[R] R crashing after successfully running compiled code

[R. Michael Weylandt <michael.weylandt@gmail.com>]

On Oct 31, 2012, at 3:13 AM, Adam Clark <atclark at umn.edu> wrote:

> I'm running R 2.15.1x64, though the same problem persists for 2.13.0x32 and
> 2.13.0x64.
> 
> I am trying to run compiled C code using the .C convention. The
> code compiles without problems, dynamically loads within the R
> workspace with no problems, and even runs and gives correct results with
> no problems.
> 
> However, R will randomly crash within a few minutes of successfully using
> the compiled function.
> 
> For example, if I run my compiled function using:
> dyn.load("mycfun.dll")
> answer<-.C("mycfun", parameters...), I get a completely sensible
> result that gets stored to "answer".
> However, if I try to do too many things to "answer", the R exits
> without warning.
> I've tried dyn.unload in hopes that R would become stable afterwards, but
> in this case using the function crashes R without fail.
> 
> Usually, I can either plot, or view, or save "answer" to a file - but never
> take more than a single action before R exits. This does not appear to
> depend on how long R has been open. Initially, I thought it was a bug in
> the "inline" function, but I'm finding the same problem now that I'm using
> the dynamically loaded file directly. I'm used to R being insanely stable,
> and am somewhat mystified by this whole problem.
> 
> My next move is to learn the ".Call" convention, as I suspect that
> my problem is related to my "C" function using memory that R doesn't
> know is used. But - before I invest a while lot more time on this, I'd
> like to know whether anybody things this is likely to solve the problem.
> If not, I may just want to run my code entirely in C, and forget the
> R problem.

Hi Adam,

Can you make a minimal reproducible example of your C sources available? I'm relatively certain that the problem is in the memory management therein, but I obviously can't say more without seeing the code. 

Michael

> 
> -- 
> Adam Clark
> University of Minnesota, EEB
> 100 Ecology Building
> 1987 Upper Buford Circle
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