dynare fails on Ubuntu 12.04

[lombard]

Hi,

I've build Dynare 4.3.1 from source on Ubuntu 12.04.
Building seemed successful. Yet Dynare does not work:

dynare bkk

Configuring Dynare ...
[mex] Generalized QZ.
[mex] Sylvester equation solution.
[mex] Kronecker products.
[mex] Sparse kronecker products.
[mex] Local state space iteration (second order).
[mex] Bytecode evaluation.
[mex] k-order perturbation solver.
[mex] k-order solution simulation.
[mex] Quasi Monte-Carlo sequence (Sobol).
[mex] Markov Switching SBVAR.

"/home/gianni/gianni/dynare_docs/newgit2/dynare-4.3.1/matlab/dynare_m" bkk.mod: Aborted
Starting Dynare (version 4.3.1).
Starting preprocessing of the model file ...
Substitution of endo leads >= 2: added 9 auxiliary variables and equations.
Substitution of endo lags >= 2: added 10 auxiliary variables and equations.
Found 42 equation(s).
Evaluating expressions...done
Computing static model derivatives:
- order 1
Computing dynamic model derivatives:
- order 1
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'DataTree::UnknownDerivIDException'
Processing outputs ...
??? Error using ==> dynare at 114
DYNARE: preprocessing failed

Any clue?

Thanks and best

Gianni

[SébastienVillemot]

I am unable to reproduce this problem on my Debian system with Dynare 4.3.1 and bkk.mod from the examples directory.

Can you post a debug backtrace (run "gdb /path/dynare_m", then from the prompt type "run bkk.mod")? Can you try to recompile?

Do you also experience this crash with the official Dynare package for Ubuntu 12.04 (it has Dynare 4.2.4)?

[lombard]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.
Unfortunately the problem seems related to something specific to my installation of Ubuntu 12.04. On a different
machine with Ubuntu 12.04 I managed to get it working (although I didn't have the libmatio-dev, libgsl0-dev libraries there).

I have re-compiled the git version and got the same problem. Older versions of Dynare worked fine (I've been using 4.2 unstable).

This is the output of gdb

Reading symbols from /home/gianni/gianni/dynare_docs/newgit2/dynare-4.3.1/matlab/dynare_m...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) run bkk.mod
Starting program: /home/gianni/gianni/dynare_docs/newgit2/dynare-4.3.1/matlab/dynare_m bkk.mod
Starting Dynare (version 4.3.1).
Starting preprocessing of the model file ...
Substitution of endo leads >= 2: added 9 auxiliary variables and equations.
Substitution of endo lags >= 2: added 10 auxiliary variables and equations.
Found 42 equation(s).
Evaluating expressions...done
Computing static model derivatives:
- order 1
Computing dynamic model derivatives:
- order 1
Processing outputs ...done
Preprocessing completed.
Starting MATLAB/Octave computing.
[Inferior 1 (process 18382) exited normally]
(gdb)

[SébastienVillemot]

If this is specific to your machine, then there's not much that I can do.

Also, we could provide extra Dynare packages for Ubuntu, in order to save you the recompilation work. Do you use only Ubuntu Long-Term Support releases, or do you upgrade every 6 months?

[lombard]

I hope I can stick to the LTS versions

By saying that it must be specific to my installation I meant that saying Ubuntu 12.04 is not enough as on some installations it works and others it doesn't. Other than that there is nothing special about the machine I'm using (except that is a 32bit while the one where it worked is a 64bit).

I'll try to dig further into this as I suspect that there might be some conflict among libraries.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Best

Gianni

[SébastienVillemot]

So would you be interested in us providing up-to-date Dynare packages for Ubuntu LTS?

Note that Dynare is already included in Ubuntu (you can get it through your package manager), but the version in Ubuntu LTS quickly becomes outdated (Ubuntu 12.04 has Dynare 4.2.4).

[lombard]

HI,

it was easier than I thought. I recompiled the git version w/o the --enable-openmp and with CFLAGS="-g" CXXFLAGS="-g" (hoping I get the debugging flag right, but in any event without the -O3 flag). Note that in the 64bit version I had optimization flags as well as openmp flag on).

Now it works.

I'll try to recompile with different flags to see where exactly the problem is.

Cheers

Gianni

[SébastienVillemot]

Ok great. Again, we would be happy to provide up-to-date packages for Ubuntu LTS, but only if you (or somebody else) expresses interest in that.

[lombard]

Thanks. As long as building from source works smoothly (as it has been for a number of versions so far) I'm fine with sources. Of course, if providing binaries is not a big deal to you, all the better having them.

Best

Gianni

[SébastienVillemot]

Ok, then we will provide packages for Ubuntu LTS (I'll tell you when it's done).

I don't think we will support non-LTS Ubuntu releases, because there are too many of them, and people using the latest Ubuntu release already benefit from a quite recent Dynare package in the official Ubuntu archive.

[lombard]

Thanks, that will be great.

Just a final point on compilation on 32bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

It seems that the -03 flags (and not the openmp) are the source of the problem. Re-compiling with them gives again the error

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'DataTree::UnknownDerivIDException'

Best

Gianni

[lombard]

As a quick followup on my post, I have recompiled with CC="gcc-4.4" and CXX="g++-4.4" (set as arguments in the configuration) and Dynare (4.4-unstable) works fine even with optimization fags -O3.

Best

Gianni