Using "maxNodes" crashes with "No (correct) mutate method given"

[dan-ryan]

When using maxNodes or maxConns it crashes my app. I'm using version 1.4.7.

(node:13872) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 109)
(node:13872) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: No (correct) mutate method given!
at Network.mutate (D:\Git\App\App\node_modules\neataptic\src\architecture\network.js:273:13)
at Neat.mutate (D:\Git\App\App\node_modules\neataptic\src\neat.js:167:30)
at Neat.evolve (D:\Git\App\App\node_modules\neataptic\src\neat.js:110:10)
at endEvaluation (D:\Git\App\App\app.js:304:10)
at learnData (D:\Git\App\App\app.js:213:9)
at axios.get.then.response (D:\Git\App\App\app.js:153:5)
at
at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:118:7)
(node:13872) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 110)

Looking at the codebase, it looks like selectMutationMethod can return undefined and therefore can be passed into the mutate method which crashes.

Looks like the original pull request (https://github.com/wagenaartje/neataptic/pull/62/files) used to return nulls.

[dan-ryan]

I've created PR #129. Seems to no longer crash.

[dan-ryan]

How is maxNodes/maxConns/ etc meant to work? I'm still going over the maximum number I set in Neat and therefore it's overfitting.

My current settings:

    Methods.mutation.MOD_ACTIVATION.mutateOutput = false;
    Methods.mutation.MOD_ACTIVATION.allowed = [

        Methods.activation.LOGISTIC,
        Methods.activation.TANH,
        Methods.activation.STEP,
        Methods.activation.SOFTSIGN,
        Methods.activation.SINUSOID,
        Methods.activation.GAUSSIAN,
        Methods.activation.BIPOLAR,
        Methods.activation.BIPOLAR_SIGMOID,
        Methods.activation.HARD_TANH,
        Methods.activation.INVERSE,

        Methods.activation.SELU,
        Methods.activation.RELU,

        Methods.activation.BENT_IDENTITY,
        Methods.activation.IDENTITY,
        //Methods.activation.ABSOLUTE
    ];

    neat = new Neat(4, 1, null,
        {
            mutation: Methods.mutation.ALL,
            popsize: 100,
            mutationRate: 0.2,
            elitism: 10,
            //clear: true, 
            equal: true,
            network: new Architect.Random(4, 5, 1),
            provenance: 2,
            maxNodes: 7, 
            maxConns: 10,
            maxGates: 5,
        }
    );

[dan-ryan]

Hey @alaa-eddine I saw you originally did the pull request for this feature. Since this project is now unmaintained, I'm hoping maybe you could see why the max settings are not working?

[christianechevarria]

Hi @dan-ryan just wanted to let you know that we're maintaining a spin-off of Neataptic, just noted this issue and incorporated your changes. We would love to add you as a contributor and give you credit:

https://github.com/liquidcarrot/carrot

hope to see you there! 👍

[dan-ryan]

@christianechevarria Oh nice. After all these years there hasn't been another replacement for Neataptic so good to see.
I've been learning TensorFlow.js which is fast, powerful, not user-friendly and no neuroevolution. There is ml5js built on top of Tensorflow.js which is user-friendly but limited with no neuroevolution (but maybe in the future).

[dan-ryan]

My pull request still didn't fix the issue that the network was going over maxNodes and maxConns. So someone should look at that.

Do you have a changelog for the differences from Neatapic to the latest version of Carrot?