Re: Re: Re: Re: "No more memory available" -- a recurring problem
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg68446] Re: Re: [mg68423] Re: [mg68388] Re: [mg68356] "No more memory available" -- a recurring problem
- From: "Charlie Brummitt" <cbrummitt at wisc.edu>
- Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 03:46:48 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200608020924.FAA28575@smc.vnet.net> <D6C89613-F0EB-4D7E-9E29-2FFAA6FB40D4@yale.edu> <321730f50608021216o11d69435g5d278a6b7d06dfa5@mail.gmail.com> <200608031007.GAA15786@smc.vnet.net> <200608040759.DAA01108@smc.vnet.net> <4035DD91-055A-434E-A2F4-AC6F14A296CB@yale.edu>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
János, Below are my responses. > Do you have any Mathematica.crash.log or Mathkernel.crash.log file in > your ~Library/Logs/Crashreporter folder ? > If yes, does the datetime entries coincide with the kernel crashes ? I don't see any Mathematica crash logs in my ~Library/Logs/Crashreporter folder (only one file called mds.crash.log, which I doubt is Mathematica-related). > Did you try to eliminate or cut back on History /$HistoryLength /? I had set $HistoryLength to 5 all along. Since learning that $HistoryLength can take up a lot of memory, I set it to zero, but I still get the "No more memory available" message often. > Did you set any iteration related env variables Wolfram provide to > Infinity like $IterationLimit and $RecusionLimit, etc.... No, I did not change any of those from the default. I rarely, if ever, get other error messages, such as "reached the recursion limit," preceding the "No more memory available" message. Thanks again for all your help, János. Charlie > On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:59 AM, Charlie Brummitt wrote: > > > I took my MacBook Pro into the university computer support & repair > > office, and they concluded that the RAM is fine and that it probably > > is not a hardware problem. I ran memtest (www.memtestosx.org/) on the > > new memory stick alone (it's from OMNI Technology) and found no > > errors. > > > > That leaves me with three possibilities: > > 1) my code can simply be too difficult for a personal computer and > > some sort of grid or supercomputer is required > > 2) there is a bug in Mathematica, in the act of porting Mathematica to > > Intel (i.e. to being universal), or in OSX which causes memory > > failures even when there is plenty of memory and virtual memory > > available > > 3) my code is poorly written and needs radical change. To answer Bill > > Rowe's question, I would consider myself an intermediate Mathematica > > user, and I think I'm fairly well-versed in the area of Mathematica in > > which I'm working (namely, solving and analyzing differential > > equations). > > > > Basically, my calculation consists of using NDSolve thousands of times > > to solve and evaluate PDE's in order to find ones that are chaotic. > > > > I'm not sure what else to do. Contact Wolfram maybe? > > > > I guess this ends my research project. > > > > Thanks to János and Bill for their helpful comments. > > > > Charlie > > > > On 8/3/06, János <janos.lobb at yale.edu> wrote: > >> Charlie, > >> > >> Your MacBook Pro has an Intel core duo processor and looks to me > >> that Mathematica is using just one of the cores. I do not know what > >> You can do about it. Probably nothing. If you can put your hand on > >> a Personal Grid edition that would engage the second core more > >> vigorously. > >> > >> I do not see that you have a memory problem as regarding the usage of > >> the memory reported by top. > >> > >> You might have a bad memory chip and that is crashing your > >> program. Unfortunately we see bad memory coming even from Apple > >> these days with newer Macs. There is a service CD that came with > >> your MacBook Pro. Try to run the memory test from it all night in a > >> loop and see if it is caching anything. > >> > >> You might also want to do a hard drive check with Diskwarrior. Wooly > >> disks can lead to wooly virtual memory and causing crashes. > >> > >> Look if you have anything in ~/Library/Logs/Crashreporter regarding > >> Mathematica.crash.log or Mathkernel.cash.log. /I have plenty in > >> mine for both :)/ If you find any, send them to support at wolfram.com > >> and ask their opinion. > >> > >> I also recommend to do additional exhausting tests for the > >> motherboard and other elements of the machine by using the service > >> CD. > >> > >> In summary it looks like a hardware problem - unless you have other > >> long running Mathematica programs which run just fine. > >> > >> With the best, > >> > >> János > >> > >> On Aug 2, 2006, at 3:16 PM, Charlie Brummitt wrote: > >> > >>> János, > >>> > >>> Thanks for the advice. I'm not really sure how to interpret the > >>> information in the terminal window, so I have attached > >>> screenshots of > >>> it at various stages (see the names of the images). I have attached > >>> them in chronological order. > >>> > >>> It seems to me that Mathematica is only being allocated 50% of > >>> the CPU > >>> and 100 megabytes of RAM! When I did the "top" on my 12" PowerBook, > >>> 93% of the CPU was being used while Mathematica was running my code. > >>> How do I change this on my 15" MacBook Pro? > >>> > >>> My 12" PowerBook is able to run this code overnight and very rarely > >>> gives the "ran out of memory" error message. I would like to be able > >>> to run my code overnight on my MacBook Pro, but it can only run > >>> for 5 > >>> to 10 minutes before it runs out of memory and completely halts. > >>> Thus > >>> I can't "set it and leave it"; instead, I must always be at my > >>> computer to restart the calculation every 5 to 10 minutes. Any > >>> suggestions? > >>> > >>> > >>> Thanks for all your help, János. > >>> > >>> Charlie > >>> > >>> On 8/2/06, János <janos.lobb at yale.edu> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> On Aug 2, 2006, at 5:24 AM, Charlie Brummitt wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> I keep getting the following error message while running a search > >>>>> of many PDE's: > >>>>> > >>>>> "No more memory available. > >>>>> Mathematica kernel has shut down. > >>>>> Try quitting other applications and then retry." > >>>>> > >>>>> This message is becoming so common that it is crippling my > >>>>> research > >>>>> project, which is to find the simplest PDE with one quadratic > >>>>> nonlinearity that is chaotic. > >>>>> > >>>>> I have Googled and searched the Mathgroup archives for help, and I > >>>>> employed the following fixes: > >>>>> > >>>>> --CODE & SOFTWARE-- > >>>>> 1) Share[] -- does not help because my code rarely has common > >>>> elements > >>>>> that Share[] could consolidate. > >>>>> > >>>>> 2) I used Module[] and made as many variables local as possible. I > >>>>> eliminated extra variables and functions in addition to adding > >>>> Clear[] > >>>>> in several places in the code to clear variables that are no > >>>>> longer > >>>>> needed. > >>>>> > >>>>> 3) I streamlined and optimized the code in general, and I made the > >>>>> routines as simple and least data-intensive as possible. > >>>>> > >>>>> 4) I never have any other applications open when running > >>>> Mathematica. > >>>>> (Unfortunately, closing other applications is the only > >>>> suggestion that > >>>>> Mathematica provides in the "out of memory" error message.) > >>>>> > >>>>> 5) I should note that I run the latest version of Mathematica > >>>>> (5.2.2.0). > >>>>> > >>>>> --HARDWARE-- > >>>>> 1) I upgraded from a 12" PowerBook to a 15" MacBook Pro. This > >>>> computer > >>>>> has an 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. > >>>>> > >>>>> 2) I upgraded the RAM on this new computer from 1 GB to 2 GB. > >>>>> > >>>>> 3) I now have much more free hard drive space (20 GB) in case > >>>>> Mathematica needs to use virtual memory. In addition, this hard > >>>> drive > >>>>> is 7200 rpm versus the standard 5400 rpm. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> I have been using functions like MemoryInUse[] and On > >>>> [MemoryConserve] > >>>>> to monitor the use of memory. I almost always find that I am only > >>>>> using a few megabytes at a time (usually 5-10 MB, sometimes as > >>>> high as > >>>>> 100 or once 1000 after a large computation). However, despite > >>>> finding > >>>>> that I usually use only a few megabytes during my computations, I > >>>>> often get the above "out of memory" error message, and I can never > >>>>> figure out why and how much memory was needed in that particular > >>>>> computation. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> Some questions: > >>>>> 1) How can I tell whether Mathematica is using virtual memory or > >>>> not? > >>>>> It seems to me that it is not. I have 20 GB of hard drive space > >>>> free > >>>>> and it never seems to use it. Why should I ever run out of > >>>> memory if I > >>>>> have 20 GB free in case it needs more memory than my RAM provides? > >>>>> > >>>>> 2) Is there a way to determine how much of my 2 GB of RAM are > >>>>> allocated to Mathematica? Can I increase how much RAM > >>>> Mathematica can > >>>>> access? > >>>>> > >>>>> Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide! I > >>>> greatly > >>>>> appreciate it. If you need more information on my code or the > >>>>> computations I am doing, I would be happy to provide it. > >>>>> > >>>>> Regards, > >>>>> Charlie > >>>> > >>>> If you open a Terminal window on the side and type "top" and hit > >>>> return and start up your application, what do You see for real > >>>> memory > >>>> usage for the kernel and the front end from top? > >>>> > >>>> János > >>>> <before mathematica.jpeg> > >>>> <mma loaded, code loaded, pre-execution.jpeg> > >>>> <running1.jpeg> > >>>> <running2.jpeg> > >>>> <running3.jpeg> > >>>> <running4.jpeg> > >>>> <ran out of memory.jpeg> > >> > >> > >
- References:
- "No more memory available" -- a recurring problem
- From: "Charlie Brummitt" <cbrummitt@wisc.edu>
- Re: "No more memory available" -- a recurring problem
- From: János <janos.lobb@yale.edu>
- Re: Re: "No more memory available" -- a recurring problem
- From: "Charlie Brummitt" <cbrummitt@wisc.edu>
- "No more memory available" -- a recurring problem