# Problems running latest SMOKE test case

**URL:** <https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/problems-running-latest-smoke-test-case/6189>\
**Category:** SMOKE\
**Created:** [April 30, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/problems-running-latest-smoke-test-case/6189 "2026-04-30T18:26:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![flyenz0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@flyenz0](https://forum.cmascenter.org/u/flyenz0)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/problems-running-latest-smoke-test-case/6189/1 "2026-04-30T18:26:31Z")

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**Describe your issue in detail**

After a recent hardware upgrade I just finished updating our Dell T640 40C/80T server from CentOS7 to Rocky Linux 10.1 and also installed the software prerequisites like tcsh, Intel C++ and Fortran compilers, netcdf-c, netcdf-fortran and others. I made sure I was using tcsh and expected to run all the sectors provided without editing any scripts, but of the 16 available sectors I was only able to successfully run airports, beis4, ptfire-wild, ptfire-rx and fertilizer. For all the other sectors I was getting variations of this error message:

SCRIPT ERROR: timetracker script found multiple existing entries  
for the following primary keys in the file already:  
Sector = ptegu  
Job Name = Annual\_area  
Program = smkreport  
Run Date = inv  
This should not happen, so script does not know how to  
replace the entries for these keys  
ERROR: Problem calling timetracker from qa\_run script  
ERROR: Running qa\_run for invgrid

**What version of the SMOKE software are you using?**

I downloaded and installed the SMOKE example case as described in the following, and I am running the precompiled executables from there: [GitHub - CEMPD/SMOKE-ExampleCase-v2: SMOKE Example Case Using EPA's Emission Modeling Platform format · GitHub](https://github.com/CEMPD/SMOKE-ExampleCase-v2)

**What steps have you taken to resolve this issue already?**

Since the error messages pointed to timetracker\_v2.csh I followed the advice from this forum post: [No Intermediate Log File for Temporal Allocation - #6 by mahsasoleimani](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/no-intermediate-log-file-for-temporal-allocation/5849/6) I copied the version of timetracker\_v2.csh provided (and did chmod to make it executable), but that was insufficient to solve the problem.

My next attempt was to add ‘all, 12LISTOS, timetracker, all, 0, 0, N’ to the run\_settings.txt but that was also unsuccessful.

Finally, I followed the advice from this forum post [SMOKE ptegu ERROR](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/smoke-ptegu-error/4496) which mentioned that running smkreport was not essential to complete SMOKE runs, so I turned off smkreport by editing smk\_ar\_annual\_emf.csh, smk\_ar\_monthly\_emf.csh, smk\_pt\_annual\_onetime\_emf.csh and smk\_pt\_daily\_emf.csh to set run\_smkreport and run\_m3stat to ‘N’.

At this point I was able to successfully run all 16 sectors available in the SMOKE test case. What I don’t understand is why does switching off smkreport and m3stat (supposedly unneeded) make such a big difference, is this unique to the test case? So what happens if I’m running my own cases and need to have the output from smkreport?

Thanks for any clarification - @huytran6583 this is a follow up from my last email to you.

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**Author:** ![huytran6583](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.cmascenter.org/huytran6583/32/3357_2.png) [@huytran6583](https://forum.cmascenter.org/u/huytran6583)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2026, 8:53pm UTC](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/problems-running-latest-smoke-test-case/6189/2 "2026-04-30T20:53:21Z")

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Hi Lorenzo,

Thanks for reporting the issue and your related email to me. I’ve rerun the SMOKE example package and I could not replicate the issue that you reported here.

Upon having deeper investigation, there are several reasons that might explain the issue that you are seeing:

1. Buggy `timetracker _v2.csh` that came with SMOKE Example Case v2:  
In smoke\_example\_case/smoke5.1/scripts/run/timetracker\_v2.csh (lines 139-143), the script deletes an existing TIMELOG entry using /bin/ed via heredoc:

```auto
    /bin/ed -s $TIMELOG << EOF
    H
    ${nrow}d
    w
    EOF

```

On your Rocky Linux 10.1 system, it is likely /bin/ed is not available, and so this code block silently failed. Consequently, the delete command is never executed and the script continues as if the deletion succeeded. The old TIMELOG entry was NOT removed. (This could explain why I could not replicate this issue since /bin/ed does exist on my system).

1. The solution for this buggy timetracker script is to get a newer version of `timetracker_v2.csh` that does not use `/bin/ed`. In fact, the `timetracker_v2.csh` that Alison provided in the forum post that you linked here is the correct one to use (which looks like came from EMP 2022v2). This `timetracker_v2.csh` does not use `/bin/ed`, rather, it uses sed/mv command to remove $TIMELOG file

2. However, replacing `timetracker_v2.csh`, as you noted, did not completely resolve your issue because you might still have residual $TIMELOG files created from previous incomplete run. To completely resolve this issue, you should clean up the log directory, or better yet, remove the intermediate/ directory before re-run with the updated `timetracker_v2.csh`

3. Why this issue only happened to some sectors and not to others: The crash requires at least 3 active smkreport/timetracker calls in one run. Which sectors have this depends on which REPCONFIG\_INV\* environment variables are set in the sector-specific run script. Sectors with fewer active REPCONFIG files make fewer qa\_run calls and may crash later or not at all.

Hope this helps.

Btw, I recently developed some [interactive tool to run SMOKE](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/introducing-smkrun-tool-script-to-process-emission-modeling-platform-run-scripts-interactively/6178). Please check it out let me know what you think. Thanks.

Huy

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![flyenz0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@flyenz0](https://forum.cmascenter.org/u/flyenz0)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 1:30pm UTC](https://forum.cmascenter.org/t/problems-running-latest-smoke-test-case/6189/3 "2026-05-04T13:30:26Z")

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Thank you very much @huytran6583, this is the most complete explanation I’ve seen so far. You’re right about the old timetracker script, it fails because my fresh Rocky Linux install doesn’t have /bin/ed.

The new timetracker script actually calls /bin/rm which is in Rocky Linux, but even after doing rm -R -I \* inside /intermed/ before running the sector scripts I still got those timetracker errors. It was only after I set both smkreport and m3stat to N in the emf scripts that the problem scripts ran to completion.

I really appreciate your help, now I just need to debug the merge scripts before starting the full SMOKE install. I will take a look at the SMOKE tool you developed when I’m ready,thanks!