> > In any case, we are setup for an eventual collision between MIDAS CFLAGS (-std=gnu++11) and ROOT CFLAGS (-std=something else).
> 
> Are there good reasons to not compile MIDAS with set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 14)? So far this was an easier "fix" for me than to recompile ROOT with c++11.

Per  https://root.cern.ch/supported-platforms, ROOTv6 is C++11.

Binary kits distributed from root.cern.ch seem to be built with c++11.

Where does ROOT built with c++14 come from?

K.O.

Dear all,

we are trying to build Midas events on FPGAs and send them directly to the midas
ring buffer via copy_n. According to the wiki
https://midas.triumf.ca/MidasWiki/index.php/Event_Structure Event Data Size is:
"The event data size contains the size of the event in bytes excluding the
header." and All Bank Size is: "Size in bytes of the following data plus the
size of the bank header". So are they actually the same or what header is the
header in the first sentence also the bank header?

Cheers,
Marius

 

Thanks for pointing out this error. The "All Bank Size" contains the size of all banks including their 
bank headers, but NOT the global bank header itself. I modified the documentation accordingly.

If you want to study the C code which tells you how to fill these headers, look at midas.cxx line 
14788.

Best,
Stefan

> Dear all,
> 
> we are trying to build Midas events on FPGAs and send them directly to the midas
> ring buffer via copy_n. According to the wiki
> https://midas.triumf.ca/MidasWiki/index.php/Event_Structure Event Data Size is:
> "The event data size contains the size of the event in bytes excluding the
> header." and All Bank Size is: "Size in bytes of the following data plus the
> size of the bank header". So are they actually the same or what header is the
> header in the first sentence also the bank header?
> 
> Cheers,
> Marius
> 
>  

Dear all,

we creating Midas events directly inside a FPGA and send them off via DMA into the PC RAM. For reading out this RAM via Midas the FPGA sends as a pointer where it has written the last 4kB of data. We use this pointer for telling the ring buffer of midas where the new events are. The buffer looks something like:

// event 1
dma_buf[0] = 0x00000001; // Trigger and Event ID
dma_buf[1] = 0x00000001; // Serial number
dma_buf[2] = TIME; // time
dma_buf[3] = 18*4-4*4; // event size
dma_buf[4] = 18*4-6*4; // all bank size
dma_buf[5] = 0x11; // flags
// bank 0
dma_buf[6] = 0x46454230; // bank name
dma_buf[7] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
dma_buf[8] = 0x3*4; // data size
dma_buf[9] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
dma_buf[10] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
dma_buf[11] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
// bank 1
dma_buf[12] = 0x1; // bank name
dma_buf[12] = 0x46454231; // bank name
dma_buf[13] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
dma_buf[14] = 0x3*4; // data size
dma_buf[15] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
dma_buf[16] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
dma_buf[17] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data

// event 2
.....

dma_buf[fpga_pointer] = 0xXXXXXXXX;


And we do something like:

while{true}
   // obtain buffer space
   status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
   fpga_pointer = fpga.read_last_data_add();

   wlen = last_fpga_pointer - fpga_pointer; \\ in 32 bit words
   copy_n(&dma_buf[last_fpga_pointer], wlen, pdata);
   rb_status = rb_increment_wp(rbh, wlen * 4); \\ in byte

   last_fpga_pointer = fpga_pointer;

Leaving the case out where the dma_buf wrap around this works fine for a small data rate. But if we increase the rate the fpga_pointer also increases really fast and wlen gets quite big. Actually it gets bigger then max_event_size which is checked in rb_increment_wp leading to an error. 

The problem now is that the event size is actually not to big but since we have multi events in the buffer which are read by midas in one step. So we think in this case the function rb_increment_wp is comparing actually the wrong thing. Also increasing the max_event_size does not help.

Remark: dma_buf is volatile so memcpy is not possible here.

Cheers,
Marius

The rb_xxx functions are (thoroughly tested) robust against high data rate given that you use them as intended:

1) Once you create the ring buffer via rb_create(), specify the maximum event size (midas event, not bank size!). Later there is not protection any more, so if you obtain pdata from rb_get_wp, you can of course write 4GB to pdata, overwriting everything in your memory, causing a fatal crash. It's your duty not to write more bytes into pdata then what you specified in rb_create()

2) Once you obtain a write pointer to the ring buffer via rb_get_wp(), this function might fail when the receiving side reads data slower than the producing side, simply because the buffer is full. In that case the producing side was to wait to get new buffer space. If you call to rb_get_wp() returns DB_TIMEOUT, it means that the function did not obtain enough free space for the next event. In that case you have to wait (like ss_sleep(10)) and try again. Only when rb_get_wp() returns DB_SUCCESS, you are allowed to write into pdata (up to the maximum event size specified in rb_create() of course).

/Stefan


> Dear all,
> 
> we creating Midas events directly inside a FPGA and send them off via DMA into the PC RAM. For reading out this RAM via Midas the FPGA sends as a pointer where it has written the last 4kB of data. We use this pointer for telling the ring buffer of midas where the new events are. The buffer looks something like:
> 
> // event 1
> dma_buf[0] = 0x00000001; // Trigger and Event ID
> dma_buf[1] = 0x00000001; // Serial number
> dma_buf[2] = TIME; // time
> dma_buf[3] = 18*4-4*4; // event size
> dma_buf[4] = 18*4-6*4; // all bank size
> dma_buf[5] = 0x11; // flags
> // bank 0
> dma_buf[6] = 0x46454230; // bank name
> dma_buf[7] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> dma_buf[8] = 0x3*4; // data size
> dma_buf[9] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[10] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[11] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> // bank 1
> dma_buf[12] = 0x1; // bank name
> dma_buf[12] = 0x46454231; // bank name
> dma_buf[13] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> dma_buf[14] = 0x3*4; // data size
> dma_buf[15] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[16] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[17] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> 
> // event 2
> .....
> 
> dma_buf[fpga_pointer] = 0xXXXXXXXX;
> 
> 
> And we do something like:
> 
> while{true}
>    // obtain buffer space
>    status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
>    fpga_pointer = fpga.read_last_data_add();
> 
>    wlen = last_fpga_pointer - fpga_pointer; \\ in 32 bit words
>    copy_n(&dma_buf[last_fpga_pointer], wlen, pdata);
>    rb_status = rb_increment_wp(rbh, wlen * 4); \\ in byte
> 
>    last_fpga_pointer = fpga_pointer;
> 
> Leaving the case out where the dma_buf wrap around this works fine for a small data rate. But if we increase the rate the fpga_pointer also increases really fast and wlen gets quite big. Actually it gets bigger then max_event_size which is checked in rb_increment_wp leading to an error. 
> 
> The problem now is that the event size is actually not to big but since we have multi events in the buffer which are read by midas in one step. So we think in this case the function rb_increment_wp is comparing actually the wrong thing. Also increasing the max_event_size does not help.
> 
> Remark: dma_buf is volatile so memcpy is not possible here.
> 
> Cheers,
> Marius

The rb_xxx function are (thoroughly tested!) robust against high data rate given that you use them as intended:

1) Once you create the ring buffer via rb_create(), specify the maximum event size (overall event size, not bank size!). Later there is no protection any more, so if you obtain pdata from rb_get_wp, you can of course write 4GB to pdata, overwriting everything in your memory, causing a total crash. It's your responsibility to not write more bytes into pdata then 
what you specified as max event size in rb_create()

2) Once you obtain a write pointer to the ring buffer via rb_get_wp, this function might fail when the receiving side reads data slower than the producing side, simply because the buffer is full. In that case the producing side has to wait until space is freed up in the buffer by the receiving side. If your call to rb_get_wp returns DB_TIMEOUT, it means that the 
function did not obtain enough free space for the next event. In that case you have to wait (like ss_sleep(10)) and try again, until you succeed. Only when rb_get_wp() returns DB_SUCCESS, you are allowed to write into pdata, up to the maximum event size specified in rb_create of course. I don't see this behaviour in your code. You would need something 
like

do {
   status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
   if (status == DB_TIMEOUT)
      ss_sleep(10);
   } while (status == DB_TIMEOUT);

Best,
Stefan


> Dear all,
> 
> we creating Midas events directly inside a FPGA and send them off via DMA into the PC RAM. For reading out this RAM via Midas the FPGA sends as a pointer where it has written the last 4kB of data. We use this pointer for telling the ring buffer of midas where the new events are. The buffer looks something like:
> 
> // event 1
> dma_buf[0] = 0x00000001; // Trigger and Event ID
> dma_buf[1] = 0x00000001; // Serial number
> dma_buf[2] = TIME; // time
> dma_buf[3] = 18*4-4*4; // event size
> dma_buf[4] = 18*4-6*4; // all bank size
> dma_buf[5] = 0x11; // flags
> // bank 0
> dma_buf[6] = 0x46454230; // bank name
> dma_buf[7] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> dma_buf[8] = 0x3*4; // data size
> dma_buf[9] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[10] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[11] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> // bank 1
> dma_buf[12] = 0x1; // bank name
> dma_buf[12] = 0x46454231; // bank name
> dma_buf[13] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> dma_buf[14] = 0x3*4; // data size
> dma_buf[15] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[16] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> dma_buf[17] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> 
> // event 2
> .....
> 
> dma_buf[fpga_pointer] = 0xXXXXXXXX;
> 
> 
> And we do something like:
> 
> while{true}
>    // obtain buffer space
>    status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
>    fpga_pointer = fpga.read_last_data_add();
> 
>    wlen = last_fpga_pointer - fpga_pointer; \\ in 32 bit words
>    copy_n(&dma_buf[last_fpga_pointer], wlen, pdata);
>    rb_status = rb_increment_wp(rbh, wlen * 4); \\ in byte
> 
>    last_fpga_pointer = fpga_pointer;
> 
> Leaving the case out where the dma_buf wrap around this works fine for a small data rate. But if we increase the rate the fpga_pointer also increases really fast and wlen gets quite big. Actually it gets bigger then max_event_size which is checked in rb_increment_wp leading to an error. 
> 
> The problem now is that the event size is actually not to big but since we have multi events in the buffer which are read by midas in one step. So we think in this case the function rb_increment_wp is comparing actually the wrong thing. Also increasing the max_event_size does not help.
> 
> Remark: dma_buf is volatile so memcpy is not possible here.
> 
> Cheers,
> Marius

Hello Stefan,
is there a difference for the later data processing (after writing the ring buffer blocks)
if we write single events or multiple in one rb_get_wp - memcopy - rb_increment_wp cycle?
Both Marius and me have seen some inconsistencies in the number of events produced that is reported in the status page when writing multiple events in one go,
so I was wondering if this is due to us treating the buffer badly or the way midas handles the events after that.

Given that we produce the full event in our (FPGA) domain, an option would be to always copy one event from the dma to the midas-system buffer in a loop.
The question is if there is a difference (for midas) between
[pseudo code, much simplified]

while(dma_read_index < last_dma_write_index){
  if(rb_get_wp(pdata)!=SUCCESS){
    dma_read_index+=event_size;
    continue;   
  }
  copy_n(dma_buffer, pdata, event_size);
  rb_increment_wp(event_size);
  dma_read_index+=event_size;
} 

and

while(dma_read_index < last_dma_write_index){
  if(rb_get_wp(pdata)!=SUCCESS){
     ...
  };
  total_size=max_n_events_that_fit_in_rb_block();
  copy_n(dma_buffer, pdata, total_size);
  rb_increment_wp(total_size);
  dma_read_index+=total_size;
}

Cheers,
Konrad

> The rb_xxx function are (thoroughly tested!) robust against high data rate given that you use them as intended:
> 
> 1) Once you create the ring buffer via rb_create(), specify the maximum event size (overall event size, not bank size!). Later there is no protection any more, so if you obtain pdata from rb_get_wp, you can of course write 4GB to pdata, overwriting everything in your memory, causing a total crash. It's your responsibility to not write more bytes into pdata then 
> what you specified as max event size in rb_create()
> 
> 2) Once you obtain a write pointer to the ring buffer via rb_get_wp, this function might fail when the receiving side reads data slower than the producing side, simply because the buffer is full. In that case the producing side has to wait until space is freed up in the buffer by the receiving side. If your call to rb_get_wp returns DB_TIMEOUT, it means that the 
> function did not obtain enough free space for the next event. In that case you have to wait (like ss_sleep(10)) and try again, until you succeed. Only when rb_get_wp() returns DB_SUCCESS, you are allowed to write into pdata, up to the maximum event size specified in rb_create of course. I don't see this behaviour in your code. You would need something 
> like
> 
> do {
>    status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
>    if (status == DB_TIMEOUT)
>       ss_sleep(10);
>    } while (status == DB_TIMEOUT);
> 
> Best,
> Stefan
> 
> 
> > Dear all,
> > 
> > we creating Midas events directly inside a FPGA and send them off via DMA into the PC RAM. For reading out this RAM via Midas the FPGA sends as a pointer where it has written the last 4kB of data. We use this pointer for telling the ring buffer of midas where the new events are. The buffer looks something like:
> > 
> > // event 1
> > dma_buf[0] = 0x00000001; // Trigger and Event ID
> > dma_buf[1] = 0x00000001; // Serial number
> > dma_buf[2] = TIME; // time
> > dma_buf[3] = 18*4-4*4; // event size
> > dma_buf[4] = 18*4-6*4; // all bank size
> > dma_buf[5] = 0x11; // flags
> > // bank 0
> > dma_buf[6] = 0x46454230; // bank name
> > dma_buf[7] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> > dma_buf[8] = 0x3*4; // data size
> > dma_buf[9] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > dma_buf[10] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > dma_buf[11] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > // bank 1
> > dma_buf[12] = 0x1; // bank name
> > dma_buf[12] = 0x46454231; // bank name
> > dma_buf[13] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> > dma_buf[14] = 0x3*4; // data size
> > dma_buf[15] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > dma_buf[16] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > dma_buf[17] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > 
> > // event 2
> > .....
> > 
> > dma_buf[fpga_pointer] = 0xXXXXXXXX;
> > 
> > 
> > And we do something like:
> > 
> > while{true}
> >    // obtain buffer space
> >    status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
> >    fpga_pointer = fpga.read_last_data_add();
> > 
> >    wlen = last_fpga_pointer - fpga_pointer; \\ in 32 bit words
> >    copy_n(&dma_buf[last_fpga_pointer], wlen, pdata);
> >    rb_status = rb_increment_wp(rbh, wlen * 4); \\ in byte
> > 
> >    last_fpga_pointer = fpga_pointer;
> > 
> > Leaving the case out where the dma_buf wrap around this works fine for a small data rate. But if we increase the rate the fpga_pointer also increases really fast and wlen gets quite big. Actually it gets bigger then max_event_size which is checked in rb_increment_wp leading to an error. 
> > 
> > The problem now is that the event size is actually not to big but since we have multi events in the buffer which are read by midas in one step. So we think in this case the function rb_increment_wp is comparing actually the wrong thing. Also increasing the max_event_size does not help.
> > 
> > Remark: dma_buf is volatile so memcpy is not possible here.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Marius

rb_xxx functions are midas event agnostic. The receiving side in mfe.cxx (lines 1418 in receive_trigger_event) however pulls one event at a time. If you 
have some inconsistency I would put some debugging code there.

Stefan

> Hello Stefan,
> is there a difference for the later data processing (after writing the ring buffer blocks)
> if we write single events or multiple in one rb_get_wp - memcopy - rb_increment_wp cycle?
> Both Marius and me have seen some inconsistencies in the number of events produced that is reported in the status page when writing multiple 
events in one go,
> so I was wondering if this is due to us treating the buffer badly or the way midas handles the events after that.
> 
> Given that we produce the full event in our (FPGA) domain, an option would be to always copy one event from the dma to the midas-system buffer 
in a loop.
> The question is if there is a difference (for midas) between
> [pseudo code, much simplified]
> 
> while(dma_read_index < last_dma_write_index){
>   if(rb_get_wp(pdata)!=SUCCESS){
>     dma_read_index+=event_size;
>     continue;   
>   }
>   copy_n(dma_buffer, pdata, event_size);
>   rb_increment_wp(event_size);
>   dma_read_index+=event_size;
> } 
> 
> and
> 
> while(dma_read_index < last_dma_write_index){
>   if(rb_get_wp(pdata)!=SUCCESS){
>      ...
>   };
>   total_size=max_n_events_that_fit_in_rb_block();
>   copy_n(dma_buffer, pdata, total_size);
>   rb_increment_wp(total_size);
>   dma_read_index+=total_size;
> }
> 
> Cheers,
> Konrad
> 
> > The rb_xxx function are (thoroughly tested!) robust against high data rate given that you use them as intended:
> > 
> > 1) Once you create the ring buffer via rb_create(), specify the maximum event size (overall event size, not bank size!). Later there is no protection 
any more, so if you obtain pdata from rb_get_wp, you can of course write 4GB to pdata, overwriting everything in your memory, causing a total crash. 
It's your responsibility to not write more bytes into pdata then 
> > what you specified as max event size in rb_create()
> > 
> > 2) Once you obtain a write pointer to the ring buffer via rb_get_wp, this function might fail when the receiving side reads data slower than the 
producing side, simply because the buffer is full. In that case the producing side has to wait until space is freed up in the buffer by the receiving side. 
If your call to rb_get_wp returns DB_TIMEOUT, it means that the 
> > function did not obtain enough free space for the next event. In that case you have to wait (like ss_sleep(10)) and try again, until you succeed. 
Only when rb_get_wp() returns DB_SUCCESS, you are allowed to write into pdata, up to the maximum event size specified in rb_create of course. I 
don't see this behaviour in your code. You would need something 
> > like
> > 
> > do {
> >    status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
> >    if (status == DB_TIMEOUT)
> >       ss_sleep(10);
> >    } while (status == DB_TIMEOUT);
> > 
> > Best,
> > Stefan
> > 
> > 
> > > Dear all,
> > > 
> > > we creating Midas events directly inside a FPGA and send them off via DMA into the PC RAM. For reading out this RAM via Midas the FPGA 
sends as a pointer where it has written the last 4kB of data. We use this pointer for telling the ring buffer of midas where the new events are. The 
buffer looks something like:
> > > 
> > > // event 1
> > > dma_buf[0] = 0x00000001; // Trigger and Event ID
> > > dma_buf[1] = 0x00000001; // Serial number
> > > dma_buf[2] = TIME; // time
> > > dma_buf[3] = 18*4-4*4; // event size
> > > dma_buf[4] = 18*4-6*4; // all bank size
> > > dma_buf[5] = 0x11; // flags
> > > // bank 0
> > > dma_buf[6] = 0x46454230; // bank name
> > > dma_buf[7] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> > > dma_buf[8] = 0x3*4; // data size
> > > dma_buf[9] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > > dma_buf[10] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > > dma_buf[11] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > > // bank 1
> > > dma_buf[12] = 0x1; // bank name
> > > dma_buf[12] = 0x46454231; // bank name
> > > dma_buf[13] = 0x6; // bank type TID_DWORD
> > > dma_buf[14] = 0x3*4; // data size
> > > dma_buf[15] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > > dma_buf[16] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > > dma_buf[17] = 0xAFFEAFFE; // data
> > > 
> > > // event 2
> > > .....
> > > 
> > > dma_buf[fpga_pointer] = 0xXXXXXXXX;
> > > 
> > > 
> > > And we do something like:
> > > 
> > > while{true}
> > >    // obtain buffer space
> > >    status = rb_get_wp(rbh, (void **)&pdata, 10);
> > >    fpga_pointer = fpga.read_last_data_add();
> > > 
> > >    wlen = last_fpga_pointer - fpga_pointer; \\ in 32 bit words
> > >    copy_n(&dma_buf[last_fpga_pointer], wlen, pdata);
> > >    rb_status = rb_increment_wp(rbh, wlen * 4); \\ in byte
> > > 
> > >    last_fpga_pointer = fpga_pointer;
> > > 
> > > Leaving the case out where the dma_buf wrap around this works fine for a small data rate. But if we increase the rate the fpga_pointer also 
increases really fast and wlen gets quite big. Actually it gets bigger then max_event_size which is checked in rb_increment_wp leading to an error. 
> > > 
> > > The problem now is that the event size is actually not to big but since we have multi events in the buffer which are read by midas in one step. 
So we think in this case the function rb_increment_wp is comparing actually the wrong thing. Also increasing the max_event_size does not help.
> > > 
> > > Remark: dma_buf is volatile so memcpy is not possible here.
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > Marius

> rb_xxx functions are midas event agnostic. The receiving side in mfe.cxx (lines 1418 in receive_trigger_event) however pulls one event at a time. If you 
> have some inconsistency I would put some debugging code there.

I agree with Stefan, I do not think there is any bugs in the ring buffer code.

But. I do not think we ever did DMA the data directly into the ring buffer. Hmm...

I just checked, this is what we do (and this worked in the ALPHA Si-strip DAQ system for 10 years now):

- mfe.cxx multithread equipment
- mfe readout thread grabs pointer from ring buffer
- mfe creates event headers, etc
- calls our read_event() function
- creates data bank
- DMA data into the data bank (this is the DMA from VME block reads, using DMA controller inside the UniverseII and tsi148 VME-to-PCI bridges)
- close data bank
- return to mfe
- mfe readout thread increments the ring buffer
- mfe main thread grabs events from ring buffer, sends them to the mserver

So there could be trouble:
a) the ring buffer code does not have the required "volatile" (ahem, "atomic") annotations, so DMA may have a bad interaction with compiler optimizations (values stored in registers 
instead of in memory, etc)
b) the DMA driver must doctor the memory settings to (1) mark the DMA target memory uncachable or (1b) invalidate the cache after DMA completes, (2) mark the DMA target 
memory unswappable.

So I see possibilities for the ring buffer to malfunction.

But now I am curious, which DMA controller you use? The Altera or Xilinx PCIe block with the vendor supplied DMA driver? Or you do DMA on an ARM SoC FPGA? (no PCI/PCIe, 
different DMA controller, different DMA driver).

I am curious because we will be implementing pretty much what you do on ARM SoC FPGAs pretty soon, so good to know
if there is trouble to expect.

But I will probably use the tmfe.h c++ frontend and a "pure c++" ring buffer instead of mfe.cxx and the midas "rb" ring buffer.

(I did not look at your code at all, there could be a bug right there, this ring buffer stuff is tricky. With luck there is no bug
in your dma driver. The dma drivers for our vme bridges did do have bugs).

K.O.

> Thanks for pointing out this error. The "All Bank Size" contains the size of all banks including their 
> bank headers, but NOT the global bank header itself. I modified the documentation accordingly.
> 
> If you want to study the C code which tells you how to fill these headers, look at midas.cxx line 
> 14788.

Also take a look at the midas event parser in ROOTANA midasio.cxx, the code is pretty clean c++
https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/rootana/src/master/libMidasInterface/midasio.cxx

But Stefan's code in midas.cxx and in the documentation is the authoritative information.

K.O.

We also agree and found the problem now. Since we build everything (MIDAS Event Header, Bank Header, Banks etc.) in the FPGA we had some struggle with the MIDAS data format (http://lmu.web.psi.ch/docu/manuals/bulk_manuals/software/midas195/html/AppendixA.html). We thought that only the MIDAS Event needs to be aligned to 64 bit but as it turned out also the bank data (Stefan updated the wiki page already) needs to be aligned. Since we are using the BANK32 it was a bit unclear for us since the bank header is not 64 bit aligned. But we managed this now by adding empty data and the system is running now.

Our setup looks like this:

Software:
- mfe.cxx multithread equipment
- mfe readout thread grabs pointer from dma ring buffer 
- since the dma buffer is volatile we do copy_n for transforming the data to MIDAS 
- the data is already in the MIDAS format so done from our side :)
- mfe readout thread increments the ring buffer
- mfe main thread grabs events from ring buffer, sends them to the mserver

Firmware:
- Arria 10 development board
- Altera PCIe block
- Own DMA engine since we are doing burst writing DMA with PCIe 3.0. 
- Own device driver
- no interrupts 

If you have more questions fell free to ask.

Actually the cause of all of the is a real bug in the midas functions. We want each bank 8-byte aligned, so there is code in bk_close like:

midas.cxx:14788:
     ((BANK_HEADER *) event)->data_size += sizeof(BANK32) + ALIGN8(pbk32->data_size);

While the old sizeof(BANK)=8, the extended sizeof(BANK32)=12, so not 8-byte aligned. This code should rather be:

     ((BANK_HEADER *) event)->data_size += ALIGN8(sizeof(BANK32) +pbk32->data_size);

But if we change that, it would break every midas data file on this planet!

The only chance I see is to use the "flags" in the BANK_HEADER to distinguish a current bank from a "correct" bank. 
So we could introduce a flag BANK_FORMAT_ALIGNED which distinguishes between the two pieces of code above. 
Then bk_iterate32 would look at that flag and do the right thing.

Any thoughts?

Best,
Stefan

Hi, Stefan - is this our famous 64-bit misalignement? Where we have each alternating bank aligned and misaligned at 64 bits? Without changing the data
format, one can always store data in 64-bit aligned banks by inserting a dummy banks between real banks:

event header
bank header
bank1 --- 64-bit aligned --- with data
bank2 --- misaligned, no data
bank3 --- 64-bit aligned --- with data
bank4 --- misaligned, no data
...

for sure, wastes space for bank2, bank4, etc, but at 12 bytes per bank, maybe this is negligible overhead compared to total event size.

BTW, aligned-to-64-bit is old news. The the PWB FPGA, I have 128-bit data paths to DDR RAM, the data has to be aligned to 128 bits, or else!

K.O.



> Actually the cause of all of the is a real bug in the midas functions. We want each bank 8-byte aligned, so there is code in bk_close like:
> 
> midas.cxx:14788:
>      ((BANK_HEADER *) event)->data_size += sizeof(BANK32) + ALIGN8(pbk32->data_size);
> 
> While the old sizeof(BANK)=8, the extended sizeof(BANK32)=12, so not 8-byte aligned. This code should rather be:
> 
>      ((BANK_HEADER *) event)->data_size += ALIGN8(sizeof(BANK32) +pbk32->data_size);
> 
> But if we change that, it would break every midas data file on this planet!
> 
> The only chance I see is to use the "flags" in the BANK_HEADER to distinguish a current bank from a "correct" bank. 
> So we could introduce a flag BANK_FORMAT_ALIGNED which distinguishes between the two pieces of code above. 
> Then bk_iterate32 would look at that flag and do the right thing.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Best,
> Stefan

> We also agree and found the problem now.

Good. what was wrong?

> - Own DMA engine since we are doing burst writing DMA with PCIe 3.0. 
> - Own device driver

Scary stuff.

> - no interrupts 

Right. Best I can tell, interrupts no longer useful in Linux - interrupt handler cannot do any real work, has to hand off to a kernel thread, resulting
in so much latency and overhead that one might as well poll for the data... And for DMA data transfers, the data rate is well known,
so easy to predict how long the DMA will run for and sleep for that amount of time instead of waiting for an interrupt.

K.O.

> Hi, Stefan - is this our famous 64-bit misalignement? Where we have each alternating bank aligned and misaligned at 64 bits? Without changing the data
> format, one can always store data in 64-bit aligned banks by inserting a dummy banks between real banks:
> 
> event header
> bank header
> bank1 --- 64-bit aligned --- with data
> bank2 --- misaligned, no data
> bank3 --- 64-bit aligned --- with data
> bank4 --- misaligned, no data
> ...
> 
> for sure, wastes space for bank2, bank4, etc, but at 12 bytes per bank, maybe this is negligible overhead compared to total event size.
> 
> BTW, aligned-to-64-bit is old news. The the PWB FPGA, I have 128-bit data paths to DDR RAM, the data has to be aligned to 128 bits, or else!

Ok, so what about the following: When we do a bk_init32, we add a parameter "alignment", which might be 1,4,8,16 and "old". We store this alignment in the bank header, so the 
decoding works correctly. Now "old" means the current encoding, which is screwed up and produces the results you mention above, but we have to keep it (actually make it the 
default!) for backward compatibility. But then we can ask for 64-bit alignment or even 128-bit alignment if that helps the DAQ speed.

The only problem I see is if one writes data with the new library using 128-bit alignment for example, and wants to read it back with old code. Then it would explode. So if we 
make this modification, we have to announce it carefully and also adjust all ROOTANA & Co libraries to read back any midas data.

Stefan

> > We also agree and found the problem now.
> 
> Good. what was wrong?
> 
> > - Own DMA engine since we are doing burst writing DMA with PCIe 3.0. 
> > - Own device driver
> 
> Scary stuff.
> 
> > - no interrupts 
> 
> Right. Best I can tell, interrupts no longer useful in Linux - interrupt handler cannot do any real work, has to hand off to a kernel thread, resulting
> in so much latency and overhead that one might as well poll for the data... And for DMA data transfers, the data rate is well known,
> so easy to predict how long the DMA will run for and sleep for that amount of time instead of waiting for an interrupt.
> 
> K.O.

So the problem was that we assumed that the bank (with the header) needs to be 64bit aligned. Even more we aligned the hole Midas event to 256bit in the fpga since we have a  250mhz x 256 Bit interface for PCIe. But then we saw that you align the bank data to 64bit -> crash of mdump etc. For now we generate the data on the FPGA in the „old“ Midas format. So having a flag for changing to a different alignment would be actually really nice. 

Cheers,
Marius

I ported a bunch of frontends to C++ and now I'm occasionally getting this RPC 
error message:

http error: readyState: 4, HTTP status: 502 (Proxy Error), batch request: method: 
"db_get_values", params: [object Object], id: 1583456958869 method: "get_alarms", 
params: null, id: 1583456958869 method: "cm_msg_retrieve", params: [object 
Object], id: 1583456958869 method: "cm_msg_retrieve", params: [object Object], 
id: 1583456958869

I'm assuming I'm doing wrong something somewhere, but does this message contain 
information where to look? Does the ID mean something?

I do not see this error, but there was one more report (they did not clearly say what http errors 
they see) https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/midas/issues/209/get-rid-of-mjsonrpc-dialogs-put-it-to-
the

To debug this, I need to know: what version of MIDAS, what version of what web browser, what 
computer is mhttpd running on? (so I can go look at the log files).

Also can you say more when you see these errors? Every time from every midas web page, or only 
some pages or only when you do something specific (push some button, etc?).

> I ported a bunch of frontends to C++ and now I'm occasionally getting this RPC 
> error message:
> 
> http error: readyState: 4, HTTP status: 502 (Proxy Error), batch request: method: 
> "db_get_values", params: [object Object], id: 1583456958869 method: "get_alarms", 
> params: null, id: 1583456958869 method: "cm_msg_retrieve", params: [object 
> Object], id: 1583456958869 method: "cm_msg_retrieve", params: [object Object], 
> id: 1583456958869
> 
> I'm assuming I'm doing wrong something somewhere, but does this message contain 
> information where to look? Does the ID mean something?

It is unlikely that this error has anything to do with the frontends: usually web page interaction 
goes through: web browser - network - apache httpd - localhost - mhttpd - midas odb.

http error 502 is very generic, does not tell us much about what happened, there may be more 
information in the httpd log files.

the json-rpc request "id" is generated by midas code in the web browser and it currently is a 
timestamp. it is not used for anything. but it is required by the json-rpc standard.

K.O.


K.O.

Dear all
I try to save data to an FTP server but don't get any data on the server. Midas does not complain or message any error but also nothing gets saved. Does somebody have experience with this? I use the following settings for the ODB mlogger channel settings: Type: FTP, Filename: server.com, 21, user, pw, ., run%06d.mid, Format: MIDAS, Output: FILE. What would be the Output: FTP setting for? I tried this but it does not work at all. 
Thanks in advance,
Ivo

> I try to save data to an FTP server but don't get any data on the server. Midas does not complain or message any error but also nothing gets saved. Does somebody have experience with this? I use the following settings for the ODB mlogger channel settings: Type: FTP, Filename: server.com, 21, user, pw, ., run%06d.mid, Format: MIDAS, Output: FILE. What would be the Output: FTP setting for? I tried this but it does not work at all. 

Hi, Ivo, good to hear from a midas user in these difficult times.

We do not use FTP at TRIUMF, but Stefan asked us to keep FTP alive and working, so we should be able
to get you going. I will try to find the FTP instructions for you, I am pretty sure I have them somewhere.

In the mean time, I am very curious why you are using a FTP to record data, is it some kind
of data appliance where simplest input for data is FTP? Using NFS does not work or is too hard?

Also for example at CERN, we write data to Castor and EOS, for this mlogger writes data to local disk,
then the lazylogger runs a script to move the data to Castor and EOS. The example lazylogger
scripts for this are in the MIDAS "progs" directory. But maybe you do not have a local disk and this would
not work for you.

In other news, I hope to work on mlogger and lazylogger support for cloud storage (swift and s3 apis?),
would that be useful as replacement for FTP?

K.O.