Context Create Plugin#

The context_create plugin detects conditions that prevent the diagnostic process from creating a CUDA context on a selected physical GPU. A failure narrows the problem to GPU visibility, access, or CUDA initialization rather than computation under load; it does not distinguish a software configuration problem from an underlying hardware cause.

Availability and prerequisites#

context_create is available only when its plugin is loaded and the target is a supported physical GPU. It is not part of the numbered suites; request it by canonical name. As with every explicitly named GPU test, the built-in software deployment checks run first.

Behavior#

For every selected GPU, the plugin resolves the device from its PCI bus ID and attempts CUDA context creation. Failure can identify CUDA initialization or device-resolution problems, inaccessible GPUs, and configuration that prevents context creation.

Exclusive-process and prohibited compute modes require special interpretation. When context creation fails and the GPU is in either mode, the default behavior is to skip rather than claim a hardware failure. The ignore_exclusive parameter changes the handling of an otherwise skippable CUDA context result; it does not change the GPU’s compute mode. Ordinary command-line workflows should preserve the default and inspect the mode separately.

Parameters#

Context Create parameters#
Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`is_allowed`	Boolean	`true`	Allow the plugin to run. `false` produces a skipped result.
`ignore_exclusive`	Boolean	`false`	Treat the CUDA result that this plugin normally regards as an exclusive/prohibited-mode skip as a failure instead.

Examples#

Test context creation on GPUs 0 and 1:

$ dcgmi diag --run context_create --entity-id gpu:0,gpu:1

If the result is skipped because of compute mode, inspect the current mode before changing it:

$ dcgmi config --get --verbose

Results and failure conditions#

Context Create results#
Condition	Result or code	Interpretation
A CUDA context is created and destroyed on every selected GPU.	Pass	Basic CUDA initialization and context creation succeeded.
Context creation fails and the GPU mode does not explain the failure.	`DCGM_FR_CUDA_CONTEXT`; fail	Inspect the CUDA error in the diagnostic message. This establishes a context-creation problem, not its underlying hardware or software cause.
CUDA initialization or PCI-bus device resolution fails.	`DCGM_FR_CUDA_API`; fail	The plugin could not reach the context-creation step.
DCGM cannot obtain the selected GPU’s attributes.	`DCGM_FR_DCGM_API`; fail	This is a DCGM communication or data-retrieval failure.
Context creation is blocked by exclusive-process or prohibited compute mode under the default handling.	Skip	The plugin deliberately makes no health claim. Inspect the compute mode and active workload.
`is_allowed=false`.	`DCGM_FR_TEST_DISABLED`; skip	The plugin was disabled by configuration.
The run is interrupted.	`DCGM_FR_ABORTED`; skip	The test did not complete.
No GPU was selected, or an unexpected initialization error occurs.	`DCGM_FR_EMPTY_GPU_LIST` or `DCGM_FR_INTERNAL`; fail	Correct the selection or inspect the diagnostic log before drawing a conclusion about GPU health.