Restart Concentration Field from ATS-PFLOTRAN Checkpoint File

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Xueyuan Kang

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Mar 27, 2026, 8:56:05 PM (6 days ago) Mar 27
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Hello all,

I am trying to restart a reactive transport simulation in ATS–PFLOTRAN from a previously saved checkpoint file, but I am encountering an issue when loading the concentration fields.

When restarting the simulation, the log file reports the following error:

what(): No such variable "total_component_concentration.cell.0" in file "../RTM/checkpoint00575.h5"

 

However, upon inspecting the checkpoint file (checkpoint00575.h5), I found that the variables are stored with names such as: total_component_concentration.cell.Al+++, instead of indexed names like cell.0.

 

This makes me wonder:

  • Does ATS expect component concentrations to be indexed numerically (e.g., cell.0, cell.1, etc.) during restart?
  • If so, is there a required mapping between component names (e.g., Al+++) and indices for the checkpoint.h5 file?
  • Or is there an additional configuration needed to ensure ATS correctly recognizes the named variables in the checkpoint file?

For initialization, I have specified the restart file for all PKs (canopy, snow, flow, overland flow, subsurface transport, surface transport, subsurface chemistry, and surface chemistry) as follows:

<ParameterList name="initial condition" type="ParameterList">
  <Parameter name="restart file" type="string" value="../RTM/checkpoint00575.h5"/>
</ParameterList>

 For the subsurface and surface chemistry PKs, I have also set the "initial conditions time" to match the checkpoint time.

Despite this, it seems that the solute concentrations (and potentially mineral-related fields such as volume fractions) are not being correctly read from the checkpoint.

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Thank you very much for your help!

Best regards,
Xueyuan

Xueyuan Kang

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Mar 27, 2026, 8:57:47 PM (6 days ago) Mar 27
to Amanzi-ATS Users
Forgot to mention that I am using the latest ATS master branch (installed a few days ago, on March 25).

Afolabi Femi

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Mar 27, 2026, 9:15:58 PM (6 days ago) Mar 27
to Amanzi-ATS Users
Hello, 

I am currently working on peatland response to storm. I would like to ask if anyone has thorough knowledge on how to go about it using amanzi and legacy dataset. 

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Ethan Coon

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Mar 28, 2026, 1:15:21 PM (6 days ago) Mar 28
to Afolabi Femi, Amanzi-ATS Users
Was the checkpoint file generated with the same version of the code that the restart was done with?  If so, please submit a bug on the ATS github page and we will get this fixed.  I thought we had a regression test for this, but it’s possible that this slipped through the cracks.

Ethan


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Xueyuan Kang

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Mar 29, 2026, 1:36:12 PM (5 days ago) Mar 29
to Amanzi-ATS Users

Hi Ethan,

Yes, the checkpoint file was generated using the same version of the code as the restart. I will go ahead and submit a bug report.

Best,
Xueyuan

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