Fner and Fnerina (Apr 28 2009)

Busy busy busy, though not many fun adventures to report in the server realm. The weekend was fairly smooth, as was the regular database backup outage today. Bob went to the MySQL conference last week, so yesterday we discussed some plans for mysql upgrades, tweaks, etc. which we won't implement until the end of next month (i.e. after the anniversary). Of course, there was discussion about the Oracle buyout of Sun, and how that will affect the future of mysql. Apparently panic is unwarranted and we were reminded that the innodb engine, which is mostly what we use within mysql, was already partly an Oracle project. Anyway we shall see.

Jeff and I are continuing to spend our time doing what we can to get the NTPCkr rolling before the anniversary, as well as scraping a talk to present together about the general data pipeline (which we hope to end with the "unveiling" of the NTPCkr). Jeff's been hitting some execution efficiency hurdles (mostly involving many long database queries), but we discovered some more significant optimizations (mostly involving getting around having to query the database in the first place). These speed-ups require some logic changes, which then means fresh code walkthroughs. Extreme programming time.

- Matt

____________
-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Splitters aren't running and I just ran out of work. Hopefully this is temporary.
____________
What if Fiction was Fact and Fact was Fiction and vice versa?

Matt,
The NTPCkr is just a very exciting project. I think by the time you and Jeff are finished, the NTPCkr will be one very cool piece of software for analyzing data.

Thanks for your efforts, keep the spirits up,

John.
____________

"Why is every legitimate question 'answered' with an attack on these forums?"

A: It wasn't an attack

B: It wasnt' really a legitimate question either.

I (and most other crunchers) have had no problems getting work over the last couple of weeks. That doesn't mean that EVERY request for work gets filled. Often there are 'no work to send' messages, but they are temporary things. The machine tries again in 5 mins, and this time get to the front of the queue and gets some new work.

So the legitimate quetion was asked "Why are you having problems when everyone else isn't?" Maybe we can help you?

Sometimes there are outage for a few hours, like last nights.

Most people increase their work cache to a couple of days to cover both the expected and unexpected outages.

SETI never promises to have unlimited work available 24/7, hence the advice to cache a bit more work and have a backup project or 2. If you hadn't pulled your machines off the project, they would probably have got work after a couple of hours and would still be happily crunching it.

Or is there some completely unrelated probelm with your ISP or firewall thats causing problems? THere are people here with the technical knowledge to help your there too.

Please note this isn't a personal attack, with no (other) reference to Kool-aid, Great and Mighty or Peasants. If you ask sensible questions, you will get sensible answers, or at least sensible question to clarify things.

Ian
(Of to the shop to get some more Kool-Aid)

elgar

There are many reasons why You might install Boinc get them connected, working and then after they completed the work they are not "phoning home properly."

There are many here that are willing to help, and try to help; gaining some small satisfaction besides the search for ET. Since the Beginning it has been, Users Helping Users. The More People that try, the greater chance of success. Not everyone understands the words spoken by another, now try to type the same words. Miscommunications can be common and somehow people move past that, then someone else explains in terms that can be understood. The problem is solved.

Yes, it can be frustrating on "All Sides." It started with your problem and then others get caught in what they thought they read or did not see in the problem. There are many here that have been around as long as you have and are working to help others. For Myself I have not quite been here as long as you. I have tried to Help.

That said, I did a quick peek at your computers and it seemed like they got an initial set of work and then for some reason they did to phone home correctly. With as complicated as things can get, preferences could be in place that could prevent network connections of those machines.

If you are willing to work with people they might find the problem or the Bug. Yes many problems get reported and fixed in the next version of Boinc. Unfortuantely they are not always obvious as Boinc is a Seperate Animal (and sometimes the cause of the specific issue).

So how do we figure out what the issue is?

Regards

Pappa

Why are we told that the project is losing computing power when the existing base can't even be supplied with work? I added 6 boxes in the last 2 weeks and they've spent more time idle than crunching. It would seem SETI has too many crunchers, not too few.

And please withhold your ad hom attacks, or at least put them in a different font color so they can be ignored easily.

1) I would take elgar's post merely as a fact. He had trouble getting wu's. Just because others don't, or don't notice, doesn't negate his statement.

2) That he went off line due to frustraton is probably another fact. Frustrated users (for what ever reason) will go elsewhere.

3) Download 'problems' or perceived problems still occur. Project leaders (boinc? or seti?) should try to find ways to minimize them, especially if we are trying to keep as many participants as possible.

We should probably thank the collective for reporting issues, without prejudice.

So how do we figure out what the issue is?

Query:

Why is the "science status page" still showing that it was last updated on April 1? ...is this some sort of extended April Fool's joke? ;-)
____________
.

Query:

Why is the "science status page" still showing that it was last updated on April 1? ...is this some sort of extended April Fool's joke? ;-)

Query:

Why is the "science status page" still showing that it was last updated on April 1? ...is this some sort of extended April Fool's joke? ;-)

Because just one line above that it says:
"Note: This page is still vastly under construction."

I think Matt and Jeff are working on it. The best things in life are worth waiting for. Needs time.

John.