# A newbie can not use CUDA by follow official DOC!

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010>\
**Category:** GPU\
**Created:** [March 15, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010 "2020-03-15T14:14:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nuclear718](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nuclear718/32/16163_2.png) [@nuclear718](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nuclear718)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/1 "2020-03-15T14:14:42Z")

</div>

New PC, New Julia, New CUDA package and just totally follow ““[https://juliagpu.gitlab.io/CUDA.jl/](https://juliagpu.gitlab.io/CUDA.jl/)”” but it doesn’t work!

using CUDAdrv, CUDAnative, CuArrays

get a error:  
┌ Info: CUDAnative.jl failed to initialize, GPU functionality unavailable (set JULIA\_CUDA\_SILENT or JULIA\_CUDA\_VERBOSE to silence or expand this message)  
└ @ CUDAnative C:\Users\USER.julia\packages\CUDAnative\hfulr\src\CUDAnative.jl:192

OS: Win10, GPU: GTX1650super, Julia 1.3.1

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**Author:** ![KajWiik](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kajwiik/32/199_2.png) [@KajWiik](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KajWiik)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/2 "2020-03-15T14:19:08Z")

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Have you installed the CUDA drivers and toolkit and tested that it is working?

> **[Installation Guide Windows :: CUDA Toolkit Documentation](https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-microsoft-windows/index.html)**
>
> The installation instructions for the CUDA Toolkit on MS-Windows systems.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 2:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/3 "2020-03-15T14:57:32Z")

</div>

> [@nuclear718](#):
>
> ┌ Info: CUDAnative.jl failed to initialize, GPU functionality unavailable (set JULIA\_CUDA\_SILENT or JULIA\_CUDA\_VERBOSE to silence or expand this message)  
> └ @ CUDAnative C:\Users\USER.julia\packages\CUDAnative\hfulr\src\CUDAnative.jl:192

Did you follow this advise, and set the env var JULIA\_CUDA\_VERBOSE to get some more details? You’re not the first to miss this hint, so no worries. Never thought it would be so confusing; next CUDAnative/CuArrays release will get rid of it.

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**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 2:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/4 "2020-04-20T02:53:52Z")

</div>

I had similar problem in Ubuntu 18.04.

I set JULIA\_CUDA\_VERBOSE=true in the bashrc file. I still get the same error:

Info: CUDAdrv.jl failed to initialize, GPU functionality unavailable (set JULIA\_CUDA\_SILENT or JULIA\_CUDA\_VERBOSE to silence or expand this message)  
└ @ CUDAdrv /home/mehrdad/.julia/packages/CUDAdrv/aBgcd/src/CUDAdrv.jl:69

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 3:15am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/5 "2020-04-20T03:15:15Z")

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After a fresh restart, I get the following error:

 ![FireShot Capture 011 - Retirement - Jupyter Notebook - localhost](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/2/0/208064974d1594b5b4df6dde65577861eebf5c46.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/6 "2020-04-20T13:15:08Z")

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Something seems off here. Julia failed to render the stack-trace passed to `@error`, which is something that has worked since 1.0. Which version of Julia are you using?

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**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/7 "2020-04-20T16:47:02Z")

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I am using version 1.2. I have updated the packages and followed the instructions for CUDA installation.

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**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/8 "2020-04-21T23:17:38Z")

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Is there a way to resolve this please?

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**Author:** ![KajWiik](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kajwiik/32/199_2.png) [@KajWiik](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KajWiik)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/9 "2020-04-21T23:24:53Z")

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What is the output of  
`nvidia-smi`?

You could also try to move ~/.julia to e.g. ~/.julia.bak and reinstall the packages, it has sometimes helped with strange problems.

I am using CUDAdrv in a Ubuntu 18.04 box without problems (so there is hope 🙂) .

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**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/10 "2020-04-21T23:26:27Z")

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This is the output ofnvidia-smi:

Tue Apr 21 16:25:55 2020  
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+  
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.33.01 Driver Version: 440.33.01 CUDA Version: 10.2 |  
|-------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+  
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |  
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |  
|===============================+======================+======================|  
| 0 GeForce GTX 960M On | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |  
| N/A 63C P0 N/A / N/A | 587MiB / 2004MiB | 5% Default |  
±------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+

±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+  
| Processes: GPU Memory |  
| GPU PID Type Process name Usage |  
|=============================================================================|  
| 0 1478 G /usr/bin/gnome-shell 116MiB |  
| 0 4612 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 469MiB |  
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dpsanders](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dpsanders/32/3573_2.png) [@dpsanders](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dpsanders)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 1:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/11 "2020-04-22T01:53:38Z")

</div>

Have you tried the latest Julia release, 1.4.1?

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**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 3:44am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/12 "2020-04-22T03:44:28Z")

</div>

I uninstalled all packages and deleted Julia. Then installed Julia 1.4.1 and all the packages. Now, we I execute “using CUDAdrv”, I do not get an error. However, when I execute the following program (from the nvidia website [https://devblogs.nvidia.com/gpu-computing-julia-programming-language/](https://devblogs.nvidia.com/gpu-computing-julia-programming-language/)):

using CUDAdrv, CUDAnative

function kernel\_vadd(a, b, c)  
i = threadIdx().x  
c[i] = a[i] + b[i]  
return  
end

# generate some data

len = 512  
a = rand(Int, len)  
b = rand(Int, len)

# allocate & upload to the GPU

d\_a = CuArray(a)  
d\_b = CuArray(b)  
d\_c = similar(d\_a)

# execute and fetch results

@cuda (1,len) kernel\_vadd(d\_a, d\_b, d\_c)  
c = Array(d\_c)

I get the following error (the error is long, so I pasted it in a Google doc)

> **[CUDA Error](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZXE6I4RUMO2Twv9_sdoeG04QarM2hug_lf6ylhEgvIM/edit?usp=sharing)**
>
> ┌ Error: Could not initialize CUDA │ exception = (CuError(CUDAdrv.UnknownMember, nothing), Union{Ptr{Nothing}, Base.InterpreterIP}\[Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007ff1dd3ed7ae, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007ff1dd3eed34, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007ff1dd3efc2d, Ptr{Nothing}...

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 6:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/13 "2020-04-22T06:51:39Z")

</div>

Please use appropriate markup for code blocks, your posts are hard to read otherwise. See [Please read: make it easier to help you](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/psa-make-it-easier-to-help-you/14757)

As I said, there seems to be something up with your Julia, as it does not render the exception (anything in your `startup.jl`?)

Also, the error being thrown is one not known to the wrapped CUDA headers. Could you try the following to see the actual code:

```julia
julia> using CUDAdrv
[Info: Precompiling CUDAdrv [c5f51814-7f29-56b8-a69c-e4d8f6be1fde]

julia> CUDAdrv.unsafe_cuCtxGetCurrent(Ref{CUDAdrv.CUcontext}())
CUDA_SUCCESS::cudaError_enum = 0x00000000

julia> Int(ans)
0

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 5:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/14 "2020-04-22T17:21:31Z")

</div>

I apologize for the bad write-up.

There are some materials related to Python is in the startup.jl file. Shall I delete those?

When I execute `using CUDAdrv`, nothing happens. It should usually show the precompiling info, I guess).

When I execute `CUDAdrv.unsafe_cuCtxGetCurrent(Ref{CUDAdrv.CUcontext}())`, I get the following error

```julia
┌ Error: Could not initialize CUDA
│ exception = (CuError(CUDAdrv.UnknownMember, nothing), Union{Ptr{Nothing}, Base.InterpreterIP}[Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d179e, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d2d24, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d3c1d, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d3e6b, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d4063, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d4110, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d4219, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d1341, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548d1391, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb8298b062, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829a3b65, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829a37af, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829a4d63, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829a5fa7, Base.InterpreterIP in top-level CodeInfo for Main at statement 4, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829c32e9, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829c3f34, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548c902e, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb8298b062, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548ba1be, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb8298b40a, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb8299a5cb, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb8299ae81, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548aded2, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548ae0ae, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb548ae0cc, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb8298b062, Ptr{Nothing} @0x00007fcb829a9a5e, Ptr{Nothing} @0x0000000000000000])
└ @ CUDAdrv /home/mehrdad/.julia/packages/CUDAdrv/YK1gX/src/CUDAdrv.jl:106
AssertionError: CUDAdrv.jl did not successfully initialize, and is not usable.

Stacktrace:
 [1] libcuda at /home/mehrdad/.julia/packages/CUDAdrv/YK1gX/src/CUDAdrv.jl:82 [inlined]
 [2] (::CUDAdrv.var"#618#cache_fptr!#140")() at /home/mehrdad/.julia/packages/CUDAapi/XuSHC/src/call.jl:31
 [3] macro expansion at /home/mehrdad/.julia/packages/CUDAapi/XuSHC/src/call.jl:39 [inlined]
 [4] unsafe_cuCtxGetCurrent(::Base.RefValue{Ptr{Nothing}}) at /home/mehrdad/.julia/packages/CUDAdrv/YK1gX/src/libcuda.jl:145
 [5] top-level scope at In[2]:1

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/15 "2020-04-22T18:26:13Z")

</div>

Oh, so it’s actually `cuInit` that fails. Try the following then:

```julia
julia> using CUDAdrv

julia> CUDAdrv.CUDAapi.@runtime_ccall((:cuInit, CUDAdrv.__libcuda), CUDAdrv.CUresult, (UInt32,), 0)
CUDA_SUCCESS::cudaError_enum = 0x00000000

julia> Int(ans)
0

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/16 "2020-04-23T20:21:37Z")

</div>

This is the error I get

`UnknownMember::cudaError_enum = 0xffffffff`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 7:05am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/17 "2020-04-24T07:05:26Z")

</div>

This return code of -1 indicates you are using the CUDA stub libraries. You probably have not installed the NVIDIA driver, or don’t have it at a discoverable path. Try:

```julia
julia> using Libdl

julia> Libdl.dlpath("libcuda")
"/usr/bin/../lib/libcuda.so"

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 7:28am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/18 "2020-04-24T07:28:00Z")

</div>

Also, could you try the failing example again but launching julia with `--startup-file=no` to see if the failure to render that exception is due to some code you have loaded, and show the output of `using Logging; show(global_logger())` when you run your script? Be sure to show exactly the code you are running, in which environment (e.g. a REPL, Juno, or whatnot); I’d like to know what’s causing the output issue 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mehrdad_esfahani/32/14208_2.png) [@Mehrdad\_Esfahani](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mehrdad_Esfahani)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 3:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/19 "2020-04-24T15:03:04Z")

</div>

When I run

```julia
using Libdl
Libdl.dlpath("libcuda")

```

I get

```julia
"/usr/local/cuda/lib64/stubs/libcuda.so"

```

I start Julia by typing `julia --startup-file=no`. Then I execute `using IJulia;jupyter-notebook()`.

I execute the example with additional commands. It still fails and produce the previous error. The new commands generate new info:

```julia
Base.CoreLogging.SimpleLogger(IJulia.IJuliaStdio{Base.PipeEndpoint}(IOContext(Base.PipeEndpoint(RawFD(0x0000002d) open, 0 bytes waiting))), Info, Dict{Any,Int64}())

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 3:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010/20 "2020-04-24T15:05:34Z")

</div>

Aha, so IJulia messes up the logging. Good to know.

Anyway, the `dlpath` output confirms my suspicion. You need to install the NVIDIA driver, and if it is, make sure its `libcuda` is discoverable.

[Next page](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-newbie-can-not-use-cuda-by-follow-official-doc/36010.md?page=2)