deepcopy prob.noise

[rmsrosa]

This fixes #412 .

I noticed deepcopy(prob.noise) is also used at https://github.com/SciML/DiffEqNoiseProcess.jl/blob/master/src/solve.jl#L7

[ChrisRackauckas]

If you do this, then you cannot solve with the same noise. That would be a bug. It's documented behavior that if you choose a noise and you solve with it, you solve with that noise. If you choose a noise and solve with it twice, you get the solution with that noise twice.

[rmsrosa]

1) Currently, solve mutates a noise process Z given in prob = SDEProblem(..., noise = Z). I wouldn't expect that (solve does not have an exclamation point at the end).

2) Even so, it does not generate the same path. Internally, the noise is set to W = prob.noise, which is set to Z, and then W gets emptied before being filled with a new run. Only if the same seed and the same time step are used is that the same noise path is (re)generated. Otherwise, we will get a new noise path W and hence a different Z. Even if we use the same seed but with a different time step, the path won't be the same, because bridge is not used.

3) As I see it currently, the right way to get the same noise path is to use NoiseWrapper, as documented. If we don't use that, I assume we use the same noise process, but not necessarily the same sample path.

Either way, I see a bug to fix. But my opinion is that it is reasonable not to mutate Z given in noise = Z (hence use W = deepcopy(prob.noise) internally) and assume that in this case we use the same noise process but a different sample path. If one wants to use the same sample path, then one should use NoiseWrapper. If, however, you really want the same noise path from noise = Z, then internally one should not empty W and check whether W has more than the starting value and, in that case, use bridge to generate the noise at any new time instant. In that case, I don't know what is the point of NoiseWrapper.

[rmsrosa]

I don't see any error in CI / test (Interface, 1). Maybe it timed out?

As for Interface2 failing in 1 and 1.6, yeah, with deepcopy(prob.noise), reset=false has no effect and https://github.com/SciML/StochasticDiffEq.jl/blob/master/test/scalar_noise.jl#L20 fails, with sol being equal to solve(prob,SRI()).

[rmsrosa]

Ok, this is the best I could think of. I hope deepcopying just integrator.sol.W, instead of the whole integrator or integrator.sol is a reasonable solution. I will leave it like that.

[ChrisRackauckas]

We should add a keyword argument to the interface for alias_noise to turn this off and return to the previous behavior. Also, the noise tutorials which rely on this need to get updated.

It would be good to instead define copy overloads for the NoiseProcess types though, and directly use those. Deepcopy is usually very heavyhanded.

[rmsrosa]

Good idea about the keyword argument alias_noise. I just implemented it, but I still plan to add some tests.

As for overloading copy for the noise types, it is not clear to me yet how to do it properly, because the types may be nested structs.

[ChrisRackauckas]

Then let's go with deepcopy for now, and open an issue in DiffEqNoiseProcess about implementing a copy method.

[rmsrosa]

Oh, I need to add alias_noise to the list of allowedkeywords over at DiffEqBase.jl, right? I'll do that.

[ChrisRackauckas]

Yes

[ChrisRackauckas]

Not sure about that test failure.

[rmsrosa]

The error in the Interface 2 test might have been "bad luck". The test file tau_leaping.jl doesn't reset the seed so the error Evaluated: 729.43435 ≈ 721.9787 (rtol=0.01) was probably just a matter of chance.

As for the errors in Interface 1 (1.0 and 1.6), I believe they have been happening since before I first started to contribute. The error report doesn't say much. In my machine, those tests just hang.

[ChrisRackauckas]

Interface 2 was just bad luck: there are a few random seeds in there that can cause that.

Interface 1, I don't know of that issue from before? Spawn null PR and see if master fails with that. If it does, we need to track that down.

[rmsrosa]

Indeed, it was not there. I probably got confused. Looking at the recent commit history, the only other place I saw the same error was on an innocent Project update commit on Aug 24 and the error was only on Interface 1, not 1.6. Could have been just bad luck too?

[ChrisRackauckas]

This kind of kill seems scary. Retry? One way it could happen is if the CI machine goes OOM. Since the CI machines are shared with many other projects (Github actions just gives you a few cores), another project can cause the machine to OOM, so it can randomly happen (with a higher likelihood the more memory you take).

[rmsrosa]

Yeah, I didn't know the details, but that is what I imagined, that the system would hang for some reason. Retrying is a good idea. And I imagined the codecov decline is due to some tests failing and not covering what it used to?

[rmsrosa]

Do I need to make a silly commit to retrigger it or do you have other means?

[ChrisRackauckas]

Fix something in the README 😅

[rmsrosa]

No broken link in README so I edited some random things 😅

That same error always takes forever on my machine and I just usually kill it. Probably the CI choke at it this time as well. Hopefully it goes thru this time.

[rmsrosa]

Hmm, that is suspicious. I ran master locally and it all went fine. But it is hanging on this branch. Maybe GC is not collecting all the copies in that sequence of solves.

[rmsrosa]

Yup, I used alias_noise=false in the reversal_test.jl solves and the tests were successful. Edit: local tests on my computer, I mean.

[ChrisRackauckas]

Force a GC call somewhere in the tests?

[rmsrosa]

GC did it! Tests passed locally. Let's wait for the CI.

[rmsrosa]

Ok, I had to move the GC inside the inner loop, but that worked, at least.