R help - Aug 2009 - Repeatable, But Time Varying R GUI Crash

Hello,

I'm having a problem in R. The R GUI is crashing with a message to 
contact Microsoft for the solution. I've contacted Microsoft and they 
are of no help. Below is a distilled set of code that will cause the 
crash. As you will see, there are two do-loops within which is a
"load"
command. The crash usually occurs after 200*400 (=80,000) to 
2,000*400(=800,000) iterations.

Do you have any suggestions on work-arounds?

Once you start the function with the  "problem2()" command, the
function
will print to the screen once every 400 iterations. You can monitor the 
progress by clicking the scroll button. The R GUI should crash somewhere 
between i=200 and i=2000. Although the problem is repeatable, the time 
at which the crash occurs is random.

Thanks in advance for your attention,

Rich Short

I'm using Windows XP, SP3 and R 2.9.1.
Here is my session info:
> sessionInfo()
R version 2.9.1 (2009-06-26)
i386-pc-mingw32

locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

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

(The problem occurs on my Vista machine as well.)
*******************************************

# This script induces the R GUI to crash.

problem2 = function(){

junk = mat.or.vec(8,40)

junk[] = 1

mjunk = mat.or.vec(8,40)

mjunk[] = -1

PathA = tempdir()

conX = paste(PathA,"junkx",sep="\\")

conY = paste(PathA,"junky",sep="\\")

outJunk = file(conX, open="wb")

save(junk, file=outJunk)

close(outJunk)

outJunkY = file(conY, open="wb")

save(mjunk, file=outJunkY)

close(outJunkY)

sign = 1

for(i in 1:4000){

for(ii in 1:400){

sign = -sign

if(sign<0){

load(file=conX)

}else{

load(file=conY)

}

sum = junk[1,5] + mjunk[3,30]

}

cat(" junk = ",junk[1,5],sep="")

cat(" mjunk = ",mjunk[3,30],sep="")

cat(" sum = ",sum,sep="")

cat(" i = ",i,"\n",sep="")

}

}

On 8/6/2009 4:11 PM, Marilyn & Rich Short wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm having a problem in R. The R GUI is crashing with a message to 
> contact Microsoft for the solution. I've contacted Microsoft and they 
> are of no help. Below is a distilled set of code that will cause the 
> crash. As you will see, there are two do-loops within which is a
"load"
> command. The crash usually occurs after 200*400 (=80,000) to 
> 2,000*400(=800,000) iterations.
> 
> Do you have any suggestions on work-arounds?
I can confirm it in R-patched as well.  It happens on the very first 
time through if you set gctorture() on, so it looks like somewhere in 
there is a missing PROTECT, and the garbage collector is reclaiming 
something that it shouldn't.

I'll try to track it down, but I'm not sure how quick I'll be.  (My 
house is full of contractors right now, so not a very nice place to work.)

I don't know any workaround other than "avoid doing the buggy
thing".
But I can't tell you what that is....

Duncan Murdoch
> Once you start the function with the  "problem2()" command, the
function
> will print to the screen once every 400 iterations. You can monitor the 
> progress by clicking the scroll button. The R GUI should crash somewhere 
> between i=200 and i=2000. Although the problem is repeatable, the time 
> at which the crash occurs is random.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your attention,
> 
> Rich Short
> 
> I'm using Windows XP, SP3 and R 2.9.1.
> Here is my session info:
> 
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.9.1 (2009-06-26)
> i386-pc-mingw32
> 
> locale:
> LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> 
> (The problem occurs on my Vista machine as well.)
> *******************************************
> 
> # This script induces the R GUI to crash.
> 
> problem2 = function(){
> 
> junk = mat.or.vec(8,40)
> 
> junk[] = 1
> 
> mjunk = mat.or.vec(8,40)
> 
> mjunk[] = -1
> 
> PathA = tempdir()
> 
> conX = paste(PathA,"junkx",sep="\\")
> 
> conY = paste(PathA,"junky",sep="\\")
> 
> outJunk = file(conX, open="wb")
> 
> save(junk, file=outJunk)
> 
> close(outJunk)
> 
> outJunkY = file(conY, open="wb")
> 
> save(mjunk, file=outJunkY)
> 
> close(outJunkY)
> 
> sign = 1
> 
> for(i in 1:4000){
> 
> for(ii in 1:400){
> 
> sign = -sign
> 
> if(sign<0){
> 
> load(file=conX)
> 
> }else{
> 
> load(file=conY)
> 
> }
> 
> sum = junk[1,5] + mjunk[3,30]
> 
> }
> 
> cat(" junk = ",junk[1,5],sep="")
> 
> cat(" mjunk = ",mjunk[3,30],sep="")
> 
> cat(" sum = ",sum,sep="")
> 
> cat(" i = ",i,"\n",sep="")
> 
> }
> 
> }
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

G'day all,

running the script in : [R.app GUI 1.28 (5399) i386-apple-darwin9.6.0]


R version 2.9.0 (2009-04-17)   i386-apple-darwin9.6.0

locale:
en_AU.UTF-8/en_AU.UTF-8/C/C/en_AU.UTF-8/en_AU.UTF-8

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


returned :

  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 522
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 523
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 524
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 525
Error in mjunk[3, 30] : object of type 'closure' is not subsettable
 >



Running it in the terminal returned:

  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 954
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 955
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 956
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 957
  junk = 1 mjunk = -1 sum = 0 i = 958
Error in junk[1, 5] : object of type 'closure' is not subsettable


I don't know if this helps you at all...

cheers

Ben



On 07/08/2009, at 6:00 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 8/6/2009 4:11 PM, Marilyn & Rich Short wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm having a problem in R. The R GUI is crashing with a message to
>> contact Microsoft for the solution. I've contacted Microsoft and
they
>> are of no help. Below is a distilled set of code that will cause the
>> crash. As you will see, there are two do-loops within which is a  
>> "load"
>> command. The crash usually occurs after 200*400 (=80,000) to
>> 2,000*400(=800,000) iterations.
>>
>> Do you have any suggestions on work-arounds?
>
> I can confirm it in R-patched as well.  It happens on the very first
> time through if you set gctorture() on, so it looks like somewhere in
> there is a missing PROTECT, and the garbage collector is reclaiming
> something that it shouldn't.
>
> I'll try to track it down, but I'm not sure how quick I'll be. 
(My
> house is full of contractors right now, so not a very nice place to  
> work.)
>
> I don't know any workaround other than "avoid doing the buggy
thing".
> But I can't tell you what that is....
>
> Duncan Murdoch
-- 

Ben Madin
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