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x86_64, acml-3.5.0-gfortran64 and lme4

3 messages · Douglas Bates, Simone Giannerini, Brian Ripley

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I am encountering segfaults when checking the lme4 package on an
Athlon64 system if I use the acml blas.  R was built as a 64-bit
application using the GCC 4.0.3 compiler suite including gfortran.
The version of acml is 3.5.0 gfortran64.

I do not encounter the segfaults when I compile R with R's built-in
BLAS.  The errors occur in the first example in lme4 in a call to
lmer. It looks like they would occur in any call to lmer.  Running
under the debugger shows that the segfault occurs in a call to dtrsm
(a level-3 BLAS routine to solve a triangular system of equations)
that is called from within a cholmod (sparse matrix library) routine.

Has anyone succeeded in running R CMD check on the lme4 package with
accelerated BLAS?  I'm trying to pin down is this occurs only with
ACML or also with Atlas and/or Goto's BLAS.
#
I did not try the ACML but I have experienced problems both in
configure and in make on my SUSE 10.0 x86_64 with gcc 4.0.2. The
problem was due to a bug in gfortran so that I had to update to
version 4.2 (I did not update gcc though). I do not know whether this
may apply to you but updating the gfortran is highly recommended by
the developers.

Kind regards,

Simone
On 10/16/06, Douglas Bates <bates at stat.wisc.edu> wrote:

  
    
#
On Mon, 16 Oct 2006, Douglas Bates wrote:

            
gcc 4.1.1 is current, and I would suggest an update would be a good idea: 
my tests with gcc4 went a lot better with 4.1.0 than 4.0.3.

I have an FC5 dual x86_64 system (hence gcc 4.1.1) with ACML 3.5.0 and 
Goto 1.06 (I cannot get ATLAS to build on that system).  I too get a 
segfault with ACML (I used the _mp version, but also tried with it 
confined to a single thread), but not with Goto nor R's internal BLAS.