LIBSVM note: problems

1. Why does svm-scale run forever, while keeping writing the output file (.scale)?

It might be because the original training file contains [0, 1] range features, but the scale output requires [-1, 1] range. This is the default option. Add the option -l 0.

2. Why does svm-train run forever?

It might be because of the epsilon value. The default parameter (-e 0.001) sets this value. The smaller the value is, the more accurate will the trained model be, but the more iterations will be taken. Consider setting epsilon to 1 and try.

If there are a lot of features, consider trying LIBLINEAR instead. It does not use a kernel, but runs faster than LIBSVM for a linear model.

Another param, -m, sets the memory cache. Make it as large as possible within RAM.