What makes a task "High Priority"?

It is also worth noting that it will depend on your BOINC version, which task will run in HP. Some versions strictly enforce EDF - earliest deadline first - while others will choose tasks further down the list - those that the simulation has decided will not make it in time if the normal FIFO (first in first out) order of running is used.
That can sometimes cause confusion.

[for the record, 6.10.x and 7.0.14 and later do strict EDF, 6.12 runs 'bottom up']

As to reason for HP - there is a very complex simulation running at all times, about when tasks will finish, based on the runtime estimate.
Whenever the runtime estimates go bad, the simulation get fed wrong assumptions and comes to wrong conclusions.

Another scenario that habitually sees tasks in HP is machines that are not constantly running.
Let's say you have BOINC running (legally, i.e. you asked your boss) on your work computer. That computer though gets turned off in the evening and for the weekend. BOINC keeps an longterm avarage of the time it is running to tweak cache levels, so it will not in fact ask for too much work. But invariably, it will panic on Monday morning, when that average dips due to the weekend shutdown.

Just remember 'em big friendly letters. It is very rare for BOINC to actually miss deadlines under normal operation. It's not BOINC's fault when you go on holidays and forget to run down your cache ;)
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A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. (Mark Twain)

Thanks. I just looked at the deadline dates on the stuff sent to me, and while most is due April and into May, these two are due 3/26 and were buried down the list.

If you Click on The Little Arrow in the Heading of the Column 'Estimated Time remaining'it will Rearrand Your List. So it may not have actually been 'Buried' in The List, it may have just been the way it was displayed.

Basically it means that BOINC thinks based on what you have left in your cache + how long it will take to crunch them + how much time you have until the deadline + what your "connect every x days" setting is set for, that you might not be able to report that task before the deadline, so it gets moved up to high-priority to make sure it completes before the deadline.

Usually this means the estimates have not sorted themselves out yet, but they will after 10 completed tasks, or it means that for some reason or another, you ended up with way too much work.

What about when freshly *Downloaded Tasks are Added at the Top of The List above Currently Running Tasks, which are suspended upon Completion of such Download, and the New One is Started and Run as HP. And when *it finishes, another fresh downloaded task does the same thing. Hence resulting in the remaining Tasks being given less chance of Completing On Time ?

Basically it means that BOINC thinks based on what you have left in your cache + how long it will take to crunch them + how much time you have until the deadline + what your "connect every x days" setting is set for, that you might not be able to report that task before the deadline, so it gets moved up to high-priority to make sure it completes before the deadline.

Usually this means the estimates have not sorted themselves out yet, but they will after 10 completed tasks, or it means that for some reason or another, you ended up with way too much work.

What about when freshly *Downloaded Tasks are Added at the Top of The List above Currently Running Tasks, which are suspended upon Completion of such Download, and the New One is Started and Run as HP. And when *it finishes, another fresh downloaded task does the same thing. Hence resulting in the remaining Tasks being given less chance of Completing On Time ?

Basically it means that BOINC thinks based on what you have left in your cache + how long it will take to crunch them + how much time you have until the deadline + what your "connect every x days" setting is set for, that you might not be able to report that task before the deadline, so it gets moved up to high-priority to make sure it completes before the deadline.

Usually this means the estimates have not sorted themselves out yet, but they will after 10 completed tasks, or it means that for some reason or another, you ended up with way too much work.

What about when freshly *Downloaded Tasks are Added at the Top of The List above Currently Running Tasks, which are suspended upon Completion of such Download, and the New One is Started and Run as HP. And when *it finishes, another fresh downloaded task does the same thing. Hence resulting in the remaining Tasks being given less chance of Completing On Time ?

If Normal tasks keep getting pre-empted in favour of shorter deadline tasks, then eventually those Normal tasks will get into deadline trouble,
then Boinc will do those in High priority, and will likely stop asking for work from that project until that hurdle is overcome,
(depends on the number of cores available, and the split of work across them)

Claggy

Okay, thanks for the information. The Computer I'm referring to is a HP Notebook G64 with Windows 7. It's Dual Processor and I presently only have my preferences set to use 1 (one) Processor at 100%. I'm not using both processors because I only have 2GB RAM and I use the machine for General Work whilst SETI is running (and CPU Usage is between 60% and 80% at the Best of times: But often runs at 70%-99%).
I ONLY run SETI on this machine. There are currently about 69 tasks in The Queue (including 2 partially completed ones) It only runs One Task at any one time.
What I was thinking of trying, was to select 'No New tasks' until I cleared some of the Existing ones. do you think that would this be worth Trying.
I mostly have it running 24/7, except i may put it in Sleep mode for a few hours each couple of days, and once or twice a week I Shutdown for 4 to 6 hours or overnight (just to give the system a Rest).
Could I possibly Reset Preferences to use both Processors without causing problems? If so, should I only run it for a Certain Number of hours per day?

Okay, thanks for the information. The Computer I'm referring to is a HP Notebook G64 with Windows 7. It's Dual Processor and I presently only have my preferences set to use 1 (one) Processor at 100%. I'm not using both processors because I only have 2GB RAM and I use the machine for General Work whilst SETI is running (and CPU Usage is between 60% and 80% at the Best of times: But often runs at 70%-99%).
I ONLY run SETI on this machine. There are currently about 69 tasks in The Queue (including 2 partially completed ones) It only runs One Task at any one time.
What I was thinking of trying, was to select 'No New tasks' until I cleared some of the Existing ones. do you think that would this be worth Trying.
I mostly have it running 24/7, except i may put it in Sleep mode for a few hours each couple of days, and once or twice a week I Shutdown for 4 to 6 hours or overnight (just to give the system a Rest).
Could I possibly Reset Preferences to use both Processors without causing problems? If so, should I only run it for a Certain Number of hours per day?

i could be wrong here (really it does happen now and then) but i think that if a task have been resent many times with no quorum then when it gets sent out as a new wu download it gets set to high priority.
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I RTFM and it was WYSIWYG then i found out it was a PEBKAC error

Re-sends are sent out with a normal length deadline. And so run a normal priority, unless the rules outlined in earlier posts apply.
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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?