Hello all, Problem: Boost.MPI code that compiles, links, and runs successfully on other platforms fails under Cygwin + MPICH2, giving the following error: "Attempting to use an MPI routine before initializing MPICH" The error seems related to calls to non-Boost MPI functions; it can occur when the Boost.MPI library is linked even though no functions in the boost::mph namespace are used. Altering the order in which libraries are given to the gcc linker can resolve the issue in simple cases (not shown here), but does not for our full code. Platform: Windows Vista, Cygwin newly installed with gcc4, openssh, curl and z libraries, MPICH2 built from source, Boost 1.48 and Boost 1.49 tested with same results (the current release of our code is incompatible with Boost 1.50 due to changes in the Boost.Filesystem library). Details: Initial test code (test.cpp): =================================== #include <iostream> #include <mpi.h> int main(int argc, char** argv){ MPI_Init(&argc, &argv); int rank; MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank); std::cout << " RANK " << rank << " RUNNING " << std::endl; if(rank == 0){ MPI_Status status; int mode = MPI_MODE_CREATE | MPI_MODE_WRONLY | MPI_MODE_APPEND; MPI_File out; std::string fileName("LOG.txt"); MPI_File_open(MPI_COMM_SELF, (char*)fileName.c_str(), mode, MPI_INFO_NULL, &out); MPI_File_close(&out); } MPI_Finalize(); std::cout << " RANK " << rank << " ENDING " << std::endl; return 0; } ====================================== Compilation, linking, invocation and output without using Boost.MPI: ======================================== John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpicxx -c -o test.o test.cpp John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpicxx -o test test.o John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpirun -n 2 ./test.exe RANK 0 RUNNING RANK 1 RUNNING RANK 0 ENDING RANK 1 ENDING John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpicxx -show c++ -I/home/John/MPICH/include -L/home/John/MPICH/lib -lmpichcxx -lpmpich -lmpich -lopa -lmpl -lpthread ========================================= Same code, but add an unnecessary link to Boost.MPI: ========================================= John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpicxx -L/home/John/boost_1_48_0/stage/lib -o test test.o -lboost_mpi-mt John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpirun -n 2 ./test.exe RANK 0 RUNNING RANK 1 RUNNING Attempting to use an MPI routine before initializing MPICH ========================================= (Note: the LOG.txt file is not created.) Code using Boost::MPI functions expclitly (test_boost.cpp): ============================================= #include <boost/mpi.hpp> #include <boost/mpi/environment.hpp> #include <boost/mpi/communicator.hpp> #include <iostream> namespace mpi = boost::mpi; int main(int argc, char** argv){ mpi::environment env(argc, argv); mpi::communicator world; int rank = world.rank(); std::cout << " RANK " << rank << " RUNNING " << std::endl; if(rank == 0){ MPI_Status status; int mode = MPI_MODE_CREATE | MPI_MODE_WRONLY | MPI_MODE_APPEND; MPI_File out; std::string fileName("LOG.txt"); MPI_File_open(MPI_COMM_SELF, (char*)fileName.c_str(), mode, MPI_INFO_NULL, &out); MPI_File_close(&out); } std::cout << " RANK " << rank << " ENDING " << std::endl; return 0; } ========================================== Compilation, linking, and running: ========================================== John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpicxx -c -I/home/John/boost_1_48_0/ -o test_boost.o test_boost.cpp John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpicxx -L/home/John/boost_1_48_0/stage/lib -o test_boost test_boost.o -lboost_mpi-mt John@Vista2 ~/TEST $ mpirun -n 2 ./test_boost.exe RANK 0 RUNNING RANK 1 RUNNING RANK 1 ENDING Attempting to use an MPI routine before initializing MPICH =========================================== The other system I have easy access to, and on which this code runs correctly, is a Mac/Unix-like using OpenMPI, but the need is for this code (and, more importantly, for our larger project, where the error was first observed) to run under Cygwin. I do not know how to diagnose whether this is a Boost.MPI issue, an MPICH2 issue, or something related to how the two libraries work together. Any help appreciated- thanks, John -- John T. Murphy Computational Postdoctoral Fellow Decision and Information Sciences and Argonne Leadership Computing Facility Argonne National Laboratory jtmurphy@anl.gov