[R] Server hanging despite efforts to correct memory limits

[Thomas Lumley]

You should be able to set limits on memory use for a process in the operating system, eg with limits or ulimits under Unix-alike shells.

      -thomas

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010, Nathan Stephens wrote:

> My group is working with datasets between 100 Mb and 1 GB in size, using
> multiple log ins.  From the documentation, it appears that vsize is limited
> to 2^30-1, which tends to prove too restrictive for our use.  When we drop
> that restriction (set vsize = NA) we end up hanging the server, which
> requires a restart.  Is there any way to increase the memory limits on R
> while keeping our jobs from hanging?  Having to restart the server is a
> major inconvenience, second only to memory limitations in R.
>
>> mem.limits()
>    nsize     vsize
> 100000000        NA
>
>> mem.limits(vsize=2^30)
>     nsize      vsize
> 100000000 1073741824
>
>> mem.limits(vsize=2^31)
>     nsize      vsize
> 100000000 1073741824
> Warning message:
> In structure(.Internal(mem.
> limits(as.integer(nsize), as.integer(vsize))),  :
>  NAs introduced by coercion
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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Thomas Lumley			Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics
tlumley at u.washington.edu	University of Washington, Seattle