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Possible race condition in atomic_add_double - #3480

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jachymb:bugfix/opencl-atomic-add-double
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jachymb wants to merge 1 commit into
stan-dev:developfrom
jachymb:bugfix/opencl-atomic-add-double

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@jachymb

@jachymb jachymb commented Oct 23, 2026

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Summary

This is something I noticed while working on #3432. Oclgrind marks the GPU kernel for atomic_add_double as having a race condition, but it's not a fence issue like the other three. I don't think this can result in a wrong answer, but possibly a hang under some circumstances. So it seems more like a latent issue or a hardware-specific one.

To consider: I think this may actually be dead code anyway and maybe a better "fix" is just deleting it. If I'm not mistaken, this is only called by stan::math::indexing_rev which is reached in the autodiff only when something indexes a var_value<matrix_cl> which in my understanding never happens in stanc3.

I'd like to invite @andrjohns to review.

Tests

Passes existing tests, no new test added.

Side Effects

In usual case, it seems the speed is unchanged, even up to a few percent faster. But under some circumstances, worst case I measured was 2.5 times as long. (When all indices hit one element of a matrix too large for local memory.)

Release notes

Fixed a data race in the OpenCL helper for atomic addition of doubles.

Checklist

  • Copyright holder: (fill in copyright holder information)

    The copyright holder is typically you or your assignee, such as a university or company. By submitting this pull request, the copyright holder is agreeing to the license the submitted work under the following licenses:
    - Code: BSD 3-clause (https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause)
    - Documentation: CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

  • the basic tests are passing

    • unit tests pass (to run, use: ./runTests.py test/unit)
    • header checks pass, (make test-headers)
    • dependencies checks pass, (make test-math-dependencies)
    • docs build, (make doxygen)
    • code passes the built in C++ standards checks (make cpplint)
  • the code is written in idiomatic C++ and changes are documented in the doxygen

  • the new changes are tested

The compare-and-swap loops of atomic_add_double and
local_atomic_add_double re-read the cell with a plain double load, which
races with atom_cmpxchg and on which the loop's termination depends.
Read the cell once with an atomic and retry with the value atom_cmpxchg
returned, so the cell is accessed only through atomics.
@avehtari avehtari added the gpu label Oct 23, 2026
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Name Old Result New Result Ratio Performance change( 1 - new / old )
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/low_dim_gauss_mix_collapse/low_dim_gauss_mix_collapse.stan 8.16 7.84 1.04 3.92% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/gp_pois_regr/gp_pois_regr.stan 2.14 2.03 1.05 5.11% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/eight_schools/eight_schools.stan 0.06 0.07 0.85 -18.25% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/irt_2pl/irt_2pl.stan 4.17 3.96 1.05 5.04% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/garch/garch.stan 0.42 0.4 1.05 4.51% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/low_dim_gauss_mix/low_dim_gauss_mix.stan 2.65 2.51 1.06 5.24% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/pkpd/sim_one_comp_mm_elim_abs.stan 0.24 0.23 1.05 5.15% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/pkpd/one_comp_mm_elim_abs.stan 18.99 18.18 1.04 4.27% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/gp_regr/gen_gp_data.stan 0.02 0.02 1.03 2.57% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/gp_regr/gp_regr.stan 0.1 0.09 1.06 5.92% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/sir/sir.stan 88.97 83.81 1.06 5.8% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/arK/arK.stan 1.56 1.46 1.07 6.35% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/low_dim_corr_gauss/low_dim_corr_gauss.stan 0.01 0.01 0.99 -0.53% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/arma/arma.stan 0.28 0.27 1.06 5.82% faster
performance.compilation 241.93 222.34 1.09 8.1% faster
Mean result: 1.037219636709529

Jenkins Console Log
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Commit hash: f650e7d0b68a35569be5874169d8951cbf1b6ea6

Machine information
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release:	20.04
Codename:	focal

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 6248 CPU @ 2.50GHz
Stepping:                                7
CPU MHz:                                 999.895
CPU max MHz:                             3900.0000
CPU min MHz:                             1000.0000
BogoMIPS:                                5000.00
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 Indirect target selection: Mitigation; Aligned branch/return thunks
Vulnerability Itlb multihit:             KVM: Mitigation: Split huge pages
Vulnerability L1tf:                      Not affected
Vulnerability Mds:                       Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown:                  Not affected
Vulnerability Mmio stale data:           Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Vulnerability Old microcode:             Not affected
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling:    Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed:                  Mitigation; Enhanced 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; Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB conditional; PBRSB-eIBRS SW sequence; BHI SW loop, KVM SW loop
Vulnerability Srbds:                     Not affected
Vulnerability Tsa:                       Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort:           Mitigation; TSX disabled
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 intel_ppin ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp ibrs_enhanced tpr_shadow flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid 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 vnmi pku ospke avx512_vnni 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

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3 participants