early stopping checks on_validation_end (#1458)

* Fixes #490

`EarlyStopping` should check the metric of interest `on_validation_end` rather than `on_epoch_end`. 
In a normal scenario, this does not cause a problem, but in combination with `check_val_every_n_epoch>1` in the `Trainer` it results in a warning or in a `RuntimeError` depending on `strict`.

* Highlighted that ES callback runs on val epochs in docstring

* Updated EarlyStopping in rst doc

* Update early_stopping.py

* Update early_stopping.rst

* Update early_stopping.rst

* Update early_stopping.rst

* Update early_stopping.rst

* Apply suggestions from code review

Co-authored-by: Adrian Wälchli <aedu.waelchli@gmail.com>

* Update docs/source/early_stopping.rst

* fix doctest indentation warning

* Train loop calls early_stop.on_validation_end

* chlog

Co-authored-by: William Falcon <waf2107@columbia.edu>
Co-authored-by: Jirka Borovec <Borda@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Adrian Wälchli <aedu.waelchli@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Jirka <jirka@pytorchlightning.ai>

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/).
 
 - Added option `save_last` to save the model at the end of every epoch in `ModelCheckpoint` [(#1908)](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/1908)
 
+- Early stopping checks `on_validation_end` ([#1458](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/1458))
+
 ### Changed
 
 - Allow user to select individual TPU core to train on ([#1729](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/1729))

docs/source/early_stopping.rst

@@ -19,36 +19,63 @@ By default early stopping will be enabled if `'val_loss'`
 is found in :meth:`~pytorch_lightning.core.lightning.LightningModule.validation_epoch_end`'s
 return dict. Otherwise training will proceed with early stopping disabled.
 
-Enable Early Stopping using Callbacks on epoch end
---------------------------------------------------
-There are two ways to enable early stopping using callbacks on epoch end.
+Enable Early Stopping using the EarlyStopping Callback
+------------------------------------------------------
+The
+:class:`~pytorch_lightning.callbacks.early_stopping.EarlyStopping`
+callback can be used to monitor a validation metric and stop the training when no improvement is observed.
+
+There are two ways to enable the EarlyStopping callback:
 
--   Set early_stop_callback to True. Will look for 'val_loss' in validation_epoch_end() return dict.
-    If it is not found an error is raised.
+-   Set `early_stop_callback=True`.
+    The callback will look for 'val_loss' in the dict returned by 
+    :meth:`~pytorch_lightning.core.lightning.LightningModule.validation_epoch_end`
+    and raise an error if `val_loss` is not present.
 
     .. testcode::
 
         trainer = Trainer(early_stop_callback=True)
 
--   Or configure your own callback
+-   Create the callback object and pass it to the trainer.
+    This allows for further customization.
 
     .. testcode::
 
         early_stop_callback = EarlyStopping(
-            monitor='val_loss',
-            min_delta=0.00,
-            patience=3,
-            verbose=False,
-            mode='min'
+           monitor='val_accuracy',
+           min_delta=0.00,
+           patience=3,
+           verbose=False,
+           mode='max'
         )
         trainer = Trainer(early_stop_callback=early_stop_callback)
 
-In any case, the callback will fall back to the training metrics (returned in
-:meth:`~pytorch_lightning.core.lightning.LightningModule.training_step`,
-:meth:`~pytorch_lightning.core.lightning.LightningModule.training_step_end`)
-looking for a key to monitor if validation is disabled or
-:meth:`~pytorch_lightning.core.lightning.LightningModule.validation_epoch_end`
-is not defined.
+In case you need early stopping in a different part of training, subclass EarlyStopping
+and change where it is called:
+
+.. testcode::
+
+    class MyEarlyStopping(EarlyStopping):
+
+        def on_validation_end(self, trainer, pl_module):
+            # override this to disable early stopping at the end of val loop
+            pass
+
+        def on_train_end(self, trainer, pl_module):
+            # instead, do it at the end of training loop
+            self._run_early_stopping_check(trainer, pl_module)
+
+.. note::
+   The EarlyStopping callback runs at the end of every validation epoch,
+   which, under the default configuration, happen after every training epoch.
+   However, the frequency of validation can be modified by setting various parameters
+   on the :class:`~pytorch_lightning.trainer.trainer.Trainer`,
+   for example :paramref:`~pytorch_lightning.trainer.trainer.Trainer.check_val_every_n_epoch`
+   and :paramref:`~pytorch_lightning.trainer.trainer.Trainer.val_check_interval`.
+   It must be noted that the `patience` parameter counts the number of
+   validation epochs with no improvement, and not the number of training epochs.
+   Therefore, with parameters `check_val_every_n_epoch=10` and `patience=3`, the trainer
+   will perform at least 40 training epochs before being stopped.
 
 .. seealso::
     - :class:`~pytorch_lightning.trainer.trainer.Trainer`

pytorch_lightning/callbacks/early_stopping.py

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 Early Stopping
 ==============
 
-Stop training when a monitored quantity has stopped improving.
+Monitor a validation metric and stop training when it stops improving.
 
 """
 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ class EarlyStopping(Callback):
             to qualify as an improvement, i.e. an absolute
             change of less than `min_delta`, will count as no
             improvement. Default: ``0``.
-        patience: number of epochs with no improvement
+        patience: number of validation epochs with no improvement
             after which training will be stopped. Default: ``0``.
         verbose: verbosity mode. Default: ``False``.
         mode: one of {auto, min, max}. In `min` mode,
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ class EarlyStopping(Callback):
             mode, the direction is automatically inferred
             from the name of the monitored quantity. Default: ``'auto'``.
         strict: whether to crash the training if `monitor` is
-            not found in the metrics. Default: ``True``.
+            not found in the validation metrics. Default: ``True``.
 
     Example::
 
@@ -109,7 +109,10 @@ def on_train_start(self, trainer, pl_module):
         self.stopped_epoch = 0
         self.best = torch_inf if self.monitor_op == torch.lt else -torch_inf
 
-    def on_epoch_end(self, trainer, pl_module):
+    def on_validation_end(self, trainer, pl_module):
+        self._run_early_stopping_check(trainer, pl_module)
+
+    def _run_early_stopping_check(self, trainer, pl_module):
         logs = trainer.callback_metrics
         stop_training = False
         if not self._validate_condition_metric(logs):

pytorch_lightning/trainer/training_loop.py

@@ -362,7 +362,7 @@ def train(self):
                 # TODO wrap this logic into the callback
                 if self.enable_early_stop:
                     if (met_min_epochs and met_min_steps) or self.fast_dev_run:
-                        should_stop = self.early_stop_callback.on_epoch_end(self, self.get_model())
+                        should_stop = self.early_stop_callback.on_validation_end(self, self.get_model())
                         # stop training
                         stop = should_stop and met_min_epochs
                         if stop: