Hi,
   
  I got this message sometimes too. Try to change the initial value and lower bound value and see if it works.
   
  Jin

r@micom-solutions.de wrote:
  Dear R-help list,

I am working on an optimization with R by evaluating a likelihood 
function that contains lots of Gamma calculations (BGNBD: Hardie Fader 
Lee 2005 Management Science). Since I am forced to implement lower 
bounds for the four parameters included in the model, I chose the 
optim() function mith L-BFGS-B as method. But the likelihood often 
returns inf-values which L-BFGS-B can't deal with.

Are there any other options to implement an optimization algorithm 
with R accounting for lower bounds and a four parameter-space?

Here is the error message I receive (german):
--
> out=optim(c(.1,.1,.1,.1),fn,method="L-BFGS-B",lower=c(.0001,.0001,.0001,.0001,.0001))
Fehler in optim(c(0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1), fn, method = "L-BFGS-B", lower 
= c(1e-04, :
L-BFGS-B benötigt endliche Werte von 'fn'
Zusätzlich: Es gab 50 oder mehr Warnungen (Anzeige der ersten 50 mit 
warnings())
--
And this is the likelihood function:
--
fn<-function(p) {
A1=(gamma(p[1]+x)*p[2]^p[1])/(gamma(p[1]))
A2=(gamma(p[3]+p[4])*gamma(p[4]+x))/(gamma(p[4])*gamma(p[3]+p[4]+x))
A3=(1/(p[2]+Tvec))^(p[1]+x)
A4=(p[3]/(p[4]+x-1))*((1/(p[2]+t_x))^(p[1]+x))
ll=sum(log(A1*A2*(A3+flag*A4)))
return(ll)
}

Thank you very much for your help in advance!

Best regards,

Michael

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