Issue Running FAST.Farm with Intel Compiler

[Pbarbosa92]

Hi everyone,

Recently, I compiled OpenFAST (v3.5.2) using Intel’s oneAPI HPC Toolkit, and while we saw a nice performance boost in TurbSim when built with the Intel compiler, we’ve hit a snag with FAST.Farm.

Specifically, a simulation that runs without issue when compiled using GCC 11.4.0 crashes with a segmentation fault when compiled using Intel Fortran Classic 2021.6.0.

Here’s a snippet of the output from the Intel-compiled version, just before the crash:

**************************************************************************************************
 FAST.Farm
 Copyright (C) 2025 National Renewable Energy Laboratory
 Copyright (C) 2025 Envision Energy USA LTD
 This program is licensed under Apache License Version 2.0 and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
 See the "LICENSE" file distributed with this software for details.
 **************************************************************************************************
 FAST.Farm-v3.5.2
 Compile Info:
  - Compiler: Intel(R) Fortran Intel(R) 64 Compiler Classic for applications running on Intel(R)
  64, Version 2021.6.0 Build 20220226_000000
  - Architecture: 64 bit
  - Precision: double
  - OpenMP: Yes, number of threads: 32/32
  - Date: May 05 2025
  - Time: 06:36:23

 Execution Info:
  - Date: 05/08/2025
  - Time: 08:56:37-0000

  Heading of the FAST.Farm input file:
    FAST.Farm input file, using two turbines separated by 3D downstream and an offset of 30m, with
    a turbulent inflow given by one turbsim box

 Running AWAE.

 Running InflowWind.

    Reading a 151x35 grid (1500 m wide, 5 m to 345 m above ground) with a characteristic wind
    speed of 9.138 m/s. This full-field file was generated by TurbSim (v2.00.08a-bjj, 18-Jul-2017)
    on 10-Jan-2025 at 12:57:53.

    Processed 8100 time steps of 10-Hz grid-field data (period of 810 seconds).

forrtl: severe (174): SIGSEGV, segmentation fault occurred
Image              PC                Routine            Line        Source             
FAST.Farm          0000000000517429  for__signal_handl     Unknown  Unknown
libpthread-2.31.s  00007FB798D613C0  Unknown               Unknown  Unknown
FAST.Farm          00000000005F346A  Unknown               Unknown  Unknown
FAST.Farm          000000000043EA7F  Unknown               Unknown  Unknown
FAST.Farm          000000000045CCAE  Unknown               Unknown  Unknown
FAST.Farm          0000000000414D72  Unknown               Unknown  Unknown
[libc-2.31.so](http://libc-2.31.so/)       00007FB78D2F30B3  __libc_start_main     Unknown  Unknown
FAST.Farm          0000000000414C7E  Unknown               Unknown  Unknown

In contrast, compiling the same version with GCC works perfectly. The setup, input files, and runtime conditions are exactly the same in both cases.

**************************************************************************************************
 FAST.Farm

 Copyright (C) 2025 National Renewable Energy Laboratory
 Copyright (C) 2025 Envision Energy USA LTD

 This program is licensed under Apache License Version 2.0 and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
 See the "LICENSE" file distributed with this software for details.
 **************************************************************************************************

 FAST.Farm-v3.5.2
 Compile Info:
  - Compiler: GCC version 11.4.0
  - Architecture: 64 bit
  - Precision: double
  - OpenMP: Yes, number of threads: 32/32
  - Date: Feb  5 2025
  - Time: 16:21:48
 Execution Info:
  - Date: 05/08/2025
  - Time: 08:56:42+0000

  Heading of the FAST.Farm input file:
    FAST.Farm input file, using two turbines separated by 3D downstream and an offset of 30m, with
    a turbulent inflow given by one turbsim box
 Running AWAE.
 Running InflowWind.

    Reading a 151x35 grid (1500 m wide, 5 m to 345 m above ground) with a characteristic wind
    speed of 9.138 m/s. This full-field file was generated by TurbSim (v2.00.08a-bjj, 18-Jul-2017)
    on 10-Jan-2025 at 12:57:53.

    Processed 8100 time steps of 10-Hz grid-field data (period of 810 seconds).
 Running WakeDynamics.
 Running FASTWrapper.
 Running OpenFAST.
 OpenFAST input file heading:
     FAST Certification Test #26: NREL 5.0 MW Baseline Wind Turbine (Onshore)

 Running ElastoDyn.
 Nodal outputs section of ElastoDyn input file not found or improperly formatted.
 Running AeroDyn.
 Running InflowWind.
 Running ServoDyn.
 Running ServoDyn Interface for Bladed Controllers (using GNU Fortran for Linux).
 Using legacy Bladed DLL interface.
 Running OpenFAST.
 OpenFAST input file heading:
     FAST Certification Test #26: NREL 5.0 MW Baseline Wind Turbine (Onshore)
... it keeps going...

Has anyone else experienced this issue with Intel compilers? Any thoughts on what might be causing the segmentation fault or how we might debug this more effectively?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

[andrew-platt]

I see you are using v3.5.2. There were several updates in 3.5.4 and 3.5.5 to correct some of the segmentation faults. Could you try v3.5.5 and let us know if you still see the issue? It uses the exact same input files as v3.5.2 (input files are unchanged across all 3.5.x releases).

[Pbarbosa92]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the reply. I can confirm that this solved my issue.

[Pbarbosa92]

Let me add another quick note.

I also had to rebuild the Discon.dll files we were using. The previous versions had been compiled with gfortran, so they needed to be rebuilt as well.