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Merged
merged 10 commits into from
Aug 13, 2025
Merged

Improve error message for initialization failures with troubleshootin… #2637

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67efd02
Improve error message for initialization failures with troubleshootin…
Jul 29, 2025
9c33116
Refactor error message for initialization failures to remove redundan…
Aug 6, 2025
85c7f74
fc
Aug 6, 2025
fa97490
Merge branch 'main' into ah-dists
AoifeHughes Aug 6, 2025
a0fe160
simplier
Aug 6, 2025
a178d70
Update test/mcmc/hmc.jl
AoifeHughes Aug 8, 2025
7bc16b8
Merge branch 'main' into ah-dists
AoifeHughes Aug 12, 2025
fe8409c
Merge branch 'main' into ah-dists
AoifeHughes Aug 13, 2025
8512827
updated error uri
Aug 13, 2025
f2925d0
Update test/mcmc/hmc.jl
AoifeHughes Aug 13, 2025
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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion src/mcmc/hmc.jl
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ function find_initial_params(

# if we failed to find valid initial parameters, error
return error(
"failed to find valid initial parameters in $(max_attempts) tries. This may indicate an error with the model or AD backend; please open an issue at https://github.com/TuringLang/Turing.jl/issues",
"failed to find valid initial parameters in $(max_attempts) tries. See https://turinglang.org/docs/usage/troubleshooting/#initial-parameters for common causes and solutions. If the issue persists, please open an issue at https://github.com/TuringLang/Turing.jl/issues",
)
end

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23 changes: 23 additions & 0 deletions test/mcmc/hmc.jl
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Expand Up @@ -276,6 +276,29 @@ using Turing
@test Turing.Inference.getstepsize(spl, hmc_state) isa Float64
end
end

@testset "improved error message for initialization failures" begin
# Model that always fails to initialize
@model function failing_model()
x ~ Normal()
@addlogprob! -Inf
end

# Test that error message includes troubleshooting link
@test_throws ErrorException sample(failing_model(), NUTS(), 10; progress=false)

# Verify the error message contains the troubleshooting link
err = try
sample(failing_model(), NUTS(), 10; progress=false)
catch e
e
end

@test contains(
string(err),
"https://turinglang.org/docs/usage/troubleshooting/#initial-parameters",
)
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This, too, can in fact be done with @test_throws, since its first argument can be a string that must be contained in the error message. E.g.

julia> f() = throw(ErrorException("this is an error message that contains the phrase 'this must be in the error'"))
f (generic function with 1 method)

julia> @test_throws "this must be in the error" f()
Test Passed
     Message: "this is an error message that contains the phrase 'this must be in the error'"

I'm not sure if you can check for both the substring and the exception type in one call to @test_throws. There may be a way, or you may need to call @test_throws twice.

end
end

end
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