Getting help from the VSC-Team¶
If you have a problem or just want advice on using our systems, send us an email to: support(at)vsc.ac.at
Alternatively, you can visit our support website and log in there with your cluster user to create a ticket.
You can submit a support request for most things:
- Problems logging in
- Asking a question
- Project requests
- If something is wrong with the cluster
- Request software installation
You can also submit a request to discuss future needs or a long-term issue.
What to include in your support request¶
Please include all relevant information in your initial request, such as:
- A relevant subject line.
- Which VSC system (VSC4, VSC5, MUSICA).
- Your username on this system.
- The job IDs of the affected jobs (if any).
- Which software you are using. If you built the software yourself, please include information on which compilers you used (including version) and which compilation flags you used.
- A short description of the problem. Include what you have done, what were the results, and what were the expected results.
- For network communication problems between you and VSC, please include details of your computer (operating system, SSH client, ...) and information about the network (At home?, Is it a university network?).
- The path to the submission script and input files. Please, leave the files used by a failed job intact or make a copy of them for us to look at. It is very difficult and almost impossible to tell why a job failed if you make changes/edit the job script or the input files after the job failed.
- Be specific about settings, a job that used to run with "almost the same" job script is not same! Please mention the differences, different simulation systems may need adjustments to the submission script.
Please include as much information as possible!
It is better to cut and paste the text of an error messages rather than re-typing them by hand or taking a screenshot. If the error is from graphical program, then a screenshot is appropriate. You can attach small (<10MB) files like logs, error messages, screenshots to your email. Providing as much information as possible in your initial request speeds up the support process, in this way we can get started on the problem immediately without having to ask followup questions.
Tip
If you have more than one separate question/problem, please submit one support ticket for each one.
Warning
When you have a new question, please submit a new support ticket instead of replying to an old conversation.
The person who handled the original problem might be busy or on leave! Submitting a new support ticket ensures that it is seen by all the support staff as soon as possible.
Phone?¶
We normally do not accept support questions over the phone.
HPC-related problems are best described in text form. This way we can directly see the exact error messages, job IDs, the path of the job scripts, etc. Communicating this type of information over the phone is very time-consuming and inaccurate.
Office hours¶
We read support requests during normal office hours (working days, approximately 09–17 local Austrian time: CET/CEST). Additionally, Good Friday, November the 2nd, December the 24th and December th 31st are also free for our staff.
You may use English or German to write your request, but please note that we have some staff that are not fluent in German and you may get a reply in English even if your original request was in German.
Please do not send support questions directly to VSC staff's personal email addresses. Emails sent to personal addresses might not get read promptly or get lost. Emails to the support address are automatically registered in our support system and available to all the support staff.
VSC user community¶
We have established a way for our users to talk to each other and help or advise other users without havint to involve the VSC team. This is done via the open, federated and institution-independent chat tool Matrix. Our VSC-user space can be joined here. If you do not have an account yet, one can be created for free at matrix.org