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I'm trying to get my application ported over to 64-bit Python. Everything works fine on my 64-bit Windows 7 workstation (with a E8600 Core 2 Duo), but when I try to execute the same Python 2.7.2 64-bit program (which is stored in a network location) on a Windows Server 2008 HPC system with a Xeon X5680, it immediately fails (regardless of passing a source file or not) with a dialog box that reads:

"The application was unable to start correctly (0xc00000cc). Click OK to close the application."

I think both these processors should support the x86-64 instruction set, so I'm surprised it doesn't "just work." Looking up the error code from Microsoft, I found that it means "{Network Name Not Found} The specified share name cannot be found on the remote server." What it is talking about? I've tried copying the Python 64-bit installation over to the local drive, but it gives the same network-related error.

How can I fix this? Is there some inherent incompatibility that I'm missing. 32-bit Python works perfectly on both my workstation and on the HPC nodes. I'd prefer to not have to recompile everything on the HPC nodes.

Thanks.

partofthething
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  • IMHO, this is restrictions of network zones on your server. Try to log file activity with Process Monitor to ensure? Or, may be network path is really not available? What command exactly you try to execute? – Maximus Jul 24 '12 at 21:00
  • Installing a fresh copy of 64-bit python on the node works fine. But copying a version installed on the workstation does not. If I copy the version that was installed on the node to the workstation, then it DOES work. So there's something wrong with xcopy deployment from Windows 7 to the cluster. How can this be? – partofthething Jul 24 '12 at 22:53
  • Windows usually imposes restrictions on running executables or loading libraries from network shares (obviously for security resons, because you do not control the content of remote drives). Perhaps you can convince your sysadmin to lift the restriction or to install Python on each node. Then the local interpretter and its libraries could be used and no executables or libraries will be loaded from the network. – Hristo Iliev Jul 27 '12 at 07:45

1 Answers1

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@partofthething, based on your comment, I'm not sure how extensive your xcopy was, but it is possible you were missing some Python DLLs.

For example, if you used the standard Python installer, and Python was installed C:\Python27, you should also have C:\Windows\System32\python27.dll, or C:\Windows\SysWOW64\python27.dll. You can copy these to the root directory of your python install and then run from a network drive without any issues, but otherwise they'd be discoverable in the C:\Windows\* location.

The above should work no matter what, but I've got some theories of what might have happened:

  • It's possible you've chosen a non-standard install directory - This doesn't make much sense, but it could somehow be represented in the Python you're copying to the network (i.e. you installed in C:\Python27-64, and that does not exist on the HPC server).

  • the DLLs were completely missing - I'm doubtful they were missing, because then you should get message saying something like:

    The program could not start because python27.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

  • the DLLs were the wrong architecture - I wasn't able (didn't have enough patience) to get Python 2.7.2 installed, but I was able to get python 2.7.8 to fail with a more sensible error 0xc000007b (STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_FORMAT) by forcing it to use 32-bit DLLs with a 64-bit Python.

SimplyKnownAsG
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