When VisIt launches a compute engine or database server, it opens the Launch progress window when the component cannot be launched in under four seconds. An exception to this rule is that VisIt will always show the Launch progress window when launching a parallel compute engine or any compute engine on MacOS X. VisIt's components frequently launch fast enough that it is not necessary to show the Launch progress window but you will often see it if you launch compute engines using a batch system.
The Launch progress window indicates VisIt is waiting to hear back from the component being launched on the remote computer and gives you some indication that VisIt is still alive by animating a set of moving dots representing the connection from the local computer to the remote computer. The icon used for the remote computer will vary depending on whether a serial or parallel VisIt component is being launched. The Launch progress window for a parallel compute engine is shown in figure. The window is visible until the remote compute engine connects back to the viewer or the connection is cancelled. If you get tired of waiting for a remote component to launch, you can cancel it by clicking the Cancel button. Once you cancel the launch of a remote component, you can return to your VisIt session. Note that if the remote compute is a parallel compute engine launched via a batch system, the engine will still run when it is finally scheduled but it will immediately dies since VisIt has stopped listening for it. On heavily saturated batch systems, it might be prudent for you to manually remove your compute engine job from the batch queue.
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Figure 4 |