|Gromacs| 2021.3 release notes
------------------------------

This version was released on August 18th, 2021. These release notes
document the changes that have taken place in |Gromacs| since the
previous 2021.2 version, to fix known issues. It also incorporates all
fixes made in version 2020.6 and earlier, which you can find described
in the :ref:`release-notes`.

.. Note to developers!
   Please use """"""" to underline the individual entries for fixed issues in the subfolders,
   otherwise the formatting on the webpage is messed up.
   Also, please use the syntax :issue:`number` to reference issues on GitLab, without the
   a space between the colon and number!

Fixes where mdrun could behave incorrectly
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Fix mdrun -ddorder pp_pme
"""""""""""""""""""""""""

When rank ordering PP-PME, mdrun would deadlock during the initialization
phase.

:issue:`4114`

Fixed gmxapi MD plugin binding
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Molecular Dynamics extension code was not properly handled when added to a
simulation through the gmxapi Python interface.
This meant that restraint potentials would silently fail to be applied with
gmxapi versions >= 0.1.
Updates have been applied internally to gmxapi.

The gmxapi 0.2.2 Python package supports the updated |Gromacs| API and will
issue errors if a simulation attempts to bind external plugin code with
a compatible-but-broken API (|Gromacs| 2021 through 2021.2).

Third party code should not need to be updated, but developers will
note an additional "null restraint" in
https://gitlab.com/gromacs/gromacs/-/tree/master/python_packaging/sample_restraint
(for illustration and testing purposes).

:issue:`4078` and :issue:`4102`

Fixed multi-rank restarts from checkpoints written by single-rank simulations
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Currently a single-rank simulation never uses update groups, however a
multi-rank run can do so. This fix ensures that the atoms within
update groups always start in the same periodic image, which was not
guaranteed if the checkpoint was written by a single-rank simulation.

:issue:`4016`

Fixes for ``gmx`` tools
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Fix gmx nmr -viol option
""""""""""""""""""""""""

The tool would previously fail with a cryptic error.
Also enforces that this option is exclusive with other analysis modes.

:issue:`4060`

Fixed gmx dipoles -quad option
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The tool now reports correct values.

:issue:`4080`

Make sure gmx convert-tpr -until works
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

This got broken during reworking the internals of the tool and didn't
calculate the number of remaining steps correctly.

:issue:`4056`

Fixed dihedral transition counting in gmx chi and gmx angle
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

When a trajectory of only 1 frame is passed, transition counting is
avoided (formerly it was attempted and crashed).

When a trajectory of multiple frames is passed, transition counting is
correct (formerly it did not take place).

Fixed possible crash in gmx chi histogramming
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Formerly an invalid reference to a temporary string was used for a
residue name, which might have caused a crash.

Fixed gmx chi -chi_prod
"""""""""""""""""""""""

Formerly it could crash or produce garbage results when the number of
relevant dihedrals differed from the number of residues
with dihedrals.

Fixes that affect portability
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Check that necessary python modules are available
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The source code validation could otherwise fail a build with cryptic errors.

:issue:`3985`

Ensure that NB-LIB and gmxapi can be build even without tests enabled
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Could otherwise lead to cryptic build errors.

Miscellaneous
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Removed performance loss in the mdrun domain decomposition
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

With 16 or more so-called PP MPI ranks, the domain decomposition
repartitioning could incur large performance overheads due to a sub-optimally
sized hash table. This has now been fixed.

:issue:`4054`
