Potential Solutions when encountering the nan gradient problem with pytorch
When working with pytorch, NaN gradient problem can be common, here are the potential solutions that might work:
-
Firstly make sure the inputs do not contain or loss is not
inf
orNaN
(e.g., via printing). -
Make sure there’s no division-by-zero throughout the entire computational graph. Especially also check operations like
x.sqrt()
orx.pow()
, make sure the values involved don’t cause mathmatical errors that can happen when they are too small, add an epsilon (e.g., 1e-8) if that’s the case. -
Sometimes the problem can be caused by low precision rate: for example, if your tensors involved in the computation are torch.float16, try change to float32 by
tensor.to(torch.float32)
, that can help in reducing numerical instability, potentially resolving the issue, though at the cost of increased computational resources. -
Make sure the learning rate is not too large if it is involved in the problem. Also try gradient clipping to prevent gradients from becoming too large.
-
Sometimes calling
torch.autograd.set_detect_anomaly(True)
as a starting point may help.
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