Thanks for this! Can you remove the changes to the normal and double_exponential if they're unrelated? Feel free to open a separate PR for them afterwards though!

Jenkins Console Log
Blue Ocean
Commit hash: 0f8dd4fc4b9973d67f612f68473daae100089e5c

CPU:
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
Address sizes: 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s): 80
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-79
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 20
Socket(s): 2
NUMA node(s): 2
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 85
Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6148 CPU @ 2.40GHz
Stepping: 4
CPU MHz: 2400.000
CPU max MHz: 3700.0000
CPU min MHz: 1000.0000
BogoMIPS: 4800.00
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 1.3 MiB
L1i cache: 1.3 MiB
L2 cache: 40 MiB
L3 cache: 55 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60,62,64,66,68,70,72,74,76,78
NUMA node1 CPU(s): 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79
Vulnerability Gather data sampling: Mitigation; Microcode
Vulnerability Itlb multihit: KVM: Mitigation: VMX disabled
Vulnerability L1tf: Mitigation; PTE Inversion; VMX conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Mds: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Meltdown: Mitigation; PTI
Vulnerability Mmio stale data: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling: Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed: Mitigation; IBRS
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow: Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2: Mitigation; IBRS; IBPB conditional; STIBP conditional; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds: Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l3 cdp_l3 invpcid_single pti intel_ppin ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm cqm mpx rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_pkg_req pku ospke md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities

G++:
g++ (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04) 9.4.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Clang:
clang version 10.0.0-4ubuntu1
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /usr/bin

I discarded any changes to the existing distributions

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Commit hash: 0f8dd4fc4b9973d67f612f68473daae100089e5c

CPU:
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
Address sizes: 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s): 80
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-79
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 20
Socket(s): 2
NUMA node(s): 2
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 85
Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6148 CPU @ 2.40GHz
Stepping: 4
CPU MHz: 2400.000
CPU max MHz: 3700.0000
CPU min MHz: 1000.0000
BogoMIPS: 4800.00
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 1.3 MiB
L1i cache: 1.3 MiB
L2 cache: 40 MiB
L3 cache: 55 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60,62,64,66,68,70,72,74,76,78
NUMA node1 CPU(s): 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79
Vulnerability Gather data sampling: Mitigation; Microcode
Vulnerability Itlb multihit: KVM: Mitigation: VMX disabled
Vulnerability L1tf: Mitigation; PTE Inversion; VMX conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Mds: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Meltdown: Mitigation; PTI
Vulnerability Mmio stale data: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling: Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed: Mitigation; IBRS
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow: Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2: Mitigation; IBRS; IBPB conditional; STIBP conditional; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds: Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l3 cdp_l3 invpcid_single pti intel_ppin ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm cqm mpx rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_pkg_req pku ospke md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities

G++:
g++ (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04) 9.4.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Clang:
clang version 10.0.0-4ubuntu1
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /usr/bin

Sorry for a broken PR, I believed the tests pass, but apparently I made some mistake when running the tests locally.

Would appreciate any help deciphering the error messages, it doesn't seem very understandable what the problem is exactly to me. But apparently it somehow has to do with the distribution being possibly non-differentiable at mu=y.

The suspect line is:

sign(diff) * beta_val * pow(scaled_abs_diff, beta_val - 1) * inv_alpha

In case when mu=y, we get:

sign(0) * beta_val * pow(0, beta_val - 1) * inv_alpha

which I think should evaluate to 0, and also when beta=1

sign(0) * 1 * pow(0, 0) * inv_alpha

should also evaluate to 0 I would expect? Is pow(0,0) actually undefined in STAN math? And what would be the recommended technique for special-case handling?

Sorry for a broken PR, I believed the tests pass, but apparently I made some mistake when running the tests locally.

No worries! It's often quite a miracle when these things pass first try.

You can run the exact test that is given issues locally by running python runTests.py -j4 test/prob/generalized_normal/generalized_normal_0*_test.cpp

Is pow(0,0) actually undefined in STAN math?

It's defined (#3031), but it's not twice differentiable: #2993 (comment), which I believe is the problem here. This second comment is by @andrjohns who can probably also give you suggestions about what to do in this case.

It's possible that what you're doing in the code is fine and you just need to have the test call it somewhere else where it will be better behaved

OK, so it may be just a testing problem. But this relates to something else: The case when beta=1 where the tests are apparently breaking is maybe just a tip of the iceberg: when beta<1, I write in the code comments the partials are undefined when y=mu, because we then get pow(0, negative_number). This is because the limit can diverge to both positive and negative infinity depending on whether we approach from y>mu or y<mu. I left this undefined intentionally, but is that actually an OK behavior for STAN? Or do we need to use some technique to e.g. artificially set the partial to 0 in theses cases (like sign(0)=0 is defined to be the mathematically non-existent derivative of abs(0))

Some notes on the distribution (I made some mistakes in the #3133 comments but here should be corrected):

We have the density:

$f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta) \propto \exp\left(-\left(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha}\right)^{\beta}\right)$ with normalization constant $\frac{1}{2\alpha\Gamma(1 + \frac{1}{\beta})} = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \exp\left(-\left(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha}\right)^{\beta}\right) \mathrm{d}y$ (note: can set $\mu = 0$ WLOG to evaluate the integral)

The parameters $\alpha, \beta$ must be positive.

The log-likelihood is then:

$\log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta) = -\left(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha}\right)^{\beta} - \log(2) -\log(\alpha) - \log\Gamma(1 + \frac{1}{\beta})$

Wolfram Mathematica outputs the following partials:

$\frac{\partial \log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta)}{\partial \mu} = \alpha^{-\beta}\beta|y-\mu|^{\beta-1} \mathrm{sign}\left(y-\mu\right)$

$\frac{\partial \log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta)}{\partial y} = -\alpha^{-\beta}\beta|y-\mu|^{\beta-1} \mathrm{sign}\left(y-\mu\right) = -\frac{\partial \log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta)}{\partial \mu}$

Using algebraic manipulations I change this to the form:

$\frac{\partial \log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta)}{\partial \mu} = \alpha^{-1}\beta \left(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha}\right)^{\beta-1} \mathrm{sign}\left(y-\mu\right)$

This is where I believe the test errors are comming from when testing the case $\beta = 1, y = 0, \mu=0$. The lpdf is defined, the first derivative is by convention 0 (since pow(0,0)=1 and sign(0)=0), but the second derivative undefined. And I am not even testing the case when $\beta &lt; 1$ which I kept undefined for $y = \mu$ as the there is negative power of zero.

The $\beta$ partial is:

$\frac{\partial \log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta)}{\partial \beta} = \frac{\mathrm{digamma}(1 + \frac{1}{\beta})}{\beta^2} - \left(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha}\right)^{\beta} \log(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha})$

this one has a also potential boundary problem when $y=\mu$ because we get $\log(0)$ but then the limit goes to 0 and this should be solved by using multiply_log. Not sure about second derivatives tho, do they need to be considered here?

The $\alpha$ partial I think is not problematic but just for completeness, I also used wolfram plus some algebra to obtain:

$\frac{\partial \log f(y|\mu,\alpha,\beta)}{\partial \alpha} = \alpha^{-1}(\beta \left(\frac{|y-\mu|}{\alpha}\right)^{\beta} - 1 )$

I tend to believe that @WardBrian is right that this is perhaps a problem with testing the distribution at these boundaries, but idk what a good approach to this is.

PDF plot from wikipedia for $\mu = 0, \alpha = 1$ illustrates the non-differentiability at $y=0$ for $\beta \le 1$:

Incorporated changes requested by @SteveBronder although that doesn't solve the test errors. I think those are more like just performance+stylistic improvements. See the notes and discussion above.

Jenkins Console Log
Blue Ocean
Commit hash: fa89f3f2eeace783e24dc5d33e94f737d6e7f2f7

CPU:
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
Address sizes: 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s): 80
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-79
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 20
Socket(s): 2
NUMA node(s): 2
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 85
Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6148 CPU @ 2.40GHz
Stepping: 4
CPU MHz: 2400.000
CPU max MHz: 3700.0000
CPU min MHz: 1000.0000
BogoMIPS: 4800.00
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 1.3 MiB
L1i cache: 1.3 MiB
L2 cache: 40 MiB
L3 cache: 55 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60,62,64,66,68,70,72,74,76,78
NUMA node1 CPU(s): 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79
Vulnerability Gather data sampling: Mitigation; Microcode
Vulnerability Itlb multihit: KVM: Mitigation: VMX disabled
Vulnerability L1tf: Mitigation; PTE Inversion; VMX conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Mds: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Meltdown: Mitigation; PTI
Vulnerability Mmio stale data: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling: Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed: Mitigation; IBRS
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow: Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2: Mitigation; IBRS; IBPB conditional; STIBP conditional; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds: Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l3 cdp_l3 invpcid_single pti intel_ppin ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm cqm mpx rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_pkg_req pku ospke md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities

G++:
g++ (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04) 9.4.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Clang:
clang version 10.0.0-4ubuntu1
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /usr/bin

Hi, @andrjohns! Could you please go through the above comments and provide me with any feedback on how to properly test this or resolve some other way?

pushed some changes which should fix the failing tests.

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Blue Ocean
Commit hash: b329e2697d67d8f4dceacb124013ad1193b4335c

CPU:
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
Address sizes: 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s): 80
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-79
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 20
Socket(s): 2
NUMA node(s): 2
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 85
Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6148 CPU @ 2.40GHz
Stepping: 4
CPU MHz: 2400.000
CPU max MHz: 3700.0000
CPU min MHz: 1000.0000
BogoMIPS: 4800.00
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 1.3 MiB
L1i cache: 1.3 MiB
L2 cache: 40 MiB
L3 cache: 55 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60,62,64,66,68,70,72,74,76,78
NUMA node1 CPU(s): 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79
Vulnerability Gather data sampling: Mitigation; Microcode
Vulnerability Itlb multihit: KVM: Mitigation: Split huge pages
Vulnerability L1tf: Mitigation; PTE Inversion; VMX conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Mds: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Meltdown: Mitigation; PTI
Vulnerability Mmio stale data: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling: Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed: Mitigation; IBRS
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow: Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1: Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2: Mitigation; IBRS; IBPB conditional; STIBP conditional; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds: Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort: Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Vmscape: Mitigation; IBPB before exit to userspace
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l3 cdp_l3 invpcid_single pti intel_ppin ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm cqm mpx rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_pkg_req pku ospke md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities

G++:
g++ (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04) 9.4.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Clang:
clang version 10.0.0-4ubuntu1
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /usr/bin