[R] lmer() causes segfault

[Bertolt Meyer]

Ben Bolker <bbolker <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Bertolt Meyer <bmeyer <at> sozpsy.uzh.ch> writes:
>
>>
>> Hello lmer() - users,
>>
>> A call to the lmer() function causes my installation of R (2.11.1 on
>> Mac OS X 10.5.8) to crash and I am trying to figure out the problem.
>
>  [snip snip]
>
>> detach("package:nlme")
>> library(lme4)
>>
>> mod1 <- lmer(performance ~ time + (time | GroupID/StudentNumber),  
>> data
>> = dataset.long, na.action = na.omit)
>>
>> However, this call results in a segfault:
>>
>> *** caught segfault ***
>> address 0x154c3000, cause 'memory not mapped'
>>
>> and a lengthy traceback. I can reproduce this error. It also occurs
>> when I don't load nlme before lme4. Can someone tell me what I am
>> doing wrong? Any help is greatly appreciated.
>
>   This may well be a bug in lmer.  There have been a number of
> fussy computational issues with the lme4 package on the Mac platform.

Ben, thanks for your reply. I tried to replicate this issue with a  
small clean data set on a windows machine. You can find the code for  
the data frame (100 observations from my data) at the end of this  
mail. Very simple: four test scores per student over time, and  
students are nested in groups. On my Windows installation, lmer()  
throws an error that does not seem to get caught on the Mac, resulting  
in the segfault:

library(lme4)
mlmoded1.lmer <- lmer(Score ~ Time + (Time | GroupID/StudentID), data  
= test.data)

Error: length(f1) == length(f2) is not TRUE
Addditional Warnings:
1: In StudentID:GroupID :
   numeric expression has 100 elements: only first one is used
2: In StudentID:GroupID :
   numeric expression has 100 elements: only first one is used

It seems to me that I am committing a trivial error here and that I am  
too blind to see it. Any ideas?

Regards,
Bertolt

> If it is at all possible, please (1) post the results of sessionInfo()
> [which will in particular specify which version of lme4 you are  
> using];
> (2) possibly try this with the latest development version of lme4,  
> from
> R-forge, if that's feasible (it might be necessary to build the  
> package
> from source), and most importantly:
>
> (3) create a reproducible (for others) example -- most easily by
> posting your data on the web somewhere, but if that isn't possible
> by simulating data similar to yours (if it doesn't happen with another
> data set of similar structure, that's a clue -- it says it's some more
> particular characteristic of your data that triggers the problem) and
>
> (4) post to to *either* the R-sig-mac or the R-sig-mixed-models list,
> where the post is more likely to come to the attention of those who
> can help diagnose/fix ...
>
>  good luck
>    Ben Bolker
>


test.data <- data.frame(c(17370, 17370, 17370, 17370, 17379, 17379,  
17379, 17379, 17387, 17387, 17387, 17387, 17391, 17391, 17391, 17391,  
17392, 17392, 17392, 17392, 17394, 17394, 17394, 17394, 17408, 17408,  
17408, 17408, 17419, 17419, 17419, 17419, 17429, 17429, 17429, 17429,  
17432, 17432, 17432, 17432, 17436, 17436, 17436, 17436, 17439, 17439,  
17439, 17439, 17470, 17470, 17470, 17470, 17220, 17220, 17220, 17220,  
17348, 17348, 17348, 17348, 17349, 17349, 17349, 17349, 17380, 17380,  
17380, 17380, 17398, 17398, 17398, 17398, 17400, 17400, 17400, 17400,  
17402, 17402, 17402, 17402, 17403, 17403, 17403, 17403, 17413, 17413,  
17413, 17413, 17416, 17416, 17416, 17416, 17420, 17420, 17420, 17420,  
17421, 17421, 17421, 17421), c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,  
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,  
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,  
2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,  
2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2), c(1, 2, 3, 4,  
1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3,  
4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2,  
3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1,  
2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,  
1, 2, 3, 4), c(76.76, 81.83, 89.78, 92.82, 75.86, 81.84, 88.96, 92.28,  
75.28, 80.68, 88.62, 92.29, 76.60, 84.59, 92.03, 94.05, 75.57, 79.94,  
86.11, 90.25, 74.54, 81.42, 87.50, 90.71, 76.02, 83.68, 91.11, 94.14,  
76.31, 83.76, 90.44, 94.58, 72.29, 80.51, 86.09, 90.41, 74.99, 82.28,  
88.77, 92.26, 75.28, 81.92, 89.25, 92.64, 76.31, 83.93, 91.00, 94.60,  
76.31, 82.44, 90.57, 95.17, 76.94, 82.21, 83.81, 85.00, 79.96, 81.92,  
86.32, 90.05, 82.01, 84.81, 88.79, 93.10, 77.87, 82.94, 86.86, 90.31,  
77.87, 79.64, 85.66, 86.97, 79.35, 80.44, 84.26, 83.62, 79.06, 81.56,  
85.00, 87.43, 79.34, 81.47, 83.23, 86.86, 79.44, 80.37, 84.36, 89.11,  
78.77, 81.02, 81.60, 87.21, 75.75, 79.35, 80.38, 86.87, 76.04, 80.57,  
83.36, 86.31))

names(test.data) <- c("StudentID", "GroupID", "Time", "Score")