6.7.4. Results output failure for large meshes

For very large meshes, the numerical global IDs for any entities in the mesh (nodes, elements, etc.) may become very large; so large that they exceed the 32-bit limit. If this is the case, make sure the results block uses the 64-bit limit, which is enabled with the following command in the results block:

Enable Large IDs

This defaults to using a netCDF-4 variant output, which enables 64-bit IDs. Other options for modifying results output, or possibly adding extra flags for debugging in the results block can be found in Results Output.

There have been reported cases of output failure occurring, even with netCDF-4 output variants enabled. This will typically result in an obscure error in the log file, but the output error (the slurm file of a HPC run) will have an output that is similar to the below:

Exodus Library Warning/Error: [~Redefine] in file '<file_output_name>'
    Error: failed to complete variable definitions in file id 131072
    NetCDF: HDF error

This error is internal to the HDF5/netCDF library, and related to the netCDF-4 variant itself. An immediate fix that has worked for some cases is to use a netCDF-5 variant output instead. This can be done by setting the following command in the results output property block:

property FILE_TYPE = netcdf5

This command is available to all users, but not listed in the command reference in Results Output as this capability is still being developed. If this does not fix the issue, please forward this issue to the Sierra help desk.