[Rd] Memory allocation error in 2.6.2 (PR#10903)

[bosap at metro.dst.or.us]

Full_Name: Peter Bosa
Version: 2.6.2
OS: RHES 4.2 - 4.5
Submission from: (NULL) (67.138.101.226)


I am experiencing a memory allocation error with R 2.6.2 which was not present
in previous versions of R (2.4 and 2.2). I have several Linux machines with
various Redhat OS versions loaded on them, ranging from 4.2 through 4.5. Each
machine has 6 GB of RAM and 2 to 4 GB of virtual memory.

The processes I am running include calculations on large matrices (1,015 x
2,029). While the programs are large users of memory, they were stable (i.e. no
memory crashes with the earlier versions of R) on all machines. However, running
the same programs using R 2.6.2, I consistently get the error message "Cannot
allocate vector of size 15.7kb". I am calling the programs with the
--max-vsize=3G command...no difference. Using a garbage collection command, I
can see that the programs never use more heap than 2.5 GB. And, as stated
before, this was not an issue when the same machines were loaded with R 2.4 or
2.2.

I have verified that the OS settings are exactly the same as before (unlimited
allocation of memory to programs). Also, when I re-install R 2.4, the programs
run correctly. I have not been able to test R 2.5 or R 2.6.0, since I cannot
find binary packages of these versions, and I have yet to compile the source
code.

Any thoughts?