Can you create a separate instructions file that will "suspend" work on any specific project but leave the others working??

Take now for example, we have seti which is not updating at all and predictor which they are in the process of switching to v4, so no job from there either , but we have climate which is working fine.

The BOINC program tries to contact seti every time as per the program instructions, so it does with predictor, but if you do not have any predictor units nor any from seti, it could be great to just order your program to suspend contacts with seti and predictor but continue with climate. The same would apply for any of the programs working if the case would be the other way around.

I do hope I have made myself clear enough. This way, we could just continue without those message interruptions every now and then.
Disableing the network activity does not solve the problem because it disables all projects.

Well this is probably just a crazy idea, but right now it could be of great help to many of us.

I agree. It could also help to take the load off of the servers plus it would save on the endless messages generated when boinc fails to connect.

> Can you create a separate instructions file that will "suspend" work on any
> specific project but leave the others working??
>
> Take now for example, we have seti which is not updating at all and predictor
> which they are in the process of switching to v4, so no job from there either
> , but we have climate which is working fine.
>
> The BOINC program tries to contact seti every time as per the program
> instructions, so it does with predictor, but if you do not have any predictor
> units nor any from seti, it could be great to just order your program to
> suspend contacts with seti and predictor but continue with climate. The same
> would apply for any of the programs working if the case would be the other way
> around.
>
I Think that could be very usefull to all of us.
When wee could set Projcts to Suspend if there is no work ore there are some other Problems with it.




TEAM SETISYNERGY @ WWW.setisynergy.com
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Good suggestion. However, it has already been made, but it doesn't hurt to have it posted again. I fully agree.

---

Account frozen...

Very good idea. Instead of just File/Suspend the menu would have options for:

File / Suspend / SETI; CDPN; ETC

Yes this would be great. Also to send results and not recieve - Like when going on holiday or no longer using a machine.

Nairb

> Yes this would be great. Also to send results and not recieve - Like when
> going on holiday or no longer using a machine.
>

This is easily done by setting the days of cache you want to receive from 0 to 0 days in your Preferences. One update later and Seti/whatever else under that preferences profile won't send you any units anymore.
----------------------
Jordâ„¢

>> This is easily done by setting the days of cache you want to receive from 0 to
> 0 days in your Preferences. One update later and Seti/whatever else under that
> preferences profile won't send you any units anymore.
> ----------------------
> Jordâ„¢

I'm sorry I do not agree with you, that solves temporarily the situation but you would have to be changing rather frecuently your preferences, I still think that my idea as such is much better. Sorry. No hurts feelings pse.

BOINC already deals with lost work units -- work units that get downloaded and never returned.

While it'd be "nice" to exit gracefully, the majority will just uninstall the software.

... and since the only down-side is that results will come back a couple weeks later, I think there are other things that could be done to make people happier.

> Yes this would be great. Also to send results and not recieve - Like when
> going on holiday or no longer using a machine.
>
> Nairb

It'd probably be better to just turn off the messages -- unless people are constantly hitting "update" the BOINC client random back-off handles this pretty well -- and without user intervention.

As far as server loading, it's probably best to just let it go and let the random back off handle it.

> I agree. It could also help to take the load off of the servers plus it would
> save on the endless messages generated when boinc fails to connect.

A problem from the dial-up side is there's no real server status. Typically, I check the news page. If there's no clear indication of the status (like yesterday) I enable network access and see if uploads work. If they do, I try to report.

Even when the system is working, I don't always get through, so if no scheduler responds, I try a few more times (unless the deferred value is reasonable to stay on-line and let it try again).

I'm not sure why they don't put some indication on the news page like:

News [ ] Reporting [ ] Uploading [X] Downloading

It could go at the top of the news and would simply require a "X" or " ". It would save a lot of time instead of us banging on the servers when they aren't going to respond anyway.

> >> This is easily done by setting the days of cache you want to receive
> from 0 to
> > 0 days in your Preferences. One update later and Seti/whatever else under
> that
> > preferences profile won't send you any units anymore.
> > ----------------------
> > Jordâ„¢
>
> I'm sorry I do not agree with you, that solves temporarily the situation but
> you would have to be changing rather frecuently your preferences, I still
> think that my idea as such is much better. Sorry. No hurts feelings pse.
>
The thing is, BOINC is just a shell program. All settings for it are done on the websites of the projects you attach to. The crunchers you use look at those settings by communicating with the various websites.

What you propose is a complete rewrite of the BOINC shell program, where the preferences per project are being integrated in the program. It might be an option for the future, but imho it's undoable on a short notice. If you just set your preferences to 0 to 0 days a week before you go on holiday, you can run your present cache and upload those before you are really going away, without downloading new units.

Also think about all the other BOINC versions that are about. It's not only the Windows GUI version that's running on a lot of computers, but Macs, Linux and whatever else people have managed to get it working on as well. You want them to change all that, so you can go on vacation without losing a unit? ;)
----------------------
Jordâ„¢

>> > > Jordâ„¢
> >

> The thing is, BOINC is just a shell program. All settings for it are done on
> the websites of the projects you attach to. The crunchers you use look at
> those settings by communicating with the various websites.
>
> Jordâ„¢
Ok Jordâ„¢ mine was just an idea. If that can be done in the future, that is fine if not, that is also fine.

As for my going on vacation (which I did not mention in any place at all!) that is no problem, when I go on vacation my PC goes on vacation too, that means I just turn it off and that's it. I always try to see that no work is left in there and I have managed to do it quite nicely so far.

As I said -and I agree with you - if in the future it could be done so fine so good. Anyway I hope it will make them think about it.

Have a nice day Jordâ„¢ - from sunny Valencia!

The developers have already seen a proposal to have a detach after upload. It might be better if it were quit after upload for those who wanted to go on vacation and turn their machines off.

I think that it might be a good idea to have a local setting per project that was don't try to connect until date/time. Of course this would have to have some random time added it to it so that the servers would not be hammered when they turned back on after the scheduled end of an outage. People could set this from the news page for the project. Of course the currrent scheme for this at least works, and is completely automatic (with the exception of a few extreeme back off times that have been reported).

Hi... I have to disagree partially with Jordan & Holly regards to the complete re-write of BOINC for the inclusion of local configuration changes... Yes... It would take a minor change to the shell, but surely, each project could have a configurator module that runs from inside the shell in a similar way to how the crunchers do now.

These configurators could then be downloaded automatically and updated in a similar way as projects are attached/removed, in exactly the same way as the crunchers are.

The configurator would then just ping the appropriate project with the changes made. Thus copies of configuration changes could be kept locally as well as remotely.

I would also like to see that the ask before connecting function will work!



The whole is more then the sum of its particles.
Aristoteles
Best wishes from Berlin(52°35'N,13°23'O), Basti

Expanding on my previous idea, we already have a "settings" menu in BOINC. If we add a submenu to that. Call it "Project Settings" if you like. Every time you hover over that BOINC will scan the attached projects for an associated configurator and build the submenu, so when you click on an option the appropriate configurator will launch as a sub process in exactly the same way as the crunchers are forked off as sub processes.

Settings-+-Attach to project
         |
         +-Project Settings  -+-SETI@Home
         |                    +-Predictor
         |                    +-CPDN
         |                    +-etc...
         |
         +-Proxy Server

Just an idea...

but a good one :-).


Hi, another idea witch I get this moment.

What about real seperat settings for each PC, witch can be choosen direct in the client and not in the internet via the last updated preference.

Have a nice weekend!

The whole is more then the sum of its particles.
Aristoteles
Best wishes from Berlin(52°35'N,13°23'O), Basti

> Can you create a separate instructions file that will "suspend" work on any
> specific project but leave the others working??

The ability to send and not receive w/u would be particularly useful for those of us without broadband. I have 12 or so computers over a slowwwww modem. Setting the preferences to 0/0 and making sure ALL machines have been updated is tiresome. By sending/not receive I can USE the internet etc while sending results and set the downloads off over night (about 7 to 9 hrs for a weeks worth).

I guess the current setup was designed for users with 1-2 machines with broadband connection.
On a bright note - at least seti/predictor still works on win98/nt4 - climate doesn't - so I found out on my dual nt4 machine.
Nairb

> Can you create a separate instructions file that will "suspend" work on any
> specific project but leave the others working??

This would be accomplished through the individual configurators I would guess.

As far as settings for seperate PCs are concerned, the servers already distinguish between different PCs under the same user ID. I doubt whether it would take much more to incorporate this configurator idea as launched on the different machines with different settings to have those settings stored in a way that lock them to the same PC that sent them, in a similar way that the WUs are currently. Or to put it more simply... If the server can tell which PC the configurator is running on (from BOINC's benchmarks) then it can store seperate settings for each PC under that users ID.