NDSolve doesn't evaluate unless I re-evaluate the output manually

Question

Background

** You can see my full program here. Go ahead and plug it into your notebook. You should have everything you need there. Password: OrbitCode

I am working with the following NDSolve.

allOrbits = NDSolve[equationsForNDSolve, allVars, {t, 0, 25 T}]

Where

equationsForNDSolve = (x[1]^\[Prime]\[Prime])[t] == -((1.32629*10^20 x[1][t])/(x[1][t]^2 + y[1][t]^2)^(3/2)) - (3.30626*10^16 (-x[1][t] + x[2][t]))/((-x[1][t] + ... MANY MORE TERMS ...

allVars = {x[1][t], x[2][t], x[3][t], x[4][t], x[5][t], y[1][t], y[2][t], y[3][t], y[4][t], y[5][t]}

T = (2 a^(3/2) (me + ms) \[Pi])/(Sqrt[G] ms^(3/2));

(Basically, I'm trying to solve a system of equations with many terms per equation. I also have initial conditions.)

I then feed my allOrbits variable into a ParametricPlot function

ParametricPlot[drawList /. allOrbits, {t, 0, T}, AspectRatio -> 1/GoldenRatio, ImageSize -> Large];

You can see the full program here. Password: OrbitCode

The following much shorter code reproduces my results.

NDSolve[{(x^\[Prime]\[Prime])[t] == 1, x[0] == 1, x'[0] == 1}, x, {t, 0, 1}] (Thanks @xzczd!)

Question

Now that you know what I'm doing, here's my question. I haven't run this program in 5 years. When I originally wrote this (admittedly somewhat messy) program, I was on Mathematica 10.3.1.0. When I came back to run it just now on 12.0, I found that a serious bug had emerged. I found that my NDSolve wasn't evaluating in the program. Instead, it was just returning a copy of itself.

When I originally wrote the program, the NDSolve would return a set of associations connecting the functions and InterpolatingFunctions. I need NDSolve to return these associations in order for my program to work properly. As you can see, I use a /.. My expected InterpolatingFunctions look something like this...

Now, something has gone wrong such that it just returns this... (please ignore the pink characters in the image below—that is a quirk of the way I have formatted everything)

(+ many more terms)

And strangely, it's only when I move my cursor to the end of this output, and hit Shift + Enter does it finally evaluate, and I get the output I've been looking for all along.

Shouldn't it evaluate from the get-go? Looking forward to seeing any ideas you might have! Please let me know if I can make myself any more clear.

** Again, you can see the full program here. Password: OrbitCode Go ahead and copy and paste it into your own notebook, and see what happens!

Answer 1

Short Answer

Transforming your code (to be precise, ^\[Prime]\[Prime] in your code) to the 2D StandardForm will fix the problem. The code can be converted to StandardForm by pressing Ctrl+Shift+n, or select the code and right-click and select Convert To ⊳ StandardForm.

Long Answer

The issue actually raise up frequently in this site, but this seems to be the first time it's explicitly asked as a separate question. (Usually it accompanies with other more serious problem and the answerers won't talk much about it. ) So let me elaborate a bit.

This issue will show up if:

1. You have a code sample (not necessarily a NDSolve[…]) involving StandardForm of Derivative whose differential order is larger than 1.

2. You copy this code sample from a Mathematica notebook and paste it into somewhere that's not a Mathematica notebook. (Usually a text file, or a Q&A site like here. )

3. You copy the code sample from that somewhere and again paste it into a Mathematica notebook without any further operation.

Here's a GIF illustrating the whole process:

Why does this happen? It's because:

1. The StandardForm of high order Derivative will become the combination of ^ and \[Prime] when it's not pasted into a notebook.

2. 1D …^\[Prime] will not be parsed as a Derivative[…][…] by Mathematica.

Well, personally I think this is a design miss. Perhaps WRI didn't expect there would be a high demand on storing code outside of a notebook. Anyway, it's easy to fix, just convert the code to the 2D StandardForm when you paste it back to notebook, or convert it to 1D InputForm by pressing Ctrl+Shift+i before copying it from a notebook.

"But converting the code will break my typesetting, I don't like it! " Then you may consider using the code here. (You can save it in your SystemOpen@"init.m" file. )