A client was solving a (large, non-linear) problem and got as message back:
ill-posed problem, solution status is unknown
The manual at http://www.gams.com/dd/docs/solvers/mosek.pdf did not give any help. This message seems to indicate the modeler (me) did something wrong. However I am really sure the model is just fine: smooth and differentiable everywhere and even convex.
Solver messages are really important (they’ll help the user when they are in trouble), and I think many of these messages are not very good; they often seem to be made up after a long day of coding without too much thought. A good message would probably try to answer the obvious question: “And what now?”. If at all possible it should help the user fix the problem (may be even adding some information about which equations and variables are involved).
Instead of fixing the so-called ill-posed problem we used a newer version of the solver, and now we obtained an optimal solution.
Sometimes it can help to have different solvers available. In GAMS you can then automate:
option nlp=minos;
solve mod1 minimizing z using nlp;
if (mod1.modelstat > 2,
* not optimal or locally optimal
option nlp=conopt;
solve mod1 minimizing z using nlp;
);
