Can you send the output file where the DF optimization fails? If you were using the right version of Psi and the right number of hydrogens, this sounds like a bug.
Unfortunately, I didn’t save the original output file. However, perhaps the output file from the restarted job could do, since I still have the same problem. As you can see in the attached file, several scf cycles require quite a lot (>200) of iterations to converge, which makes the calculations pretty slow. problem_output.dat (832.0 KB)
Troubling.
Before I try playing with this example myself: why are you using a UHF reference? It looks like this is a closed-shell species. You can see a large speedup for free by using an RHF reference whenever you work with closed-shell species.
Also, you’re not using density-fitting just because you set df_scf_guess true. Did you look to see what that keyword actually does in the manual? I’m not sure if we need to clarify the documentation, or if you just didn’t read the manual very carefully. For that matter, where did you get scf_type direct from?
Before I added the hydrogens, it must’ve been an open shell molecule since I remember getting an error message that said so (which makes sense since the carbon atoms didn’t have completely filled valence shells then). I simply didn’t think about changing it back into RHF. I’m trying that now.
I read the documentation about density fitting and also some other forum threads. The latter is where I got scf_type direct from, but now that I think about it seems like it would just tell the Psi4 to override the DF guess.
Since I’m not very familiar with density fitting, I do find the documentation a bit difficult to understand. I have to read up more on this. However, could you perhaps tell me which keywords would initiate DF?
I’ve managed to converge the structure using the setup in the original post, but with hydrogen atoms added. The process was reeeeally slow, but a few quick test calculations I did suggest that I could halve the time by using 24 threads instead of 12. My rhf calculations with density fitting (I think) are still not working properly, however.
Interesting, if I had to guess it is Palladium causing issues. Between the sto-3g basis and and incorrect density fitting basis there are likely issues. One item to try is a def2-SVP basis which will likely still be much faster than direct and give you a better quality wavefunction.
Another option to try is scf_type disk as your computation is not that large it may be fairly quick to do.
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Yes, I think it’s indeed the palladium. Anyway, thanks for your suggestions.
Okay, so I did figure out that scf_type df switches on density fitting, and so I’ve now been able to run my HF calculations using DF-RHF with a STO-3G basis set. One thing all my attempts have in common is that DIIS gets stuck at the same value after a few iterations, as you can see in the snippet below. What could be the problem here? I see the same thing for another palladium containing molecule I’m trying to converge.
@DF-RHF iter 102: -6962.21654729836246 4.54747e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 103: -6962.21654729835700 5.45697e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 104: -6962.21654729836609 -9.09495e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 105: -6962.21654729836246 3.63798e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 106: -6962.21654729837610 -1.36424e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 107: -6962.21654729837337 2.72848e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 108: -6962.21654729834790 2.54659e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 109: -6962.21654729835245 -4.54747e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 110: -6962.21654729835518 -2.72848e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 111: -6962.21654729836428 -9.09495e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 112: -6962.21654729835882 5.45697e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 113: -6962.21654729836700 -8.18545e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 114: -6962.21654729836519 1.81899e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 115: -6962.21654729837246 -7.27596e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 116: -6962.21654729836064 1.18234e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 117: -6962.21654729835427 6.36646e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 118: -6962.21654729836519 -1.09139e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 119: -6962.21654729836428 9.09495e-13 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 120: -6962.21654729836155 2.72848e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 121: -6962.21654729835700 4.54747e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 122: -6962.21654729835791 -9.09495e-13 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 123: -6962.21654729836155 -3.63798e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 124: -6962.21654729835791 3.63798e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 125: -6962.21654729834790 1.00044e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 126: -6962.21654729835245 -4.54747e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 127: -6962.21654729837064 -1.81899e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 128: -6962.21654729836246 8.18545e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 129: -6962.21654729835609 6.36646e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 130: -6962.21654729834790 8.18545e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 131: -6962.21654729836155 -1.36424e-11 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 132: -6962.21654729837064 -9.09495e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 133: -6962.21654729836609 4.54747e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 134: -6962.21654729836246 3.63798e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 135: -6962.21654729835336 9.09495e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 136: -6962.21654729835791 -4.54747e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 137: -6962.21654729836064 -2.72848e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 138: -6962.21654729835700 3.63798e-12 1.20210e-05 DIIS
@DF-RHF iter 139: -6962.21654729836882 -1.18234e-11 1.20210e-05 DIISWhat are those calculations for? Educational to look at MOs?
Convergence problems are common for transition metals. Adding to it, Pd is heavy, meaning relativistic effects play role. The all-electron minimal basis STO-3G is a terrible choice
In short, STO-3G is completely inappropriate here, maybe even HF.
If you want reliable but still ‘cheap’ computations, I’d recommend PBEh-3c.
optimize('pbeh3c/def2-mSVP')
The def2-mSVP basis set is mandatory and comes with ECPs that take care of relativistic effects. Unfortunately, the ECP gradients are done numerically and will be slow.
I tested it and there seem no convergence problems.
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It’s for a research project where we’re trying to find various quantum mechanical descriptors for a number of different palladium compounds. To do this, I need to find the ground state structure for the compounds first. My idea was to use the approach described in a paper I found on molecular descriptors from first principles calculations, namely, to first use molecular mechanics for a fast but highly approximative ground state search, then Hartree Fock to refine the results, and finally DFT to incorporate both exchange and correlation effects and thus achieve further refinement. This was the most computationally efficient way to do a ground state search according to the authors of the paper. I don’t think they included any organometallic phases, however.
Anyway, I tried the setup found at the bottom of this post, but after three ionic steps the calculation crashed with the following error:
RuntimeError: Command (dftd3 dftd3_geometry.xyz -grad) failed with PATH (:/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/bin:/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/condabin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin)
scf_type df
guess sad
geom_maxiter 100
}
optimize('pbeh3c/def2-mSVP')odd error. You say you manage to do 3 geometry optimization cycles? Or 3 SCF steps?
Three (or two – I’m not sure if the first one counts) geometry optimization cycles. This is what I get when I use grep ‘~’ output.dat:
Step Total Energy Delta E MAX Force RMS Force MAX Disp RMS Disp ~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~
Convergence Criteria 1.00e-06 * 3.00e-04 * o 1.20e-03 * o ~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~
1 -2196.45623987 -2.20e+03 7.67e-02 1.61e-02 o 1.18e-01 2.44e-02 o ~
2 -2196.57133537 -1.15e-01 3.48e-02 6.92e-03 o 1.12e-01 2.78e-02 o ~
3 -2196.62038153 -4.90e-02 1.30e-02 2.89e-03 o 2.01e-01 3.22e-02 o ~This is where the error message stems from in the code, I think:
File “/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/lib//python3.6/site-packages/psi4/driver/qcdb/intf_dftd3/runner.py”, line 135, in run_dftd3_from_arrays
** raise RuntimeError(err) from err**
Yes, 3 optimization steps. That is good. Obviously the dftd3 program works in principle. Why it would fail mid optimization, I have no idea. The energy looks OK, so the molecule has not exploded which might cause the program to fail.
Any idea @loriab? (psi4 version 1.3.2)
I think the program fail had to do with my disk space running out. I did a test with def2-qzvpp-jkfit/b3lyp yesterday, and this calculation filled up the directory /dev/vda1 to 100 % before even starting the first SCF cycle. Either the ‘pbeh3c/def2-mSVP’ did the same but after a few geometry optimization steps, or another job that I submitted hijacked the entire disk, thus causing all running jobs to fail.
In my mind 90 GB disk space is still a lot, but I may be behind the times, so to speak.
Anyway, I’ve been looking through the list of basis sets to find a suitable one for my molecules. The problem is that there aren’t that many that can handle palladium, and even fewer that are well suited for density fitting (jkfit or RI). Ideally, I’d want a fairly large basis set that can be used for DFT calculations and that can also utilize df.
As I understand it from the Psi4 documentation, the keyword relativistic x2c can be used to incorporate relativistic effects. Is that correct?
I’m testing
optimize(‘pbeh3c/def2-mSVP’)
again, this time while keeping track of disk space consumption.
Both x2c and DKH relativistic Hamiltonians are available. You would likely need to import appropriate all-electron basis sets from https://www.basissetexchange.org/. There may not be optimal JK fitting basis sets for everything. But appropriate ones could likely be found.
def2-mSVP should not have large disk space requirements. It is printed in in the integral setup section before the SCF iterations.
==> Integral Setup <==
DFHelper Memory: AOs need 7.815 GiB; user supplied 66.388 GiB. Using in-core AOs.```Wow, that’s quite the basis set treasure trove, thank you 
I only used what I could find on this site.
You’re right, so far so good memory wise with def2-mSVP. It’s very slow, however. The process of adding the ECP gradient terms seems to take forever. Is that what I should expect? I’m planning to calculate properties of thousands of molecules eventually, and so computational efficiency is very important, perhaps even more so than maximum accuracy.
Yes, the numerical ECP gradient is very slow. Our ECP technology is not yet where it should be.
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So my second attempt to optimize using pbeh3c and def2-mSVP also failed, although this time after four optimization steps instead of three. I have no idea what’s wrong, because the memory did definitely not run out. This is the full error message:
File "/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/bin/psi4", line 287, in <module>
exec(content)
File "<string>", line 96, in <module>
File "/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/lib//python3.6/site-packages/psi4/driver/driver.py", line 1052, in optimize
G, wfn = gradient(lowername, return_wfn=True, molecule=moleculeclone, **kwargs)
File "/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/lib//python3.6/site-packages/psi4/driver/driver.py", line 691, in gradient
wfn = procedures['gradient'][lowername](lowername, molecule=molecule, **kwargs)
File "/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/lib//python3.6/site-packages/psi4/driver/procrouting/proc.py", line 2070, in run_scf_gradient
disp_grad = ref_wfn._disp_functor.compute_gradient(ref_wfn.molecule())
File "/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/lib//python3.6/site-packages/psi4/driver/procrouting/empirical_dispersion.py", line 236, in compute_gradient
verbose=1)
File "/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/lib//python3.6/site-packages/psi4/driver/qcdb/intf_dftd3/runner.py", line 135, in run_dftd3_from_arrays
raise RuntimeError(err) from err
RuntimeError: Command (`dftd3 dftd3_geometry.xyz -grad`) failed with PATH (:/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/bin:/home/ubuntu/psi4conda/condabin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin)
Printing out the relevant lines from the Psithon --> Python processed input file:
""","bistripal")
core.IO.set_default_namespace("bistripal")
core.set_global_option("BASIS", "def2-mSVP")
core.set_global_option("GUESS", "sad")
core.set_global_option("GEOM_MAXITER", 100)
--> optimize('pbeh3c')Ok, so I think I get it: the executable dftd3 can’t find dftd3_geometry.xyz. Where is this file supposed to be found during runtime? Right now it’s located in directory /home/ubuntu/dftd3_3e0bfb10, but I’m guessing that this directory was created after the crash (3e0bfb10 is a memory address, right?). I’m thinking that it’s a temporary geometry file, and thus is written to /tmp.
Btw, when I run dftd3 from /home/ubuntu/psi4conda/bin manually using the command
dftd3 …/…/dftd3_3e0bfb10/dftd3_geometry.xyz -grad
I get the error message “inacceptable version number”. I don’t know if this is relevant information. Perhaps the correct version number is supplied from Psi4? (I’ve looked through the source code of dftd3 and at least I understand that “version” does not refer to which version of dftd3 I have).