Gradient accumulation and distributed parallelism will reduce the effect?
Reference the code: "transformers/examples/legacy/question-answering/run_squad.py"
I found：
1. normal results without using distributed code, using only gradient accumulation.
2. using the distributed code with the parameter gradient_accumulation_steps=1, the effect is normal.
3. using the distributed code with the parameter gradient_accumulation_steps set to other, the experimental effect is abnormal.

What is going on, please? Thanks!

The following is part of the reference code after my deletion:

```
def get_binary_data(args, macro, tokenizer, read_data=False):
    if macro.local_rank not in [-1, 0]:
        torch.distributed.barrier()

    train_file = ["a.txt", "b.txt", "c.txt"]
    valid_file = ["a_valid.txt", "b_valid.txt", "c_valid.txt"]
    train_data, vaild_data = [],[]
    cached_features_file = args.train_path+"utt_generator"
    if read_data == False:
        for t_f in train_file:
            train_utterance = file_reader(args.train_path+t_f)
            datasets = get_data_loaders(train_utterance, tokenizer)
            train_data.extend(datasets)
        for t_f in valid_file:
            vaild_utterance = file_reader(args.train_path+t_f)
            datasets = get_data_loaders(vaild_utterance, tokenizer)
            vaild_data.extend(datasets)
    else:
        read_data = torch.load(cached_features_file)
        train_data = read_data["train_data"]
        vaild_data = read_data["dev_data"]

    train_len = len(train_data)
    logger.info("train len:%d, valid len:%d."%(len(train_data), len(vaild_data)))

    train_batch_size = args.batch_size * max(1, macro.n_gpu)
    train_sampler = RandomSampler(train_data) if macro.local_rank == -1 else DistributedSampler(train_data)
    train_dataloader = DataLoader(train_data, sampler=train_sampler, batch_size=train_batch_size, collate_fn=collate_fn)

    eval_batch_size = args.batch_size * max(1, macro.n_gpu)
    eval_sampler = SequentialSampler(vaild_data)
    eval_dataloader = DataLoader(vaild_data, sampler=eval_sampler, batch_size=eval_batch_size, collate_fn=collate_fn_test)

    if macro.local_rank == 0:
        torch.distributed.barrier()
    return train_dataloader, eval_dataloader, train_len

def train(model, training_data, optimizer, device, scheduler, args, macro):
    model.train()
    batch_idx = 0
    epoch_loss = 0
    logging_loss = 0
    global global_step
    global tb_writer
    for batch in tqdm(
        training_data,
        mininterval=2,
        desc=" - (Traning) ",
        leave=False,
        disable=macro.local_rank not in [-1, 0]
    ):
        batch_idx += 1
        input_ids, lm_labels, token_type_ids, attention_mask = list(map(lambda x: x.to(device), batch))
        (lm_loss), *_ = model(input_ids, token_type_ids=token_type_ids, lm_labels=lm_labels, attention_mask=attention_mask)

        if macro.n_gpu > 1:
            lm_loss = lm_loss.mean()  # mean() to average on multi-gpu parallel (not distributed) training
        loss = lm_loss / args.gradient_accumulation_steps
        loss.backward()
        epoch_loss += loss.item()
        if (batch_idx) % args.gradient_accumulation_steps == 0:
            torch.nn.utils.clip_grad_norm_(model.parameters(), 1.0)
            optimizer.step()
            optimizer.zero_grad()
            scheduler.step()
    return epoch_loss/batch_idx

@func_time
def train_epoch(model, train_data, dev_data, optimizer, device, scheduler, best_result, args, tokenizer, epoch, macro):
    if macro.local_rank in [-1, 0]:
        logger.info("----" * 5)
        logger.info('Epoch: {}'.format(epoch))
    train_loss = train(model, train_data, optimizer, device, scheduler, args, macro)
    if epoch>=12:
        if macro.local_rank in [-1, 0]:
            model_to_evaluate = model.module if hasattr(model, "module") else model
            vaild_bleu = evaluate(model_to_evaluate, dev_data, device, tokenizer, args)
            if best_result < vaild_bleu:
                best_result = vaild_bleu
                torch.save(model_to_evaluate.state_dict(), args.output_model_path + "_valid")
                logger.info('save:{}'.format(args.output_model_path + "_valid"))
            logger.info("Val. Bleu: %4f" % (vaild_bleu))
    if epoch%5==0:
        if macro.local_rank == -1 or torch.distributed.get_rank() == 0:
            model_to_save = model.module if hasattr(model, "module") else model
            torch.save(model_to_save.state_dict(), args.output_model_path+"_"+str(epoch))
            logger.info('save:{}'.format(args.output_model_path+"_"+str(epoch)))
    if macro.local_rank in [-1, 0]:
        logger.info("Train Loss:%.5f"%(train_loss))
        logger.info("----"*5)
    return best_result

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument('--no_cuda', action="store_true")
    parser.add_argument("--local_rank", type=int, default=-1, help="local_rank for distributed training on gpus")
    macro = parser.parse_args()
    args = OptionSet()

    args.model_name = "test"
    args.model_name = args.model_name+"_distributed_nogrid"

    global logger
    logger = create_logger(args)

    # Setup CUDA, GPU & distributed training
    if macro.local_rank == -1 or macro.no_cuda:
        device = torch.device("cuda" if torch.cuda.is_available() and not macro.no_cuda else "cpu")
        macro.n_gpu = 0 if macro.no_cuda else torch.cuda.device_count()
    else:  # Initializes the distributed backend which will take care of sychronizing nodes/GPUs
        torch.cuda.set_device(macro.local_rank)
        device = torch.device("cuda", macro.local_rank)
        torch.distributed.init_process_group(backend="nccl")
        macro.n_gpu = 1
    # args.device = device
    set_seed(macro, args.seed)
    # Setup logging
    logging.basicConfig(
        format="%(asctime)s - %(levelname)s - %(name)s -   %(message)s",
        datefmt="%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S",
        level=logging.INFO if macro.local_rank in [-1, 0] else logging.WARN,
    )
    logger.warning(
        "Process rank: %s, device: %s, n_gpu: %s, distributed training: %s, 16-bits training: %s",
        macro.local_rank,
        device,
        macro.n_gpu,
        bool(macro.local_rank != -1),
        # args.fp16,
    )
    # Load pretrained model and tokenizer
    if macro.local_rank not in [-1, 0]:
        # Make sure only the first process in distributed training will download model & vocab
        torch.distributed.barrier()

    logger.info('using device:{}'.format(device))
    model, _, tokenizer = creat_model()
    if macro.local_rank == 0:
        # Make sure only the first process in distributed training will download model & vocab
        torch.distributed.barrier()
    model = model.to(device)
    global PAD_idx
    PAD_idx = tokenizer.convert_tokens_to_ids(SPECIAL_TOKENS[-3])
    train_data, dev_data, train_len = get_binary_data(args, macro, tokenizer, read_data=False)
    # Training phase.
    logger.info("Start training.")
    instances_num = train_len
    train_steps = int(instances_num * args.epochs_num / args.batch_size) + 1

    logger.info('Batch size: {}'.format(args.batch_size))
    logger.info('The number of training instances:{}'.format(instances_num))

    num_parameters = 0
    parameters = model.parameters()
    for parameter in parameters:
        num_parameters += parameter.numel()
    logger.info('number of model parameters: {}'.format(num_parameters))

    decoder_layer = list(map(id, model.decoder.layers.parameters()))
    encoder_para = filter(lambda p: id(p) not in (decoder_layer), model.parameters())
    optimizer_grouped_parameters = [
        {'params': encoder_para, 'lr': args.learning_rate, 'weight_decay_rate': 0.01},
        {'params': model.decoder.layers.parameters(), 'lr': args.learning_rate * 5, 'weight_decay_rate': 0.01}
    ]
    optimizer = AdamW(optimizer_grouped_parameters, lr=args.learning_rate, correct_bias=False)
    scheduler = get_linear_schedule_with_warmup(optimizer, num_warmup_steps=train_steps*args.warmup, num_training_steps=train_steps)

    # multi-gpu training (should be after apex fp16 initialization)
    if macro.n_gpu > 1:
        model = torch.nn.DataParallel(model)

    # Distributed training (should be after apex fp16 initialization)
    if macro.local_rank != -1:
        model = torch.nn.parallel.DistributedDataParallel(
            model, device_ids=[macro.local_rank], output_device=macro.local_rank, find_unused_parameters=True
        )

    best_result = 0.0
    for epoch in range(1, args.epochs_num+1):
        best_result = train_epoch(model, train_data, dev_data, optimizer, device, scheduler, best_result, args, tokenizer, epoch, macro)

```<|||||>This is the result of my experiment:
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/27938964/106379879-ed052800-63e9-11eb-9f2e-bbbc96d6f12e.png)
<|||||>This issue has been automatically marked as stale and been closed because it has not had recent activity. Thank you for your contributions.

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