Good ideas!
With ESM1.6, we’re actually moving towards using
io_layout = 1,1
and removing the collation step entirely. This has a small impact on walltime, however guarantees that the collation/conversion failures won’t occur.
@georgyfalster, we could try swapping your configurations to use this layout to prevent the conversion failures. The one thing to check is whether you will need any of the 1D ocean variables highlighted here. Unfortunately due to a bug in MOM, these variables don’t work when the io_layout setting is used.