EPICS Home

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System


 
1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024  <2025 Index 1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024  <2025
<== Date ==> <== Thread ==>

Subject: Re: IOC warning when connecting to 64 devices
From: Ralph Lange via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
To: EPICS Tech Talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2025 10:53:34 +0200
Hi Abdalla,

For record processing triggered by incoming data (usually SCAN=I/O Intr), there are queues - one for each of the three EPICS Database priorities - that hold the processing requests.

By default, these queues are pretty short.
To handle bursts better, you can increase the queue sizes. This can be done from the startup script (see [1]) before running 'iocInit'.
There is a watermark facility (available through the iocShell or devIocStats) that can show you how much of the queues is actually used.

If your IOC is overloaded, i.e., continuously more records are added to the callback queue than the IOC is able to process, growing the queue size will obviously not help.
In that situation, you can split the IOC, as you did.
You can also allow multiple callback threads to process records in parallel (see [2]), making use of more cores of your CPU.
*Careful:* If your driver is ASYN-based, the parallel threads solution will not work because of a design flaw or bug (still unclear) in ASYN. Splitting the IOC will work in any case.

Cheers,
~Ralph

[1] https://docs.epics-controls.org/en/latest/appdevguide/IOCInit.html#changing-ioccore-fixed-limits
[2] Chapter "Parallel Callback Tasks" in the App Developers Guide https://epics.anl.gov/base/R3-16/2-docs/AppDevGuide.pdf

References:
IOC warning when connecting to 64 devices Abdalla Ahmad via Tech-talk

Navigate by Date:
Prev: Re: EPICS app, Db Makefile, rule for python-generated Db file Wells, Alex (DLSLtd,RAL,LSCI) via Tech-talk
Next: Re: EPICS build problem Federico Galdenzi via Tech-talk
Index: 1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024  <2025
Navigate by Thread:
Prev: IOC warning when connecting to 64 devices Abdalla Ahmad via Tech-talk
Next: Re: IOC warning when connecting to 64 devices Mark Rivers via Tech-talk
Index: 1994  1995  1996  1997  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024  <2025