Troubleshooting

  • Jack Atkinson
  • Last Updated: October 2025

FAQ

If you are experiencing problems building or using FTorch please see below for guidance on common problems or queries.

Usage

Why are inputs/outputs to/from torch models arrays?

The reason input and output tensors to/from torch_model_forward are contained in arrays is because it is possible to pass multiple input tensors to the forward() method of a torch net, and it is possible for the net to return multiple output tensors.

The nature of Fortran means that it is not possible to set an arbitrary number of inputs to the torch_model_forward subroutine, so instead we use a single array of input tensors which can have an arbitrary length. Similarly, a single array of output tensors is used.

Note that this does not refer to batching data. This should be done in the same way as in Torch; by extending the dimensionality of the input tensors.

Do I need to set torch.inference_mode(), torch.no_grad(), or torch.eval() somewhere like in PyTorch?

By default we disable gradient calculations for tensors and models and place models in evaluation mode for efficiency. These can be adjusted using the requires_grad and is_training optional arguments in the Fortran interface. See the API procedures documentation for torch_tensor_from_array and torch_model_load etc. for details.

Common Errors

No specific subroutine

FTorch makes heavy use of Fortran interfaces to module procedures to achieve overloading of subroutines such that for users do not need to call a different subroutine for each rank or type of tensor.

If you make a call to a subroutine that fails to match anything in the interface you will face a compile-time error of the form:

   42 |   call torch_tensor_from_array(tensor, in_data, tensor_layout, torch_kCPU)
      |                                                                          1
Error: There is no specific subroutine for the generic ‘torch_tensor_from_array’ at (1)

The first thing to do in this instance is to inspect the interface you are trying to call, and instead attempt to call the specific procedure you expect to use. This can often provide more instructive error messages about what you are doing incorrectly

int64 versions of ftorch for large tensors

An alternative cause of the 'no specific subroutine' error can occur if your tensor dimension is larger than FTorch supports by default. Currently FTorch represents the number of elements in an array dimension using 32-bit integers. For most users this will be more than enough, but if your code uses large tensors (where large means more than 2,147,483,647 elements in any one dimension (the maximum value of a 32-bit integer)), you may you may need to compile ftorch with 64-bit integers. If you do not, you may receive a compile time error like the following:

To fix this, rebuild FTorch with 64-bit integers by modifying the following line in src/ftorch.fypp

integer, parameter :: ftorch_int = int32 ! set integer size for FTorch library

to instead use 64-bit integers:

integer, parameter :: ftorch_int = int64 ! set integer size for FTorch library

Note: You will need to re-run fypp to regenerate the source files as described in the developer documentation

Segmentation faults

Missing import for overloaded assignment operator

Whenever you execute code involving torch_tensors on each side of an equals sign, the overloaded assignment operator should be triggered. As such, if you aren't using the bare use ftorch import then you should ensure you specify use ftorch, only: assignment(=) (as well as any other module members you require). See the tensor documentation for more details.