Measure and idf run successfully in Openstudio, but not PAT

asked 2018-06-18 18:13:47 -0600

mldichter
2565 ●2 ●11

updated 2019-02-11 10:02:34 -0600

14100 ●81 ●24 http://bigladdersoftware.com/

I am trying to setup 11 building models to simulate in each of 7 climate zones and am having a bit of trouble with the Parametric Analysis Tool. The measure I'm using is an energyplus measure, which deletes everything in the input osm/idf and adds every object in an external idf file. This is so we could use our current idf files without having to translate them into osm files.

The idf runs with ep-launch, and the measure and idf run in Openstudio, but the PAT doesn't run successfully.

image description

The error is "completed Fail" in PAT, but not much else. I looked through the files in the PAT directory and found the following error message at the bottom of this file.

C:\Users\Mitchal Dichter\Desktop\automater\temp_data\analysis_598964f5-d857-4411-87b9-013f1a7abaef\data_point_99751e0c-75fb-42fa-9dc5-cbe84b9ff489\run

[15:32:49.623487 INFO] Setting argument value 'source_idf_path' to 'C:\Users\Mitchal Dichter\Desktop\IDF baseline cases\DOE_FullServiceRestaurant\in.idf'
[15:32:49.623487 DEBUG] Calling measure.run for 'load_base_model'
[15:32:49.624488 INFO] The initial IDF file had 24 objects.
[15:32:49.625488 INFO] The emptied IDF file has 0 objects.
[15:32:49.878361 INFO] The final IDF file had 745 objects.
[15:32:49.878361 DEBUG] Finished measure.run for 'load_base_model'
[15:32:49.990279 DEBUG] Running of measure 'load_base_model' completed. Post-processing measure output
[15:32:49.990279 INFO] Moving to the next workflow step.
[15:32:49.990279 INFO] Finished applying EnergyPlus measures.
[15:32:49.990279 DEBUG] Communicating measure output attributes to the output adapter
[15:32:50.100214 ERROR] Found error in state 'ep_measures' with message ["\"\\xB0\" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8:C:/openstudio-2.5.0/pat/OpenStudio-server/gems/gems/openstudio-workflow-1.3.2/lib/openstudio/workflow/util/model.rb:94:in  ......... omitted text ............... `call'\nC:/openstudio-2.5.0/pat/OpenStudio-server/gems/gems/daemons-1.2.6/lib/daemons/cmdline.rb:92:in `catch_exceptions'\nC:/openstudio-2.5.0/pat/OpenStudio-server/gems/gems/daemons-1.2.6/lib/daemons.rb:196:in `run_proc'\nC:/openstudio-2.5.0/pat/OpenStudio-server/gems/gems/delayed_job-4.1.4/lib/delayed/command.rb:123:in `run_process'\nC:/openstudio-2.5.0/pat/OpenStudio-server/gems/gems/delayed_job-4.1.4/lib/delayed/command.rb:98:in `daemonize'\nbin/delayed_job:6:in `<main>'"]}
[15:32:50.100214 INFO] Finished workflow - communicating results and zipping files
[15:32:50.275114 INFO] Workflow complete

Here is a google drive link of all the relevant files.

Any idea what could be wrong? My only idea is the external IDF loaded is incompatible with whatever PAT is using to simulate, but I couldn't find a not empty idf file within the PAT directory.

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answered 2018-06-19 03:03:58 -0600

Julien Marrec

29676 ●94 ●75 http://www.effibem.com/

updated 2018-06-19 03:13:32 -0600

TL;DR: Try removing all of special characters (non-ASCII), in your case all the degree signs °, and re-run your PAT analysis. I don't have time to test it but I genuinely believe it'll fix your problem...

I'm pretty sure it's an ASCII to UTF-8 problem, which PAT unfortunately keeps exhibiting over time. I've ran into it more than I would have liked to, and I also found out that that having IDF comments with special characters (such as € in my case (see link to issue #2671 below), or ° in yours) can produce a crash.

This is similar to this question and the associated opened Github PAT issue#84 that I just commented on to include this question, and this old issue on OpenStudio Issue#2671 that I had opened.

The error message is informative provided that you can decipher it:

Found error in state 'ep_measures' with message ["\"\\xB0\" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8...

xb0 is the hex code for the degree sign °.

From a cursory look at your DOE_FullServiceRestaurant/in.idf file, the only non-ascii characters you have are the design sign, and they appear in IDF comments for your design days, eg:

! Using Design Conditions from "Climate Design Data 2009 ASHRAE Handbook"
! Sacramento Metropolitan Ap_CA_USA Extreme Annual Wind Speeds, 1%=10.4m/s, 2.5%=8.7m/s, 5%=7.8m/s
! Sacramento Metropolitan Ap_CA_USA Extreme Annual Temperatures, Max Drybulb=-2.7°C Min Drybulb=41.3°C

Tip: You can use a text editor that supports regular expressions (I use ViM, but most editors such as notepad++ on Windows do support it), and use the regex pattern [^\x00-\x7F] to search for all non-ascii characters and can replace them with blanks or whatever you see fit.