReadData is about 100 us.
To sleep 1 ms in read_trigger_event may delay the crush, but just one minute.
To sleep 10 ms works.

>
> I still don't understand your setup as you mention using optic fiber to
> access the VME controller? do you have a A3818 or similar to the
> controller? If so why don't you connect directly the optic to the VX1751
> and prevent the use of the VME backplane?

Our connect is:
A2818 (PCI) - fiber - V2718 (Bridge) - VME - V1751
We probably need to configure other vme boards through VME at the same time,
however, these boards don't have a fiber connection.

We also tested direct fiber connect for V1751 today.
But it crashes with the same symptom.
==========================================================================================

Suggestion from John and my reply.

> We have achieved very high rates, but only with some care.

> The biggest issue was to make sure when you compile the CAEN driver for the A3818 board that you turn on the MIDAS switch.  Without that problems occur with some 
> probability given by the number of bytes processed - which translates into very soon if you have a high rate.  (The underlying cause is that both MIDAS and the A3818
> use unix Alarm signals, but the CAEN folks have a compile option to turn this off.)

> We use as little as possible of the CAENDigitizerLibrary - instead we program the registers directly on the board.

> There is still some kind of memory leak which we have not yet tracked down, so every few hours we shut down the frontend then restart it. 

We use A2818 (PCI) - fiber - V2718 (Bridge) - VME - V1751.
I actually didn't find a MIDAS switch in the Makefile.