R devel - Jun 2018 - makeCluster Stall on 32-bit Windows

Good day,

I'm trying the example cl <- makeCluster(2, type = "SOCK") from
the makeCluster documentation and the R command prompt never returns. I am using
a 32-bit Windows 10 computer. The problem doesn't happen on another 64-bit
Windows 10 computer but does happen on another 32-bit Windows 7 computer. Can
anyone reproduce it? Are there any other options that can be passed to
makeCluster which could get it going?

R version 3.5.0 (2018-04-23)
Platform: i386-w64-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
Running under: Windows >= 8 (build 9200)

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_Australia.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_Australia.1252   
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_Australia.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C                      
[5] LC_TIME=English_Australia.1252    

attached base packages:
[1] parallel  stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods  
[8] base     

other attached packages:
[1] snow_0.4-2

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_3.5.0 tools_3.5.0    yaml_2.1.19 

--------------------------------------
Dario Strbenac
University of Sydney
Camperdown NSW 2050
Australia

Hi Dario,

On 2018-06-14 14:00, Dario Strbenac wrote:
> Good day,
> 
> I'm trying the example cl <- makeCluster(2, type = "SOCK")
Why use the 'snow' package and not 'parallel'?
> from the makeCluster documentation and the R command prompt never 
> returns. I am using a 32-bit Windows 10 computer. The problem doesn't
> happen on another 64-bit Windows 10 computer but does happen on
> another 32-bit Windows 7 computer. Can anyone reproduce it? Are there
> any other options that can be passed to makeCluster which could get
> it going?
Sorry, I don't have access to a 32-bit W10 machine for testing.

Since the worker processes communicate using sockets I guess that the 
Windows firewall on your machine is blocking R from using the necessary 
ports (11000-11999).  Upon first use on a freshly installed 64-bit W10 a 
window pops-up -- "Windows Firewall has blocked this app", or
something
like that -- where you can allow access.  As long as this window is 
open, the command prompt is not returned.


Henric Winell

P.S.  This topic is probably not appropriate for R-devel and follow-ups 
should likely be directed to R-help instead.  D.S.


> R version 3.5.0 (2018-04-23)
> Platform: i386-w64-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
> Running under: Windows >= 8 (build 9200)
> 
> Matrix products: default
> 
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_Australia.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_Australia.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_Australia.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_Australia.1252
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] parallel  stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods
> [8] base
> 
> other attached packages:
> [1] snow_0.4-2
> 
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] compiler_3.5.0 tools_3.5.0    yaml_2.1.19
> 
> --------------------------------------
> Dario Strbenac
> University of Sydney
> Camperdown NSW 2050
> Australia
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

Good day,

The problem happens when using the makeCluster function from either parallel or
snow packages. I do not see a dialog box appear regarding Windows Firewall.
Turning off the firewall doesn't resolve the issue. I originally experienced
this issue while using bplapply defined in BiocParallel and was recommended to
ask on r-devel mailing list since bplapply utilises makeCluster. CRAN only
checks 64-bit computers, so it might not have been checked on a 32-bit computer.

--------------------------------------
Dario Strbenac
University of Sydney
Camperdown NSW 2050
Australia