[R] Step Function Freezing R

[Jgabriel]

I can't fully answer all these questions, but I'll do my best - There
have not been any updates of Windows, and I did not update R during
the period, although I did reinstall it after the problem started.
There have been no changes to Norton or any other software that uses
system resources in that way. The one thing I can think of is that I
installed a program called Digitizer (creates data tables/ csds from
visually analyzing line charts) around the same time it started
freezing. I have completely uninstalled it and deleted all related
files. The problem should not be with the data, which is fine. I am
running Windows XP Professional and Excel 2007. I have allowed the
process to run overnight on two separate occasions. The first time it
was completely frozen and there was no progress. Last night it
actually made progress, but the fact remains that a process that used
to take an hour at the most still has not even halfway completed after
over 8 hours. I even installed extra RAM on the system so that there
is more than when the process used to work. I agree that it is
probably a change in software, but I can't figure out what has changed
or what I can do about it.

Thanks for your help,

JGS

On Nov 12, 7:05 pm, J Dougherty <j... at surewest.net> wrote:
> There are some points of information you should include.  One, have there been
> recent updates of Windows that may have altered system behaviour?  Two, have
> you updated R during the same period?  Three, have you installed software that
> uses system resources that were available to R before - e.g. has Norton or
> whatever you use to guard your system upgraded?  Four, what versions of
> Windows and Excel are you running?  Five, have you inspected your data for
> corruption?  Six, what changes (data entry, editing, recoding, etc.) have you
> done that might coincide with the changed behaviour?  Seven, have you allowed
> the process to simply run - say overnight?  Nine, how big is you database?
>
> In essence, your problem sounds like system problem.  The most likely cause is
> a change in software, but without some really clear information on changes on
> your system that could potentially have caused this, you are unlikely to find
> it easily.  One possibility is that a change in software has resulted in
> smaller available resource space.  
>
> JWDougherty
>
> On Thursday 12 November 2009 09:05:34 am Jgabriel wrote:
>
>
>
> > I have a question that might not be "kosher" here, but I'm running out
> > of options and need some help. Basically using the function "step" is
> >freezingR. I am running a model that includes a number of
> > interactions on a large data set with a number of dummy variables
> > representing whether an event occurred or not. Here's a simplified
> > example -
>
> > fit = lm(a~b*(c+d+e)*(f+g+h)*(i+j+k))
> > regs = step(fit)
>
> > at this point R freezes and alternates between "Not Responding" and
> > "Running" in Windows task manager. It wasn't always this way. I was
> > able to run the same model on the same dataset a couple weeks ago and
> > while it took the step function 20-30 minutes to compute the best AIC
> > and didn't exclude all the insignificant variables/interactions, it
> > served its purpose. Even after uninstalling and reinstalling R and
> > RExcel (which I used to load the data set), the problem persists. I
> > tried it on a smaller data set and still no luck. This is more of a
> > computing issue, so if anyone can point me to a forum better equipped
> > to help me out, I will owe you my eternal gratitude. I hate to fill up
> > space with such an uninspired question, but like I said I'm running
> > out of options.
>
> > Thanks,
>
> > JGS
>
> > ______________________________________________
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> > self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-h... at r-project.org mailing listhttps://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guidehttp://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.