Ticket 25687

Summary: gres_select_filter_select_and_set error
Product: Slurm Reporter: Paul Edmon <pedmon>
Component: slurmctldAssignee: Joel Criado <jcriadoledes>
Status: OPEN --- QA Contact:
Severity: 4 - Minor Issue    
Priority: ---    
Version: 26.05.2   
Hardware: Linux   
OS: Linux   
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Attachments: Current slurm.conf
Current topology.conf
Current gres.conf for GPU nodes.

Description Paul Edmon 2026-08-11 12:30:53 MDT
What does this error mean?

Aug 11 14:27:19 holy-slurm02.rc.fas.harvard.edu slurmctld[1468883]: error: gres_select_filter_select_and_set job 38196442 failed to satisfy gres-per-job counter

This is the job in question:

[root@holy-slurm02 ~]# scontrol show job 38196442
JobId=38196442 ArrayJobId=38196442 ArrayTaskId=0 JobName=npg_i1p10_001s
   UserId=nabreu(64363) GroupId=barak_lab(5117) MCS_label=N/A
   Priority=4997332 Nice=0 Account=kempner_barak_lab QOS=normal
   JobState=PENDING Reason=Priority Dependency=(null)
   Requeue=1 Restarts=11 BatchFlag=1 Reboot=0 ExitCode=0:0
   RunTime=00:00:00 TimeLimit=2-00:00:00 TimeMin=N/A
   SubmitTime=2026-08-11T13:41:58 EligibleTime=2026-08-11T13:43:59
   AccrueTime=2026-08-11T13:43:59
   StartTime=2026-08-12T02:07:20 EndTime=2026-08-14T02:07:20 Deadline=N/A
   SuspendTime=None SecsPreSuspend=0 LastSchedEval=2026-08-11T14:29:07 Scheduler=Main
   Partition=kempner_requeue AllocNode:Sid=0.0.0.0:870555
   ReqNodeList=(null) ExcNodeList=(null)
   NodeList= SchedNodeList=holygpu8a11101
   StepMgrEnabled=Yes
   NumNodes=1-1 NumCPUs=32 NumTasks=1 CPUs/Task=32 ReqB:S:C:T=0:0:*:*
   ReqTRES=cpu=32,mem=400G,node=1,billing=1739,gres/gpu=4
   AllocTRES=(null)
   Socks/Node=* NtasksPerN:B:S:C=0:0:*:* CoreSpec=*
   MinCPUsNode=32 MinMemoryNode=400G MinTmpDiskNode=0
   Features=h200|h100 DelayBoot=00:00:00
   OverSubscribe=NO Exclusive=NO Contiguous=0 Licenses=(null) LicensesAlloc=(null) Network=(null)
   Command=/n/home07/nabreu/opt-rl/scripts/run_npg_grpo_ours_full_i1p10_qwen25math_dapo_aime_v5_b128_requeue_h200.sh
   SubmitLine=sbatch --array=0-0 --job-name=npg_i1p10_001s --export=ALL,CONDA_ENV_PREFIX=/n/netscratch/kempner_barak_lab/Lab/nabreu/.mamba/envs/opt-rl-scratch,SWEEP_GRID=../configs-na/grid_npg_grpo_ours_full_i1p10_qwen25math_1_5b_dapo_aime_v5_b128_kl0.001.yaml,SWEEP_EXTRA_OVERRIDES=ckpt.save_dir=/n/netscratch/kempner_barak_lab/Lab/nabreu/opt-rl/ckpts/npg-ours-full-i1p10-qwen25math-1.5b-dapo-aime-v5-b128-kl0.001-37693959-0 scripts/run_npg_grpo_ours_full_i1p10_qwen25math_dapo_aime_v5_b128_requeue_h200.sh
   WorkDir=/n/home07/nabreu/opt-rl
   StdErr=/n/home07/nabreu/opt-rl/printouts/npg_ours_full_i1p10/38196442_0_npg_ours_i1p10_v5b128.err
   StdIn=/dev/null
   StdOut=/n/home07/nabreu/opt-rl/printouts/npg_ours_full_i1p10/38196442_0_npg_ours_i1p10_v5b128.out
   TresPerJob=gres/gpu:4
   TresPerTask=cpu=32

Here is the start of the job script: 

[root@holy-slurm02 ~]# sacct -B -j 38196442
Batch Script for 38196442_0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH -J npg_i1p10
#SBATCH -o printouts/npg_ours_full_i1p10/%A_%a_npg_ours_i1p10_v5b128.out
#SBATCH -e printouts/npg_ours_full_i1p10/%A_%a_npg_ours_i1p10_v5b128.err
#SBATCH -p kempner_requeue
#SBATCH -N 1
#SBATCH --gpus=4
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=32
#SBATCH --mem=400G
#SBATCH -t 2-00:00:00
#SBATCH --array=0-2
#SBATCH --constraint="h200|h100"
#SBATCH --account=kempner_barak_lab
#SBATCH --requeue
#SBATCH --signal=B:USR1@600

I don't see anything obviously wrong.
Comment 1 Joel Criado 2026-08-12 00:01:35 MDT
Hi,

Can you share your slurm.conf and gres.conf files?

Kind regards,
Joel
Comment 2 Paul Edmon 2026-08-12 07:44:20 MDT
Created attachment 46022 [details]
Current slurm.conf
Comment 3 Paul Edmon 2026-08-12 07:44:34 MDT
Created attachment 46023 [details]
Current topology.conf
Comment 4 Paul Edmon 2026-08-12 07:45:46 MDT
Created attachment 46024 [details]
Current gres.conf for GPU nodes.
Comment 5 Paul Edmon 2026-08-12 07:46:04 MDT
Yup. I've added them.

-Paul Edmon-

On 8/12/26 2:01 AM, bugs@schedmd.com wrote:
> Joel Criado <mailto:jcriadoledes@nvidia.com> changed ticket 25687 
> <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687>
> What 	Removed 	Added
> Assignee 	support@schedmd.com 	jcriadoledes@nvidia.com
>
> *Comment # 1 <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687#c1> on 
> ticket 25687 <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687> from 
> Joel Criado <mailto:jcriadoledes@nvidia.com> *
> Hi,
>
> Can you share your slurm.conf and gres.conf files?
>
> Kind regards,
> Joel
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You are receiving this mail because:
>
>   * You reported the ticket.
>
Comment 6 Joel Criado 2026-08-17 08:04:19 MDT
Hi,

The error is triggered from the function mentioned there: gres_select_filter_select_and_set. There, we try to assign specific GPUs from the selected nodes to the job. The error is emitted when we can't get enough GPUs to fulfill the GRES per job requested. When that happens, the job remains pending and will be tested at the next scheduling cycle. It is not a fatal error for the job, and can end up running later on.

From the info on your scontrol show job, it looks like the job had many restarts (11) before, so it is a perfectly runnable job. The error is less harmful than it seems, as you can see the job gets scheduled eventually. I would say that as long as the job gets scheduled in a reasonable time you can safely ignore it. If you see a job pending for a long time and repeated instances of the error we can try to dig further into it.

Also, you can change your job request to user GRES per node instead GRES per job. That would mean using --gpus-per-node instead of --gpus. That would trigger a different code path, avoiding the error at all.

Kind regards,
Joel
Comment 7 Paul Edmon 2026-08-17 08:13:55 MDT
Thanks for the explanation. Given this could this be demoted to a 
warning or given a gate so that it only shows up with you have certain 
flags on? It doesn't seem to be a critical error at least.

-Paul Edmon-

On 8/17/2026 10:04 AM, bugs@schedmd.com wrote:
>
> *Comment # 6 <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687#c6> on 
> ticket 25687 <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687> from 
> Joel Criado <mailto:jcriadoledes@nvidia.com> *
> Hi,
>
> The error is triggered from the function mentioned there:
> gres_select_filter_select_and_set. There, we try to assign specific GPUs from
> the selected nodes to the job. The error is emitted when we can't get enough
> GPUs to fulfill the GRES per job requested. When that happens, the job remains
> pending and will be tested at the next scheduling cycle. It is not a fatal
> error for the job, and can end up running later on.
>
>  From the info on your scontrol show job, it looks like the job had many
> restarts (11) before, so it is a perfectly runnable job. The error is less
> harmful than it seems, as you can see the job gets scheduled eventually. I
> would say that as long as the job gets scheduled in a reasonable time you can
> safely ignore it. If you see a job pending for a long time and repeated
> instances of the error we can try to dig further into it.
>
> Also, you can change your job request to user GRES per node instead GRES per
> job. That would mean using --gpus-per-node instead of --gpus. That would
> trigger a different code path, avoiding the error at all.
>
> Kind regards,
> Joel
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You are receiving this mail because:
>
>   * You reported the ticket.
>
Comment 8 Joel Criado 2026-08-17 09:02:36 MDT
Hi,

I will discuss the potential change with some colleagues and let you know what we decide about that.

Kind regards,
Joel
Comment 9 Paul Edmon 2026-08-17 09:07:06 MDT
Thanks!

-Paul Edmon-

On 8/17/2026 11:02 AM, bugs@schedmd.com wrote:
>
> *Comment # 8 <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687#c8> on 
> ticket 25687 <https://support.schedmd.com/show_bug.cgi?id=25687> from 
> Joel Criado <mailto:jcriadoledes@nvidia.com> *
> Hi,
>
> I will discuss the potential change with some colleagues and let you know what
> we decide about that.
>
> Kind regards,
> Joel
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You are receiving this mail because:
>
>   * You reported the ticket.
>