Occasional timeouts for bilby_mcmc sampler tests

[bilby-bot]

In GitLab by @git.ligo:colm.talbot on Jun 27, 2024, 18:03

I've noticed intermittent failures of the sampler run test due to bilby_mcmc timeouts, e.g., here.

@git.ligo:gregory.ashton do you have any immediate thoughts?

[bilby-bot]

In GitLab by @git.ligo:gregory.ashton on Jun 28, 2024, 16:21

@git.ligo:colm.talbot my guess would be that the sampler is performing poorly: likely starting in a bad mode and then finding a better mode. Perhaps we should force the test to stop sampling after some number of steps.

[bilby-bot]

In GitLab by @git.ligo:colm.talbot on Jul 22, 2024, 16:54

If there's a way to specify a fixed number of steps that may be useful.

Would it be possible to specify the start point to make it less likely to have this issue?