[Rd] makeCluster Stall on 32-bit Windows

[Henric Winell]

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
> 
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