MKL.NET.Matrix Nuget package in docker container

[RobWomack98]

Encountering errors with matrix multiplication using MKL.NET.Matrix Nuget package in a docker container

Dockerfile

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0-windowsservercore-ltsc2022
WORKDIR c:/test/
COPY test.csproj test.cs ./
RUN dotnet build
RUN dotnet test

test.csproj file

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFrameworks>net6.0</TargetFrameworks>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="MKL.NET.Matrix" Version="1.1.1"/>
    <PackageReference Include="MKL.NET.win-x64" Version="2022.0.0.115" />
    <PackageReference Include="MSTest" Version="3.6.2"/>
  </ItemGroup>  
</Project>

test.cs file:

using System;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

[TestClass]
public class matrix_test {
    [TestMethod]
    public void matrix_multiply_test(){
        MKLNET.matrix matrixA = new MKLNET.matrix(6, 6);
        for (int i = 0; i < matrixA.Cols; ++i) {
            for (int j = 0; j < matrixA.Rows; ++j) {
                    matrixA[i, j] = (i + 1) * (j + 1);
            }
        }
        try { MKLNET.matrix result = matrixA * matrixA;
        } catch (ExternalException e) {
            Console.WriteLine(e.ErrorCode);
            Console.WriteLine(e.Source);
            Assert.Fail();
        }
        Assert.IsTrue(true);
    }
}

output (catching the exception)

Error Message:
Assert.Fail failed.
Stack Trace:
at matrix_test.matrix_multiply_test() in C:\test\test.cs:line 20

Standard Output Messages:
-2147467259 (translates to 0x80004005, an Unspecified Error)
MKL.NET

output (not catching the exception)

System.Runtime.InteropServices.SEHException: External component has thrown an exception.
Stack Trace:
at MKLNET.Blas.Unsafe.gemm(Layout Layout, Trans TransA, Trans TransB, Int32 M, Int32 N, Int32 K, Double alpha, Double* A, Int32 lda, Double* B, Int32 ldb, Double beta, Double* C, Int32 ldc)
at MKLNET.Expression.MatrixMultiply.Evaluate()
at MKLNET.Expression.MatrixExpression.op_Implicit(MatrixExpression a)
at matrix_test.matrix_multiply_test() in C:\test\test.cs:line 16

Some scenarios where this error doesn't exist (that could help isolate the issue):

1. when using mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0-jammy image (I change the runtime package to MKL.NET.linux-x64 and change dockerfile test path to /test/)
2. executing the unit test outside of a docker image (i.e. normal windows 11)

Insight on why this error could be happening or how to get more information out of the external failure would be greatly helpful. Thanks

[delreluca]

There should be an SEHException.ErrorCode property, maybe if you print the value you can find out more.

Oh, you already did that, sorry…

Maybe the windowsservercore-ltsc2022 image is missing something, like an MSVC redistributable or other libraries? That typically should give you a missing DLL error, but I do not have much experience with Windows containers.

[delreluca]

According to Dependency Walker the MKL libraries do not need MSVC. I’ve read that you can run procmon (SysInternals Process Monitor) in a Windows container to monitor what the process does, maybe this will help

[RobWomack98]

Will look into this using procmon if I can, thanks