NVIDIA Development Tools Solutions - ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM: Nsight Compute Permission issue with Performance Counters

Overview

This page provides an explanation and solutions for the following error message from NVIDIA Nsight Compute:
   ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM The user running the target application does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device.
For general information about this error including Solutions and Administration, please see NVIDIA Development Tools Solutions - ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM: Permission issue with Performance Counters.

Solutions for this issue

To get the desired behavior (see chart below) when profiling,
  1. Have a system administrator enable access to the NVIDIA performance counters using the Administration instructions
  2. Run the application being profiled with administrative privileges
  • On Windows targets: Launch the target application by right-clicking on the application and selecting "Run as administrator"
  • On Linux targets: Launch the target application with 'sudo' or as a user with the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability set

Nsight Compute Behavior

  1. Version 2019.1.1 found in the stand-alone Nsight Compute DevZone release and Nsight Visual Studio DevZone release

    Mode[1] User[2] Expected Behavior
    Restricted Profiling Admin[3] Profiling produces normal results
    Restricted Profiling non-Admin No Profiling is possible. All attempts to profile will result in reports or output with only an error message.
    Nsight Compute Application:
    Reports contains one of the two following messages:
    • Error: ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device <deviceId>. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM".
    • Error: ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM".
    Nsight Compute Command Line Interface:
    Output contains one of the two following messages:
    • Error: ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device <deviceId>. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM".
    • Error: ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/ERR_NVGPUCTRPERM".
    Unrestricted Profiling Admin[3] Profiling produces normal results
    Unrestricted Profiling non-Admin Profiling produces normal results
    [1] Mode set by system administrator using the Administration instructions
    [2] Privilege level of user running target application being profiled on target device
    [3] Admin user privilege achieved by
    • On Windows targets: Launching the target application by right-clicking on the application and selecting "Run as administrator"
    • On Linux targets: Launching the target application with 'sudo' or as a user with the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability set
  2. Version 2019.1 found in the CUDA 10.1 release

    Mode[1] User[2] Expected Behavior
    Restricted Profiling Admin[3] Profiling produces normal results
    Restricted Profiling non-Admin No Profiling is possible. All attempts to profile will result in reports or output with only an error message.
    Nsight Compute Application:
    Reports contains one of the two following messages:
    • Error: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device <deviceId>. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/NVSOLN1000".
    • Error: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/NVSOLN1000".
    Nsight Compute Command Line Interface:
    Output contains one of the two following messages:
    • Error: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device <deviceId>. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/NVSOLN1000".
    • Error: The user does not have permission to access NVIDIA GPU Performance Counters on the target device. See the following link for instructions to enable permissions and get more information: https://developer.nvidia.com/NVSOLN1000".
    Unrestricted Profiling Admin[3] Profiling produces normal results
    Unrestricted Profiling non-Admin Profiling produces normal results
    [1] Mode set by system administrator using the Administration instructions
    [2] Privilege level of user running target application being profiled on target device
    [3] Admin user privilege achieved by
    • On Windows targets: Launching the target application by right-clicking on the application and selecting "Run as administrator"
    • On Linux targets: Launching the target application with 'sudo' or as a user with the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability set