Getting "DUAL_INFEASIBLE" when solving a very simple linear programming problem - optimization

I am solving a simple LP problem using Gurobi with dual simplex and presolve. I get the model is unbounded but I couldn't see why such a model is unbounded. Can anyone help to tell me where goes wrong?
I attached the log and also the content in the .mps file.
Thanks very much in advance.
Kind regards,
Hongyu.
The output log and .mps file:
Link to the .mps file: https://studntnu-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/hongyuzh_ntnu_no/EV5CBhH2VshForCL-EtPvBUBiFT8uZZkv-DrPtjSFi8PGA?e=VHktwf
Gurobi Optimizer version 9.5.2 build v9.5.2rc0 (mac64[arm])
Thread count: 8 physical cores, 8 logical processors, using up to 8 threads
Optimize a model with 1 rows, 579 columns and 575 nonzeros
Coefficient statistics:
Matrix range [3e-02, 5e+01]
Objective range [7e-01, 5e+01]
Bounds range [0e+00, 0e+00]
RHS range [7e+03, 7e+03]
Iteration Objective Primal Inf. Dual Inf. Time
0 handle free variables 0s
Solved in 0 iterations and 0.00 seconds (0.00 work units)
Unbounded model

The easiest way to debug this is to put a bound on the objective, so the model is no longer unbounded. Then inspect the solution. This is a super easy trick that somehow few people know about.
When we do this with a bound of 100000, we see:
phi = 100000.0000
gamma[11] = -1887.4290
(the rest zero). Indeed we can make gamma[11] as negative as we want to obey R0. Note that gamma[11] is not in the objective.
More advice: It is also useful to write out the LP file of the model and study that carefully. You probably would have caught the error and that would have prevented this post.

Related

Is it possible to create or access the gap history

In Julia JuMP, I am wondering whether it is possible to access an array, or similar, of the GAP history, the GAP improvements.
I know that at the end of the optimization, I can access the final gap with relative_gap(m) with m of type Model and I want the history of improvements over the solving process.
It could be for instance a vector of Float64 in percent: gaps=[20.2, 16.7, 13.8, 5.1, 0]. In such case my problem is solved to optimality as the final gap is 0.
At the end, I would like to plot the gap improvement in function of time of solving. So maybe all values of gaps could be a couple of two elements, the gap and the solving time until this new gap improvement?
Maybe this is not possible in JuMP so you could answer for Gurobi ?
Thanks!
The Gurobi callback solution has been answered by Oscar at another post - see Julia JUMP Gurobi MIP - query and store best objective and bound at runtime.
However, since Gurobi is very serious about its TimeLimit and has low times to continue computations there is also a simpler approach (this code assumes mo is your JuMP Gurobi model):
set_optimizer_attribute(mo, "TimeLimit", 2.0)
gap_history = Float64[]
max_steps = 1800
for t in 1:max_steps
optimize!(mo)
gap = MOI.get(mo, MOI.RelativeGap())
status=termination_status(mo)
push!(gap_history, gap)
gap > 0.01 || status == MOI.TIME_LIMIT || break
end
It's not possible using JuMP in general.
You could do this in Gurobi using a solver-specific callback: https://github.com/jump-dev/Gurobi.jl#callbacks
Or you could just parse the Gurobi log file that gets printed.
In general though, this information isn't all that useful as it can be quite noisy. Why do you want it?

SLSQP in ScipyOptimizeDriver only executes one iteration, takes a very long time, then exits

I'm trying to use SLSQP to optimise the angle of attack of an aerofoil to place the stagnation point in a desired location. This is purely as a test case to check that my method for calculating the partials for the stagnation position is valid.
When run with COBYLA, the optimisation converges to the correct alpha (6.04144912) after 47 iterations. When run with SLSQP, it completes one iteration, then hangs for a very long time (10, 20 minutes or more, I didn't time it exactly), and exits with an incorrect value. The output is:
Driver debug print for iter coord: rank0:ScipyOptimize_SLSQP|0
--------------------------------------------------------------
Design Vars
{'alpha': array([0.5])}
Nonlinear constraints
None
Linear constraints
None
Objectives
{'obj_cmp.obj': array([0.00023868])}
Driver debug print for iter coord: rank0:ScipyOptimize_SLSQP|1
--------------------------------------------------------------
Design Vars
{'alpha': array([0.5])}
Nonlinear constraints
None
Linear constraints
None
Objectives
{'obj_cmp.obj': array([0.00023868])}
Optimization terminated successfully. (Exit mode 0)
Current function value: 0.0002386835700364719
Iterations: 1
Function evaluations: 1
Gradient evaluations: 1
Optimization Complete
-----------------------------------
Finished optimisation
Why might SLSQP be misbehaving like this? As far as I can tell, there are no incorrect analytical derivatives when I look at check_partials().
The code is quite long, so I put it on Pastebin here:
core: https://pastebin.com/fKJpnWHp
inviscid: https://pastebin.com/7Cmac5GF
aerofoil coordinates (NACA64-012): https://pastebin.com/UZHXEsr6
You asked two questions whos answers ended up being unrelated to eachother:
Why is the model so slow when you use SLSQP, but fast when you use COBYLA
Why does SLSQP stop after one iteration?
1) Why is SLSQP so slow?
COBYLA is a gradient free method. SLSQP uses gradients. So the solid bet was that slow down happened when SLSQP asked for the derivatives (which COBYLA never did).
Thats where I went to look first. Computing derivatives happens in two steps: a) compute partials for each component and b) solve a linear system with those partials to compute totals. The slow down has to be in one of those two steps.
Since you can run check_partials without too much trouble, step (a) is not likely to be the culprit. So that means step (b) is probably where we need to speed things up.
I ran the summary utility (openmdao summary core.py) on your model and saw this:
============== Problem Summary ============
Groups: 9
Components: 36
Max tree depth: 4
Design variables: 1 Total size: 1
Nonlinear Constraints: 0 Total size: 0
equality: 0 0
inequality: 0 0
Linear Constraints: 0 Total size: 0
equality: 0 0
inequality: 0 0
Objectives: 1 Total size: 1
Input variables: 87 Total size: 1661820
Output variables: 44 Total size: 1169614
Total connections: 87 Total transfer data size: 1661820
Then I generated an N2 of your model and saw this:
So we have an output vector that is 1169614 elements long, which means your linear system is a matrix that is about 1e6x1e6. Thats pretty big, and you are using a DirectSolver to try and compute/store a factorization of it. Thats the source of the slow down. Using DirectSolvers is great for smaller models (rule of thumb, is that the output vector should be less than 10000 elements). For larger ones you need to be more careful and use more advanced linear solvers.
In your case we can see from the N2 that there is no coupling anywhere in your model (nothing in the lower triangle of the N2). Purely feed-forward models like this can use a much simpler and faster LinearRunOnce solver (which is the default if you don't set anything else). So I turned off all DirectSolvers in your model, and the derivatives became effectively instant. Make your N2 look like this instead:
The choice of best linear solver is extremely model dependent. One factor to consider is computational cost, another is numerical robustness. This issue is covered in some detail in Section 5.3 of the OpenMDAO paper, and I won't cover everything here. But very briefly here is a summary of the key considerations.
When just starting out with OpenMDAO, using DirectSolver is both the simplest and usually the fastest option. It is simple because it does not require consideration of your model structure, and it's fast because for small models OpenMDAO can assemble the Jacobian into a dense or sparse matrix and provide that for direct factorization. However, for larger models (or models with very large vectors of outputs), the cost of computing the factorization is prohibitively high. In this case, you need to break the solver structure down more intentionally, and use other linear solvers (sometimes in conjunction with the direct solver--- see Section 5.3 of OpenMDAO paper, and this OpenMDAO doc).
You stated that you wanted to use the DirectSolver to take advantage of the sparse Jacobian storage. That was a good instinct, but the way OpenMDAO is structured this is not a problem either way. We are pretty far down in the weeds now, but since you asked I'll give a short summary explanation. As of OpenMDAO 3.7, only the DirectSolver requires an assembled Jacobian at all (and in fact, it is the linear solver itself that determines this for whatever system it is attached to). All other LinearSolvers work with a DictionaryJacobian (which stores each sub-jac keyed to the [of-var, wrt-var] pair). Each sub-jac can be stored as dense or sparse (depending on how you declared that particular partial derivative). The dictionary Jacobian is effectively a form of a sparse-matrix, though not a traditional one. The key takeaway here is that if you use the LinearRunOnce (or any other solver), then you are getting a memory efficient data storage regardless. It is only the DirectSolver that changes over to a more traditional assembly of an actual matrix object.
Regarding the issue of memory allocation. I borrowed this image from the openmdao docs
2) Why does SLSQP stop after one iteration?
Gradient based optimizations are very sensitive to scaling. I ploted your objective function inside your allowed design space and got this:
So we can see that the minimum is at about 6 degrees, but the objective values are TINY (about 1e-4).
As a general rule of thumb, getting your objective to around order of magnitude 1 is a good idea (we have a scaling report feature that helps with this). I added a reference that was about the order of magnitude of your objective:
p.model.add_objective('obj', ref=1e-4)
Then I got a good result:
Optimization terminated successfully (Exit mode 0)
Current function value: [3.02197589e-11]
Iterations: 7
Function evaluations: 9
Gradient evaluations: 7
Optimization Complete
-----------------------------------
Finished optimization
alpha = [6.04143334]
time: 2.1188600063323975 seconds
Unfortunately, scaling is just hard with gradient based optimization. Starting by scaling your objective/constraints to order-1 is a decent rule of thumb, but its common that you need to adjust things beyond that for more complex problems.

How to determine which constraints or variable bounds are rendering a GAMS model infeasible?

The solve summary in my GAMS model (NLP) is returning the following:
**** SOLVER STATUS 1 Normal Completion
**** MODEL STATUS 19 Infeasible - No Solution
**** OBJECTIVE VALUE NA
THE bounds on one of my variables are:
y.lo = 0, y.up = 0.15
if I change the bounds to:
y.lo = 0, y.up = 0.12
the model then converges and gives the following:
**** SOLVER STATUS 1 Normal Completion
**** MODEL STATUS 2 Locally Optimal
**** OBJECTIVE VALUE 66013164.0000
It turns out that the final variable level is
y.l = 0.12
how can it be that GAMS determined the model to be infeasible in the first case (upper bound = 0.15) even though the solution (0.12) was within the search space? (btw, I am using ANTIGONE solver)
Additionally, are there any methodical ways to identify which constraints/variable bounds are causing the model to be infeasible?
In order to find this (seemingly illogical) error, I had to spend hours guessing and checking arbitrary details within the model with no rhyme or reason. There has to be a better way, right?
That issue is not GAMS fault, but the solver you're using. Have you tried with CONOPT?
You can see the infeasible constraint in the lst file. Some equations should have (***INFES) mark
Also, to solve your problem, I would try to provide the NLP solver an initial solution that is somehow close enough to the optimal one, or at least feasible.
I would also try to check the options of the solvers you are using to start the solution procedure with a feasible starting point.
Non-convex optimization is not easy.
I hope this helps.

Solving a Mixed Integer Quadratic Program using SCIP

I have a mixed integer quadratic program (MIQP) which I would like to solve using SCIP. The program is in the form such that on fixing the integer variables, the problem turns out to be a linear program. And on fixing the the continuous variables it becomes a Integer Program. A simple example :
max. \Sigma_{i} n_i * f_i(x_i)
such that.
n_1 * x_1 + n2 * x_2 < t
n_3 * x_1 + n2 * x_2 < m
.
.
many random quadratic constraints in n_i's and x_i's
so on
Here f_i is a concave piecewise linear function.
x_i's are continuous variables ( they take real values )
n_i's are integer variables
I am able to solve the problem using SCIP. But on problems with a large number of variables SCIP takes a lot of time to find the solution. I have particularly noticed that it does not find many primal solutions. Thus the rate at which the upper bound reduces is very slow. However, I could get better results by doing set heuristics emphasis aggressive.
It would be great if anyone can guide me on the following questions :
1) Is there any particular algorithm/ Software package which solves problems that fit perfectly into the model as described above ?
2) Suggestions on how to improve the rate at which primal solutions are found.
3) What type of branching can I use to get better results ?
4) Any guidance on improving performance would be really helpful.
I am okay with relaxing the integer constraints as well.
Thanks
1) The algorithm in SCIP should fit your problem. There are other software packages that implement similar algorithms, e.g., BARON and ANTIGONE.
2) Have a look which primal heuristics were successful in your run and change their parameters to run them more frequently.
3) No idea. Default should be ok.
4) Make sure that your variables have good bounds. Tighter bounds allow for a tighter relaxation to be constructed.
If you can post an instance of your problem somewhere, or a log of a SCIP run, including the detailed statistics at the end, maybe someone can give more hints on what to improve.

scipy.optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b returns 'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH'

I am using scipy.optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b to solve a gaussian mixture problem. The means of mixture distributions are modeled by regressions whose weights have to be optimized using EM algorithm.
sigma_sp_new, func_val, info_dict = fmin_l_bfgs_b(func_to_minimize, self.sigma_vector[si][pj],
args=(self.w_vectors[si][pj], Y, X, E_step_results[si][pj]),
approx_grad=True, bounds=[(1e-8, 0.5)], factr=1e02, pgtol=1e-05, epsilon=1e-08)
But sometimes I got a warning 'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH' in the information dictionary:
func_to_minimize value = 1.14462324063e-07
information dictionary: {'task': b'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH', 'funcalls': 147, 'grad': array([ 1.77635684e-05, 2.87769808e-05, 3.51718654e-05,
6.75015599e-06, -4.97379915e-06, -1.06581410e-06]), 'nit': 0, 'warnflag': 2}
RUNNING THE L-BFGS-B CODE
* * *
Machine precision = 2.220D-16
N = 6 M = 10
This problem is unconstrained.
At X0 0 variables are exactly at the bounds
At iterate 0 f= 1.14462D-07 |proj g|= 3.51719D-05
* * *
Tit = total number of iterations
Tnf = total number of function evaluations
Tnint = total number of segments explored during Cauchy searches
Skip = number of BFGS updates skipped
Nact = number of active bounds at final generalized Cauchy point
Projg = norm of the final projected gradient
F = final function value
* * *
N Tit Tnf Tnint Skip Nact Projg F
6 1 21 1 0 0 3.517D-05 1.145D-07
F = 1.144619474757747E-007
ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH
Line search cannot locate an adequate point after 20 function
and gradient evaluations. Previous x, f and g restored.
Possible causes: 1 error in function or gradient evaluation;
2 rounding error dominate computation.
Cauchy time 0.000E+00 seconds.
Subspace minimization time 0.000E+00 seconds.
Line search time 0.000E+00 seconds.
Total User time 0.000E+00 seconds.
I do not get this warning every time, but sometimes. (Most get 'CONVERGENCE: NORM_OF_PROJECTED_GRADIENT_<=_PGTOL' or 'CONVERGENCE: REL_REDUCTION_OF_F_<=_FACTR*EPSMCH').
I know that it means the minimum can be be reached in this iteration. I googled this problem. Someone said it occurs often because the objective and gradient functions do not match. But here I do not provide gradient function because I am using 'approx_grad'.
What are the possible reasons that I should investigate? What does it mean by "rounding error dominate computation"?
======
I also find that the log-likelihood does not monotonically increase:
########## Convergence !!! ##########
log_likelihood_history: [-28659.725891322563, 220.49993177669558, 291.3513633060345, 267.47745327823907, 265.31567762171181, 265.07311121000367, 265.04217683341682]
It usually start decrease at the second or the third iteration, even through 'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH' does not occurs. I do not know whether it this problem is related to the previous one.
Scipy calls the original L-BFGS-B implementation. Which is some fortran77 (old but beautiful and superfast code) and our problem is that the descent direction is actually going up. The problem starts on line 2533 (link to the code at the bottom)
gd = ddot(n,g,1,d,1)
if (ifun .eq. 0) then
gdold=gd
if (gd .ge. zero) then
c the directional derivative >=0.
c Line search is impossible.
if (iprint .ge. 0) then
write(0,*)' ascent direction in projection gd = ', gd
endif
info = -4
return
endif
endif
In other words, you are telling it to go down the hill by going up the hill. The code tries something called line search a total of 20 times in the descent direction that you provide and realizes that you are NOT telling it to go downhill, but uphill. All 20 times.
The guy who wrote it (Jorge Nocedal, who by the way is a very smart guy) put 20 because pretty much that's enough. Machine epsilon is 10E-16, I think 20 is actually a little too much. So, my money for most people having this problem is that your gradient does not match your function.
Now, it could also be that "2. rounding errors dominate computation". By this, he means that your function is a very flat surface in which increases are of the order of machine epsilon (in which case you could perhaps rescale the function),
Now, I was thiking that maybe there should be a third option, when your function is too weird. Oscillations? I could see something like $\sin({\frac{1}{x}})$ causing this kind of problem. But I'm not a smart guy, so don't assume that there's a third case.
So I think the OP's solution should be that your function is too flat. Or look at the fortran code.
https://github.com/scipy/scipy/blob/master/scipy/optimize/lbfgsb/lbfgsb.f
Here's line search for those who want to see it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_search
Note. This is 7 months too late. I put it here for future's sake.
As pointed out in the answer by Wilmer E. Henao, the problem is probably in the gradient. Since you are using approx_grad=True, the gradient is calculated numerically. In this case, reducing the value of epsilon, which is the step size used for numerically calculating the gradient, can help.
I also got the error "ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH" using the L-BFGS-B optimizer.
While my gradient function pointed in the right direction, I rescaled the actual gradient of the function by its L2-norm. Removing that or adding another appropriate type of rescaling worked. Before, I guess that the gradient was so large that it went out of bounds immediately.
The problem from OP was unbounded if I read correctly, so this will certainly not help in this problem setting. However, googling the error "ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH" yields this page as one of the first results, so it might help others...
I had a similar problem recently. I sometimes encounter the ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH message after using fmin_l_bfgs_b function of scipy. I try to give additional explanations of the reason why I get this. I am looking for complementary details or corrections if I am wrong.
In my case, I provide the gradient function, so approx_grad=False. My cost function and the gradient are consistent. I double-checked it and the optimization actually works most of the time. When I get ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH, the solution is not optimal, not even close (even this is a subjective point of view). I can overcome this issue by modifying the maxls argument. Increasing maxls helps to solve this issue to finally get the optimal solution. However, I noted that sometimes a smaller maxls, than the one that produces ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH, results in a converging solution. A dataframe summarizes the results. I was surprised to observe this. I expected that reducing maxls would not improve the result. For this reason, I tried to read the paper describing the line search algorithm but I had trouble to understand it.
The line "search algorithm generates a sequence of
nested intervals {Ik} and a sequence of iterates αk ∈ Ik ∩ [αmin ; αmax] according to the [...] procedure". If I understand well, I would say that the maxls argument specifies the length of this sequence. At the end of the maxls iterations (or less if the algorithm terminates in fewer iterations), the line search stops. A final trial point is generated within the final interval Imaxls. I would say the the formula does not guarantee to get an αmaxls that respects the two update conditions, the minimum decrease and the curvature, especially when the interval is still wide. My guess is that in my case, after 11 iterations the generated interval I11 is such that a trial point α11 respects both conditions. But, even though I12 is smaller and still containing acceptable points, α12 is not. Finally after 24 iterations, the interval is very small and the generated αk respects the update conditions.
Is my understanding / explanation accurate?
If so, I would then be surprised that when maxls=12, since the generated α11 is acceptable but not α12, why α11 is not chosen in this case instead of α12?
Pragmatically, I would recommend to try a few higher maxls when getting ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH.