EEC 116 - Tips for Debugging Magic and Irsim Errors

Common Magic Errors

• file is locked by another process

• "/net/pizza/tools/magic/116/DOT.cshrc: No such file or directory."

  If you see this error message, we suspect a slow automount issue, so type "ls /net/pizza/tools/magic/116/DOT.cshrc" and then magic116 should restart without a problem.

• file is locked by another process

  The first thing to check is if this cell is already being edited in another window.

  If not, close out of all your magic windows, then try running ps -U . If the output includes any process called 'wish', it may be a zombie instance of magic that is still locking the file. Try killing the process if you are familiar with this.

  If all else fails, copy the locked cell to a new file using cp. The new file should be editable.

• If nothing is helping to isolate the problem,

  Copy your .mag file to a temporary working file (e.g., temp.mag) and remove layout from it until it works.

Common IRSIM Errors

• "can't open electrical parameters file <scmos9>
  Could not load parameter file scmos9.prm"

  Type irsim116 not irsim when starting irsim.

• IRSIM freezes

  If the IRSIM analyzer window freezes, doesn't redraw, and doesn't allow you to change anything, type s until it unfreezes. You normally shouldn't have to type more than 2 or 3 s characters.

• sim file lambda (0.01u) doesn't match config lambda (0.09u)

  This message appears sometimes when launching irsim. It appears to have no effect on the correctness of the simulation but does seem to affect the delay of the circuit.

  Cause: not yet known

  Solution: re-extracting the circuit and re-running the simulation avoids the error so far.

2018/10/22  Written (BB)
2018/11/21  Minor updates (BB)
2018/11/27  Added irsim "doesn't match config lambda" error (BB)
2019/03/14  Minor updates (BB)
2020/12/08  Added irsim116 error (BB)