update NEWS

DESCRIPTION

@@ -2,8 +2,8 @@ Package: brms
 Encoding: UTF-8
 Type: Package
 Title: Bayesian Regression Models using 'Stan'
-Version: 2.22.5
-Date: 2024-11-08
+Version: 2.22.6
+Date: 2024-11-14
 Authors@R:
     c(person("Paul-Christian", "Bürkner", email = "paul.buerkner@gmail.com",
              role = c("aut", "cre")),

NEWS.md

@@ -5,6 +5,16 @@
 * Fit extended-support Beta models via family `xbeta` 
 thanks to Ioannis Kosmidis. (#1698)
 
+### Bug Fixes
+
+* Avoid the creation of zombie workers when executing `log_lik`
+in parallel thanks to Aki Vehtari and Noa Kallioinen. 
+For now, `log_lik` will use PSOCK clusters if run
+in parallel even on Unix systems. To avoid potential speed loss for small
+models, `log_lik` will not use `option(mc.cores)` anymore.
+These changes may be reverted once the underlying causes of this
+issue have been fixed. (#1658)
+
 ### Other Changes
 
 * Improve sampling efficiency of `beta_binomial` models. (#1703)

R/misc.R

@@ -435,11 +435,11 @@ plapply <- function(X, FUN, .cores = 1, .psock = TRUE, ...) {
       on.exit(parallel::stopCluster(cl))
       out <- parallel::parLapply(cl = cl, X = X, fun = FUN, ...)
     }
-    # The version below hopefully prevents the spawning of zombies
+    # The version below was suggested to prevent the spawning of zombies
     # but it does not always succeed in that. It also seems to cause
     # other issues as discussed in #1658, so commented out for now.
     # cl_type <- ifelse(os_is_windows(), "PSOCK", "FORK")
-    # cl <- parallel::makeCluster(cores, type = cl_type)
+    # cl <- parallel::makeCluster(.cores, type = cl_type)
     # # Register a cleanup for the cluster in case the function fails
     # # Need to wrap in a tryCatch to avoid error if cluster is already stopped
     # on.exit(tryCatch(