[R] Problem with R 1.6.2 and RH 8.0?

[Peter Dalgaard BSA]

"Richard A. Bilonick" <rab at nauticom.net> writes:

> When I was running R 1.6.1 (under Red Hat 8.0), R would abruptly
> terminate from time to time. I would type in a line of code and hit
> return, and the cursor would not move from the end of the line. Then
> the hard drive would start churning. This goes on for at least 10
> minutes. Finally R terminates (finally freeing up the keyboard and
> display). The only word printed is "Killed" immediately at the end of
> the last line of code. I upgraded to 1.6.2 and the same thing
> continues to happen. This happens for no apparent reason (doesn't seem
> to have anything to do with any particular code or function).
> 
> Here is the last time:
> 
>  > library(help=ts)Killed
> 
> Has anyone seen this problem? Any idea on what I should fix/change?

Haven't heard about that before. There are three things you can do:

a) Upgrade to R 1.7.0 when it comes out "tomorrow" (for largish
values of tomorrow -- depends on what Martyn's plans are for
Easter...) and see if the problem is still there.

b) Next time it happens, run "top" or "ps" in another terminal, figure
out the process ID (say, 7913) and run strace -p 7913 and tell us what
you see.

c) Make a habit of starting R under the debugger: "R -d gdb", then in
gdb use "run". When the bad thing happens, Ctrl-C will bring you back
to the debugger where you say "bt" which might give us a clue. (If you
need to interrupt R for other reasons, use Ctrl-C and enter "signal
2"). You can also attach gdb to a running R much in the same way as
strace.
 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907