I changed the test to do 4 trials with h2o and remember the best (lowest total error) and then compare that best to my expected result.
I also increased max_iter to 500. I removed my hardwired seed, and give no seed to h2o so h2o should randomize the seed.
I think it still can fail. It may be that more than 4 trials are required to reliably get the global minimum. the init method is supposed to help lower the typical # of iterations, and also limit the need for multiple trials. I think it does reduce the typical # of iterations.
Merge branch 'master' of github.com:0xdata/h2o
changing the init method to Furthest. PlusPlus seemed to still be unable to find the global minima, even with 4 trials. (with this dataset). Furthest hasn't failed for me yet (I pick best of 4 trials). I wonder if PlusPlus is a biased init, so it's not as interesting if you need to pick best of N trials to get best result.