Cmdstanr can't find makefile after installation...suspect network path problem

General
1

Well, after successfully installing cmdstanr on my work windows 10, I’m having issues with the path. I suspect it has something to do with my path directory being a network drive.

When I try to run the following code, f, and fit are correctly created

library(rethinking)

f <- alist(
  y ~ dnorm( mu , sigma ),
  mu ~ dnorm( 0 , 10 ),
  sigma ~ dexp( 1 )
)

fit <- quap( 
  f , 
  data=list(y=c(-1,1)) , 
  start=list(mu=0,sigma=1)
)

But when I run the following:

fit_stan <- ulam( f , data=list(y=c(-1,1)) )

I get the following error:

Error: CmdStan path has not been set yet. See ?set_cmdstan_path.

The path is set, however (actually…this wasn’t the error I was receiving after installation…I didn’t capture the error but it was something like cmdstan couldn’t find the right makefile).

file.path(Sys.getenv(“HOME”), “.cmdstan”)
[1] “//S-N-NSCHOME/nschomes/UID/Documents/.cmdstan”

That directory contains the directory cmdstan-2.31.0, which contains the makefile.

I suspect it has something to do with that location being on the network.

I have access to the C:drive, but I’m not sure how to force install_cmdstan to go there.

I have read a lot of these sorts of struggles but none seem to be what I need. Advice is appreciated

2

I realize the question is stale, but in the future when you run into this issue (or if you’re still struggling with it) you can run cmdstanr::set_cmdstan_path() and get the path that is currently set.

Since the function is just in plain R you can also run cmdstanr::set_cmdstan_path (without parens) and you’ll get the R code for the checks that cmdstanr is actually running to see if the directory is valid.

If you set options(error=recover) before your ulam call you should get a backtrace that tells you if it’s a cmdstanr function that fails to find the directory or something from ulam itself… I’m not familiar with ulam.

2 Likes
3

Following up as I am having the same issue.

After installation of cmdstan I received the following error:

Can't find CmdStan makefile to detect version number. Path may not point to valid installation.

At this point cmdstan_path() points to valid path but repeats the above error message.
Using set_cmdstan_path() sets to the current path but does not fix the makefile error.

Running the ulam() function results in following error message as mentioned in original post:

Error: CmdStan path has not been set yet. See ?set_cmdstan_path.

Setting options(error=recover) before running the ulam() functions results in the following:

Enter a frame number, or 0 to exit   

1: ulam(alist(pulled_left ~ dbinom(1, p), logit(p) <- a[actor] + b[treatment],
2: cmdstan_model(stan_file = filex[[1]], compile = filex[[3]], cpp_options = c
3: cmdstan_version()
4: stop_no_path()

Frame number 1 is the code for a statistical model and doesn’t identify a debug location.

Frame 2 is as follows:

 function (stan_file = NULL, exe_file = NULL, compile = TRUE, 
  ...) 
{
  if (cmdstan_version() < "2.27.0" && !is.null(exe_file)) {
    stop("'exe_file' argument is only supported with CmdStan 2.27 and newer.", 
      call. = FALSE)
  }
  if (is.null(exe_file) && is.null(stan_file)) {
    stop("Unable to create a `CmdStanModel` object. Both 'stan_file' and 'exe_file' are undefined.", 
      call. = FALSE)
  }
  CmdStanModel$new(stan_file = stan_file, exe_file = exe_file, 
    compile = compile, ...)
}

Debug location highlighted as 'cmdstan_version() <` .

Frame 3 is:

function (error_on_NA = TRUE) 
{
  version <- .cmdstanr$VERSION
  if (is.null(version) && error_on_NA) {
    stop_no_path()
  }
  version
}

With ‘stop_no_path()’ highlighted as debug location.

And frame 4 is:

function () 
{
  stop("CmdStan path has not been set yet. See ?set_cmdstan_path.", 
    call. = FALSE)
}

With

stop("CmdStan path has not been set yet. See ?set_cmdstan_path.", 
    call. = FALSE)

highlighted.

I don’t really know how to interpret this other than the cmdstan_version function errors as the stan_file and exe_file cannot be found for some reason? Any advice on how to proceed in troubleshooting this further? Thanks for your advice so far.