# Optim.jl not honoring convergence criteria
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723
**Category:** Optimization (Mathematical)
**Created:** [November 2, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723 "2023-11-02T20:11:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Gbenga\_Fabusola](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Gbenga_Fabusola)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/1 "2023-11-02T20:11:04Z")
I am trying to incorporate an early stopping to my code using Optim.jl but the specifications are not followed and I was hoping someone might know why. I have an example of this here.
function toy(X)
x, y = X
cost = (x - 3) ^ 2 + (y - 5) ^ 2
@info cost
return cost
end
---
### Author:  [@adienes](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/adienes)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 8:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/2 "2023-11-02T20:13:08Z")
> [@Gbenga\_Fabusola](#):
>
> the specifications are not followed
I’ve run into this before as well. basically I guess these constraints are treated more like fuzzy penalties than they are firm boundaries
---
### Author:  [@Gbenga\_Fabusola](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Gbenga_Fabusola)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/4 "2023-11-02T22:45:27Z")
Oh thanks, Adienes. Did you ever figure out a way to force the constraints to work? or did you have to use another package that obeys the constraints specification?
---
### Author:  [@jd-foster](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jd-foster)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 11:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/5 "2023-11-02T23:09:31Z")
Have you considered modelling your problem using JuMP, which include support for nonlinear models?
> **[Introduction · JuMP](https://jump.dev/JuMP.jl/stable/tutorials/nonlinear/introduction/)**
>
> Documentation for JuMP.
---
### Author:  [@odow](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/odow)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/6 "2023-11-02T23:24:05Z")
Hi @Gbenga_Fabusola, welcome to the forum.
There are actually a few different options.
I think you’re actually after `outer_f_reltol`
```julia
Optim.Options(; outer_f_reltol = 1000)
```
You can see the options by looking at the help (I don’t know if this is well documented online):
```julia
help?> Optim.Options
Configurable options with defaults (values 0 and NaN indicate unlimited):
x_abstol::Real = 0.0,
x_reltol::Real = 0.0,
f_abstol::Real = 0.0,
f_reltol::Real = 0.0,
g_abstol::Real = 1e-8,
g_reltol::Real = 1e-8,
outer_x_abstol::Real = 0.0,
outer_x_reltol::Real = 0.0,
outer_f_abstol::Real = 0.0,
outer_f_reltol::Real = 0.0,
outer_g_abstol::Real = 1e-8,
outer_g_reltol::Real = 1e-8,
f_calls_limit::Int = 0,
g_calls_limit::Int = 0,
h_calls_limit::Int = 0,
allow_f_increases::Bool = true,
allow_outer_f_increases::Bool = true,
successive_f_tol::Int = 1,
iterations::Int = 1_000,
outer_iterations::Int = 1000,
store_trace::Bool = false,
show_trace::Bool = false,
extended_trace::Bool = false,
show_every::Int = 1,
callback = nothing,
time_limit = NaN
See http://julianlsolvers.github.io/Optim.jl/stable/#user/config/
```
---
### Author:  [@Gbenga\_Fabusola](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Gbenga_Fabusola)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/7 "2023-11-14T22:36:18Z")
Hi, Unfortunately, outer\_f\_reltol did not have the desired effect. just g\_abstol worked to some degree but I want to be able to stop the algorithm based on the the result of the loss of each iteration. I am still trying to figure out ways to solve this problem.
---
### Author:  [@jonathanBieler](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jonathanBieler)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2023, 11:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/optim-jl-not-honoring-convergence-criteria/105723/8 "2023-11-15T11:18:41Z")
One issue is that Optim’s algorithm calls your function several times per iteration, but checks convergence only once per iteration, so what you see when you print from your cost function isn’t exactly what Optim’s look at for convergence.
If you hack into Optim with this you can see the function value is already 5 the first time convergence is assessed :
```julia
function toy(X)
x, y = X
cost = (x - 3) ^ 2 + (y - 5) ^ 2
@info "calling function : $cost"
return cost
end
function custom_stopping(x)
@info "check for custom stopping"
return false
end
@eval Optim begin
function assess_convergence(x, x_previous, f_x, f_x_previous, gx, x_abstol, x_reltol, f_abstol, f_reltol, g_abstol)
@info "assessing convergence"
f_x < 1000 && return true, false, false, false
return false, false, false, false
end
end
optimize(
toy, [0,0], [Inf,Inf], [10., 50.], Optim.Fminbox(),
Optim.Options(callback = custom_stopping)
)
```
```julia
[ Info: calling function : 2074.00084776729
[ Info: calling function : 2073.9991522400437
[ Info: calling function : 2074.027249636707
[ Info: calling function : 2073.9727505466353
[ Info: calling function : 2074.0
[ Info: check for custom stopping
[ Info: calling function : 1373.0575397465902
[ Info: calling function : 1373.0561782060774
[ Info: calling function : 1373.0752432895974
[ Info: calling function : 1373.0384747834933
[ Info: calling function : 1373.0568589732666
[ Info: calling function : 14.784521316821616
[ Info: calling function : 14.784142416634552
[ Info: calling function : 14.784584618784134
[ Info: calling function : 14.784079116620969
[ Info: calling function : 14.784331865524148
[ Info: calling function : 11.474314941709697
[ Info: calling function : 11.47403851522763
[ Info: calling function : 11.474101109876269
[ Info: calling function : 11.474252345510765
[ Info: calling function : 11.474176727478573
[ Info: calling function : 5.990978973840084
[ Info: calling function : 5.990656542939395
[ Info: calling function : 5.990810840734959
[ Info: calling function : 5.990824675619014
[ Info: calling function : 5.990817757302663
[ Info: assessing convergence
[ Info: check for custom stopping
[ Info: assessing convergence
[ Info: calling function : 5.990817757302663
```