[R] Step Function Freezing R

[Uwe Ligges]

Jgabriel wrote:
> 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 


Aha! Please ask your local IT experts to check the RAM and if that is 
fine ask them to proceed. I have already seen too many machines with RAM 
problems during the last years. It is hardly an R problem.

Uwe Ligges


> 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
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-h... 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.htmland provide commented, minimal,
>>> 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.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> 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.