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Why does my batch job fail?

Below are common error messages you may get when the job fails, and advice how to fix them.

Invalid account or account/partition combination specified

The complete error message is as shown below:

sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Invalid account or account/partition combination specified

This error message refers to Slurm options --account=<project> and --partition. The most common causes are:

  • Project does not exist.
  • Project exists, but you are not a member of it. See how to add a member to project
  • You are a project member, but the project has not been enabled on Puhti. See how to add service access for project.
  • Partition does not exist.
  • Partition exists, but your project is not enabled in it.

Job violates accounting/QOS policy

The complete error message is as shown below:

sbatch: error: AssocMaxSubmitJobLimit
sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Job violates accounting/QOS policy (job submit limit, user's size and/or time limits)

The most common causes are:

  • Job script is missing the --account parameter.
  • Your project has too many jobs in the system, either running or queuing. Note that internally, Slurm counts each job within an array job as a separate job.
  • The job was executed directly ./script_name.sh or bash script_name.sh, while it should be submitted with sbatch script_name.sh.

Requested node configuration is not available

The complete error message is as shown below:

sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Requested node configuration is not available

The most common causes are:

  • Requesting e.g. a GPU or NVMe in a partition that does not have them. See Puhti partitions for available resources.