How this is a homogeneous problem?

I am solving this problem but it gives homogeneous problem detected and it gives the optimal value as 0. Why is it the case? Any help would be highly appreciated.

Here X{p} is a vector.

cvx_begin
variable x§

         f = dot(alpha_v,X{p}.^2) + dot(beta_v,X{p})+transpose(v)*X{p}+rho/2*(norm(Nabla{p}*X{p}))^2; 
         
         minimize f
         subject to
         l(p) <= norm(X{p},1) <= u(p)
       cvx_end

Homogeneous problem detected; solution determined analytically.
Status: Solved
Optimal value (cvx_optval): +0

Can you show a complete, but minimally-sized, reproducible example? Apparently, the problem is simplified enough by CVX’s processing that it does not need to call the solver.

I don’t understand why l(p) <= norm(X{p},1) would be accepted by CVX, because it si a non-convex constraint. Even if l(p) were zero, CVX still would reject it, even though in that case it would be a vacuous constraint which some optimization modeling system could eliminate, but CVX does not.

I am very dubious that the output you show corresponds to the program you show. So my question is, how is this program accepted by CVX?

Yes you are right. When I do it as a separate cvx example, it gives the following error:
Disciplined convex programming error:
Invalid constraint: {constant} <= {convex}
Though I don’t understand how it is a non-convex constraint? Moreover, it does not accept norm(x)^2 too in the objective function. Why is that?

This is my reproduceable example:

`clear
clc
l = [0;0;0;0;0];
u = [6.77;5.17;7.88;5.14;3.07];
alpha_v = [0.084 0.084 0.084 0.084 0.084];
beta_v = [5.21 5.21 5.21 5.21 5.21];
Nabla = [0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0 0];
v = [0;0;0;0;0];
n = 5;
rho = 0.5;
%%**********************************************************
cvx_begin
variable x(n)

         f = dot(alpha_v,x.^2) + dot(beta_v,x)+transpose(v)*x+rho/2*(norm(Nabla*x)^2); 
         
         minimize f
         subject to
         l(1) <= norm(x,1) <= u(1);

cvx_end`

@Mark_L_Stone will tell you that the problem is nonconvex and hence it is not solvable by cvx.

This is actually a convex problem. Or more specifically, with this input data, can be rewritten as a convex problem.

First of all, norm.(..)^2 needs to be replaced by square_pos(norm(...)) .

Second of all, as I wrote in my previous reply:

I don’t understand why l(p) <= norm(X{p},1) would be accepted by CVX, because it si a non-convex constraint. Even if l(p) were zero, CVX still would reject it, even though in that case it would be a vacuous constraint which some optimization modeling system could eliminate, but CVX does not.

Indeed, CVX does not accept this. But given that l is the zero vector, that constraint can be removed as vacuous. Therefore, the problem can be rewritten as below, and it is successfully solved. But it is not a homogeneous problem; and CVX solves it by calling a solver. not analytically.

cvx_begin
    variable x(n)

             f = dot(alpha_v,x.^2) + dot(beta_v,x)+transpose(v)*x+rho/2*square_pos(norm(Nabla*x)); 
             
             minimize f
             subject to
             norm(x,1) <= u(1);

    cvx_end`

In the future, please make sure that the output you show corresponds to the program you show, which obviously was NOT the case in your post.

Thanks for the elaborative reply Mark! I will be careful next time!

I just saw constant <= convex. Should be more careful another time.