Weekend server problems (Oct 1, 2007)

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Message 653375 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 13:44:02 UTC - in response to Message 653349.  

I can't attach to the Seti@Home project..are the servers messed up again?


If you're having attach problems, you should ask for assistance over in the Q&A forum.
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Message 653387 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 14:10:29 UTC - in response to Message 653375.  
Last modified: 3 Oct 2007, 14:16:26 UTC

I can't attach to the Seti@Home project..are the servers messed up again?


If you're having attach problems, you should ask for assistance over in the Q&A forum.


Yeah, great help man! Should be written to the MS knowledge base ;-)))

OK, if I type the following URL in my browser: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php

I'm getting this answer:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> 
- <project_config>
  <name>SETI@home</name> 
  <master_url>http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/</master_url> 
  <local_revision>12674</local_revision> 
  <web_stopped>0</web_stopped> 
  <min_passwd_length>6</min_passwd_length> 
  <sched_stopped>0</sched_stopped> 
  <br /> 
  <b>Warning</b> 
  : mysql_pconnect() [ 
  <a href="function.mysql-pconnect">function.mysql-pconnect</a> 
  ]: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'sidious' (4) in 
  <b>/disks/setifiler1/home/boincadm/projects/sah/html/inc/db.inc</b> 
  on line 
  <b>22</b> 
  <br /> 
  </project_config>


So, what's wrong with lord sidious???

Server status reports the following:

BOINC replica database sidious Disabled

Is that true? Why is this preventing client from attaching?

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Message 653405 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 14:41:39 UTC - in response to Message 653387.  

I can't attach to the Seti@Home project..are the servers messed up again?


If you're having attach problems, you should ask for assistance over in the Q&A forum.


Yeah, great help man! Should be written to the MS knowledge base ;-)))

OK, if I type the following URL in my browser: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php

I'm getting this answer:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> 
- <project_config>
  <name>SETI@home</name> 
  <master_url>http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/</master_url> 
  <local_revision>12674</local_revision> 
  <web_stopped>0</web_stopped> 
  <min_passwd_length>6</min_passwd_length> 
  <sched_stopped>0</sched_stopped> 
  <br /> 
  <b>Warning</b> 
  : mysql_pconnect() [ 
  <a href="function.mysql-pconnect">function.mysql-pconnect</a> 
  ]: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'sidious' (4) in 
  <b>/disks/setifiler1/home/boincadm/projects/sah/html/inc/db.inc</b> 
  on line 
  <b>22</b> 
  <br /> 
  </project_config>


So, what's wrong with lord sidious???

Server status reports the following:

BOINC replica database sidious Disabled

Is that true? Why is this preventing client from attaching?

If the database is down/disabled, you can't connect to it.

As to why it's down/disabled, we'll have to wait until someone has time to post an explination.
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Message 653417 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 15:19:12 UTC - in response to Message 653405.  

I can't attach to the Seti@Home project..are the servers messed up again?


If you're having attach problems, you should ask for assistance over in the Q&A forum.


Yeah, great help man! Should be written to the MS knowledge base ;-)))

OK, if I type the following URL in my browser: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php

I'm getting this answer:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> 
- <project_config>
  <name>SETI@home</name> 
  <master_url>http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/</master_url> 
  <local_revision>12674</local_revision> 
  <web_stopped>0</web_stopped> 
  <min_passwd_length>6</min_passwd_length> 
  <sched_stopped>0</sched_stopped> 
  <br /> 
  <b>Warning</b> 
  : mysql_pconnect() [ 
  <a href="function.mysql-pconnect">function.mysql-pconnect</a> 
  ]: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'sidious' (4) in 
  <b>/disks/setifiler1/home/boincadm/projects/sah/html/inc/db.inc</b> 
  on line 
  <b>22</b> 
  <br /> 
  </project_config>


So, what's wrong with lord sidious???

Server status reports the following:

BOINC replica database sidious Disabled

Is that true? Why is this preventing client from attaching?

If the database is down/disabled, you can't connect to it.

As to why it's down/disabled, we'll have to wait until someone has time to post an explination.


I would accept this if it wasn't called "replica database", so I understand this as a fall back solution for the BOINC database on jocelyn, which is reported as running.

However, attaching clients works every now and then. Enough for me to preload three clients for my office to crunch over the weekend, so don't worry.
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Message 653421 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 15:29:09 UTC - in response to Message 653417.  

I would accept this if it wasn't called "replica database", so I understand this as a fall back solution for the BOINC database on jocelyn, which is reported as running.

However, attaching clients works every now and then. Enough for me to preload three clients for my office to crunch over the weekend, so don't worry.

Some of the work, such as reporting, is done against the Replica Database so as to minimize the impact to the Production Database.
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Message 653423 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 15:32:08 UTC

I like what Seti@home is doing, No other project is doing anything like this with so many people.

But sometimes i wonder if we're doing anything helpful..seems like Seti@home is ALWAYS having server problems, and thus people going to a more stable project like Folding@home.

I know nothing is always 100% uptime in the computer world, but wow so many problems..


Anyways, i still cant attach to the project, says its not available.
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Message 653474 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 16:58:44 UTC - in response to Message 653387.  

If you're having attach problems, you should ask for assistance over in the Q&A forum.


Yeah, great help man! Should be written to the MS knowledge base ;-)))


I said that because we're supposed to redirect all requests for help out of the Technical News forum which is what you're posting in. The Q&A is where you're supposed to get help. I don't see why that was such a bad suggestion.
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Message 653530 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 19:01:37 UTC - in response to Message 653423.  

I like what Seti@home is doing, No other project is doing anything like this with so many people.

But sometimes i wonder if we're doing anything helpful..seems like Seti@home is ALWAYS having server problems, and thus people going to a more stable project like Folding@home.

I know nothing is always 100% uptime in the computer world, but wow so many problems..


Anyways, i still cant attach to the project, says its not available.



I'm sorry, I can't help you with attaching, but I think that because Seti pretty much started all of this and because they have the most amount of people crunching that it has never really lost its pathfinder status for the rest of boinc. That being said, I think that the fact that we're 'looking for little green men' puts us off from receiving funding that other more 'helpful' projects can get.


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Message 653536 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 19:09:04 UTC - in response to Message 653296.  
Last modified: 3 Oct 2007, 19:40:07 UTC


You can set a very low resource share for a backup project, i.e. Seti 100:1 backup, or even 100,000:1. The BOINC manager will ensure the initial backup units are crunched on time, at the expense of making the Long Term Credit (LTD) a large -ve number, so that under normal circumstances BOINC will not download from the backup project unless Seti is down and BOINC decides you need more work.


Or, I could set my cache higher by a couple of days to smooth out the bumps in server-land. That way there, Seti still gets the results of my Cpu efforts. It's not foolproof - there could be a catastrophic failure that results in a Seti shutdown of multiple weeks or months, but for all of the recent bad luck it would have been sufficient.

Of course, I don't mean to sound like the Seti@home staff aren't doing their jobs. I know it's something I couldn't do yet, with my level of education and computer knowledge. As far as I'm concerned they're doing far more than we could have ever expected them to.

Cheers,
Jim

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Message 653562 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 19:40:02 UTC - in response to Message 653530.  

Funding, because we (Seti) are looking for little green men there is no funding. Other projects, someone is going to get a patent, or there is tons of government research $ to fund a full time staff of computer programmers to keep their project up. Not so with Seti. We are the funding. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is even one full time position on Seti, everyone seems to have a second job.

They do a wonderful job. Just because you want to see high RAC numbers isn't the reason to crunch. You want to see a real result. You want to solve the question, "Are we alone?"

Gary

I like what Seti@home is doing, No other project is doing anything like this with so many people.

But sometimes i wonder if we're doing anything helpful..seems like Seti@home is ALWAYS having server problems, and thus people going to a more stable project like Folding@home.

I know nothing is always 100% uptime in the computer world, but wow so many problems..


Anyways, i still cant attach to the project, says its not available.



I'm sorry, I can't help you with attaching, but I think that because Seti pretty much started all of this and because they have the most amount of people crunching that it has never really lost its pathfinder status for the rest of boinc. That being said, I think that the fact that we're 'looking for little green men' puts us off from receiving funding that other more 'helpful' projects can get.



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Message 653566 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 19:45:36 UTC - in response to Message 653387.  

I can't attach to the Seti@Home project..are the servers messed up again?


If you're having attach problems, you should ask for assistance over in the Q&A forum.


Yeah, great help man! Should be written to the MS knowledge base ;-)))

This isn't the place for technical help, this is where the project posts news: project status, software updates and the like.

People may offer help here, but questions really belong in Q&A. That is monitored closely by dedicated volunteers who are ready to work with you on this.

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Message 653611 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 21:34:19 UTC - in response to Message 653536.  


You can set a very low resource share for a backup project, i.e. Seti 100:1 backup, or even 100,000:1. The BOINC manager will ensure the initial backup units are crunched on time, at the expense of making the Long Term Credit (LTD) a large -ve number, so that under normal circumstances BOINC will not download from the backup project unless Seti is down and BOINC decides you need more work.


Or, I could set my cache higher by a couple of days to smooth out the bumps in server-land. That way there, Seti still gets the results of my Cpu efforts. It's not foolproof - there could be a catastrophic failure that results in a Seti shutdown of multiple weeks or months, but for all of the recent bad luck it would have been sufficient.

Of course, I don't mean to sound like the Seti@home staff aren't doing their jobs. I know it's something I couldn't do yet, with my level of education and computer knowledge. As far as I'm concerned they're doing far more than we could have ever expected them to.

Cheers,
Jim


Unless someone knows to the contrary, and as I posted below, by keeping a large cache we maintain an unnecessarily large burden on the seti servers. If we had two weeks worth of work, and had a 3h compute time per wu, then our turnaround time is about 2x7x24/3 = about 100x more than is needed to keep busy. Ok, knock this factor down a bit if you like, but the effect is that the servers must keep the info supporting this level of cached wu's in the databases and in disk storage, which increases their level of pain with little to justify it.

For me, I'm first trying to find a good balance with E@H and then I'm going to reduce my cache to a minimum. BTW, E@H has more than 800 days worth of work to do with their active base of 56K hosts. Probably a useful backstop for S@H.
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Message 653647 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 22:36:04 UTC - in response to Message 653611.  
Last modified: 3 Oct 2007, 22:49:28 UTC


You can set a very low resource share for a backup project, i.e. Seti 100:1 backup, or even 100,000:1. The BOINC manager will ensure the initial backup units are crunched on time, at the expense of making the Long Term Credit (LTD) a large -ve number, so that under normal circumstances BOINC will not download from the backup project unless Seti is down and BOINC decides you need more work.


Or, I could set my cache higher by a couple of days to smooth out the bumps in server-land. That way there, Seti still gets the results of my Cpu efforts. It's not foolproof - there could be a catastrophic failure that results in a Seti shutdown of multiple weeks or months, but for all of the recent bad luck it would have been sufficient.

Of course, I don't mean to sound like the Seti@home staff aren't doing their jobs. I know it's something I couldn't do yet, with my level of education and computer knowledge. As far as I'm concerned they're doing far more than we could have ever expected them to.

Cheers,
Jim


Unless someone knows to the contrary, and as I posted below, by keeping a large cache we maintain an unnecessarily large burden on the seti servers. If we had two weeks worth of work, and had a 3h compute time per wu, then our turnaround time is about 2x7x24/3 = about 100x more than is needed to keep busy. Ok, knock this factor down a bit if you like, but the effect is that the servers must keep the info supporting this level of cached wu's in the databases and in disk storage, which increases their level of pain with little to justify it.

For me, I'm first trying to find a good balance with E@H and then I'm going to reduce my cache to a minimum. BTW, E@H has more than 800 days worth of work to do with their active base of 56K hosts. Probably a useful backstop for S@H.

I don't think the problem is as bad as you think it is.

According to the most recent Server Status page, there are a bit over 2 million Results In Progress.

According to the last BOINCstats information, there are a bit less then 160 thousand Active Users.

This works out to be about 12.5 Results in Progress per Active User.

If Berkeley thinks the load on the Database is too much, they can change the programs so that the maximum Cache size is reduced. They had the perfect chance to do that when 5.10(?) came out with the "Maintain enough work for an additional n.nn days" option. Instead they left the Maximum Cache Size at 10 days.

[edit]
My cache is currently set to 7 days on all 3 of my active systems. My Average Turn Around time is about 5 days.

This will get me through all but the very worst of outages.
[/edit]
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Message 653720 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 0:16:07 UTC - in response to Message 653647.  


You can set a very low resource share for a backup project, i.e. Seti 100:1 backup, or even 100,000:1. The BOINC manager will ensure the initial backup units are crunched on time, at the expense of making the Long Term Credit (LTD) a large -ve number, so that under normal circumstances BOINC will not download from the backup project unless Seti is down and BOINC decides you need more work.


Or, I could set my cache higher by a couple of days to smooth out the bumps in server-land. That way there, Seti still gets the results of my Cpu efforts. It's not foolproof - there could be a catastrophic failure that results in a Seti shutdown of multiple weeks or months, but for all of the recent bad luck it would have been sufficient.

Of course, I don't mean to sound like the Seti@home staff aren't doing their jobs. I know it's something I couldn't do yet, with my level of education and computer knowledge. As far as I'm concerned they're doing far more than we could have ever expected them to.

Cheers,
Jim


Unless someone knows to the contrary, and as I posted below, by keeping a large cache we maintain an unnecessarily large burden on the seti servers. If we had two weeks worth of work, and had a 3h compute time per wu, then our turnaround time is about 2x7x24/3 = about 100x more than is needed to keep busy. Ok, knock this factor down a bit if you like, but the effect is that the servers must keep the info supporting this level of cached wu's in the databases and in disk storage, which increases their level of pain with little to justify it.

For me, I'm first trying to find a good balance with E@H and then I'm going to reduce my cache to a minimum. BTW, E@H has more than 800 days worth of work to do with their active base of 56K hosts. Probably a useful backstop for S@H.

I don't think the problem is as bad as you think it is.

According to the most recent Server Status page, there are a bit over 2 million Results In Progress.

According to the last BOINCstats information, there are a bit less then 160 thousand Active Users.

This works out to be about 12.5 Results in Progress per Active User.

If Berkeley thinks the load on the Database is too much, they can change the programs so that the maximum Cache size is reduced. They had the perfect chance to do that when 5.10(?) came out with the "Maintain enough work for an additional n.nn days" option. Instead they left the Maximum Cache Size at 10 days.

[edit]
My cache is currently set to 7 days on all 3 of my active systems. My Average Turn Around time is about 5 days.

This will get me through all but the very worst of outages.
[/edit]

My cache is set to the Max of 10 days, Of course It will never last that long as the PCs I have will burn through them in less than 5 Days, But then I'm running mostly overclocked PCs(2-QX6700 cpus[capable of 3GHz+], 2-E4300 cpus[capable of 3GHz+] and 1-Opteron 165[runs at 2.6GHz+]), One of the E4300 cpus is offline for a year or two until My income is higher by nearly $100 a month, As I get SSI as I'm totally disabled. No I don't want the Donation back as I don't need It, Seti needs It more than I do.
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Message 653788 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 2:55:28 UTC
Last modified: 4 Oct 2007, 3:08:23 UTC

Is this an appropriate place to mention that the "Client Connection Stats" script needs a kick AGAIN?

If so, somebody, please! place appropriate plantar surface in script's Gluteus Maximus. :-)

If not, where is appropriate?
.

Hello, from Albany, CA!...
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Message 654175 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 21:03:15 UTC - in response to Message 653788.  

Is anyone having trouble uploading their completed wu's, both my core 2 quad and core 2 duo wont upload them
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Message 654178 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 21:11:19 UTC - in response to Message 654175.  

Is anyone having trouble uploading their completed wu's, both my core 2 quad and core 2 duo wont upload them


Same here, can't upload any WU's

Vlad

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Message 654189 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 21:32:49 UTC

Same here, too, no uploads in 5 or 6 hours.
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Message 654204 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 22:07:25 UTC

Same here getting

10/4/2007 4:39:47 PM|SETI@home|[file_xfer] Started upload of file 09mr07ac.14534.11933.7.6.30_1_0
10/4/2007 4:42:17 PM|SETI@home|[file_xfer] Temporarily failed upload of 09mr07ac.14534.11933.7.6.30_1_0: http error
10/4/2007 4:42:17 PM|SETI@home|Backing off 26 min 40 sec on upload of file 09mr07ac.14534.11933.7.6.30_1_0
10/4/2007 4:48:18 PM|SETI@home|[file_xfer] Started upload of file 09mr07ac.14534.11933.7.6.11_1_0
10/4/2007 4:49:02 PM||Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
10/4/2007 4:49:02 PM|SETI@home|[file_xfer] Temporarily failed upload of 09mr07ac.14534.11933.7.6.11_1_0: system connect
10/4/2007 4:49:02 PM|SETI@home|Backing off 35 min 39 sec on upload of file 09mr07ac.14534.11933.7.6.11_1_0
10/4/2007 4:49:03 PM||Access to reference site succeeded - project servers may be temporarily down.
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Message 654248 - Posted: 4 Oct 2007, 23:19:16 UTC

I have that problem and the files I have gets 100% uploaded and then It goes into retry mode since the client never got an acknowledgment from the server and then has to repeat until It does get what It needs and right now 4 PCs of mine have 16WUs trying to do just that. Hopefully somebody can fix this asap. Please.
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