Hi

Took a break from Seti@home for a few months. Just started BOINC back up again and I can only get one workunit in the cache. I have increased store at least under computing preferences to the values I used to use for a full cache but I still get just one wu in the cache.

I suspect I changed a config parameter somewhere before I took the break, but now I cannot find anything obvious that I may have changed.

Anybody any suggestions why I just get one, lonely wu in the cache?

It can take some time for your cache to build up.
It is worth knowing that these days SETI has a task count limit of 100 for your CPU and 100 per GPU. To make sure you sit near these limits set "Store at least" to about 3 to 5 days, and "Store up to an additional" to a very small number - I use 0.01 days. Setting the "additional days" to a large value can cause problems with large delays in fetching work resulting in violent swings in numbers of tasks in your cache.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Thanks for the advice, alas changing my Store at least etc has no effect, I still only have one wu in the cache.

I vaguely remember it ran like this just before I stopped running BOINC, I am guessing I changed a setting but I cannot find what could be causing this. It is if my task limit is 1 not a 100.

Perhaps it is the settings in the View (Home,Work,etc) that you need to check. Since your computers are hidden (please Unhide them) we can not see what tasks you are running. I know this happened to me when I had checked Home, and the WU was set to Work.

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SETI@home classic workunits 4,019
SETI@home classic CPU time 34,348 hours

Post your first 30 lines of the Event Log after first startup. Also post the contents of cc_config. That is where the restriction likely resides.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Under SETI preferences, do you have the Resource Share set to 0? In the past, this was done to limit BOINC to getting 1 WU at a time (for backup projects) so when SETI came back up from an outage, it would take over the machine again with no stored work for the backup to run through.

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Cache is a little larger today at 6-8 work units.

Had a close look at the cc_config file, nothing I can see that could be limiting my cache

<cc_config>
<log_flags>
<file_xfer>1</file_xfer>
<sched_ops>1</sched_ops>
<task>1</task>
<android_debug>0</android_debug>
<app_msg_receive>0</app_msg_receive>
<app_msg_send>0</app_msg_send>
<async_file_debug>0</async_file_debug>
<benchmark_debug>0</benchmark_debug>
<checkpoint_debug>0</checkpoint_debug>
<coproc_debug>0</coproc_debug>
<cpu_sched>0</cpu_sched>
<cpu_sched_debug>0</cpu_sched_debug>
<cpu_sched_status>0</cpu_sched_status>
<dcf_debug>0</dcf_debug>
<disk_usage_debug>0</disk_usage_debug>
<file_xfer_debug>0</file_xfer_debug>
<gui_rpc_debug>0</gui_rpc_debug>
<heartbeat_debug>0</heartbeat_debug>
<http_debug>0</http_debug>
<http_xfer_debug>0</http_xfer_debug>
<idle_detection_debug>0</idle_detection_debug>
<mem_usage_debug>0</mem_usage_debug>
<network_status_debug>0</network_status_debug>
<notice_debug>0</notice_debug>
<poll_debug>0</poll_debug>
<priority_debug>0</priority_debug>
<proxy_debug>0</proxy_debug>
<rr_simulation>0</rr_simulation>
<rrsim_detail>0</rrsim_detail>
<sched_op_debug>0</sched_op_debug>
<scrsave_debug>0</scrsave_debug>
<slot_debug>0</slot_debug>
<state_debug>0</state_debug>
<statefile_debug>0</statefile_debug>
<suspend_debug>0</suspend_debug>
<task_debug>0</task_debug>
<time_debug>0</time_debug>
<trickle_debug>0</trickle_debug>
<unparsed_xml>0</unparsed_xml>
<work_fetch_debug>0</work_fetch_debug>
</log_flags>
<options>
<abort_jobs_on_exit>0</abort_jobs_on_exit>
<allow_multiple_clients>0</allow_multiple_clients>
<allow_remote_gui_rpc>0</allow_remote_gui_rpc>
<client_version_check_url>https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php?xml=1</client_version_check_url>
<client_new_version_text></client_new_version_text>
<client_download_url>https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php</client_download_url>
<disallow_attach>0</disallow_attach>
<dont_check_file_sizes>0</dont_check_file_sizes>
<dont_contact_ref_site>0</dont_contact_ref_site>
<lower_client_priority>0</lower_client_priority>
<dont_suspend_nci>0</dont_suspend_nci>
<dont_use_vbox>0</dont_use_vbox>
<exclusive_gpu_app>lightroom.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>Photoshop.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exit_after_finish>0</exit_after_finish>
<exit_before_start>0</exit_before_start>
<exit_when_idle>0</exit_when_idle>
<fetch_minimal_work>0</fetch_minimal_work>
<fetch_on_update>0</fetch_on_update>
<force_auth>default</force_auth>
<http_1_0>0</http_1_0>
<http_transfer_timeout>300</http_transfer_timeout>
<http_transfer_timeout_bps>10</http_transfer_timeout_bps>
<max_event_log_lines>2000</max_event_log_lines>
<max_file_xfers>8</max_file_xfers>
<max_file_xfers_per_project>2</max_file_xfers_per_project>
<max_stderr_file_size>0</max_stderr_file_size>
<max_stdout_file_size>0</max_stdout_file_size>
<max_tasks_reported>20</max_tasks_reported>
<ncpus>-1</ncpus>
<network_test_url>https://www.bing.com/</network_test_url>
<no_alt_platform>0</no_alt_platform>
<no_gpus>0</no_gpus>
<no_info_fetch>0</no_info_fetch>
<no_opencl>0</no_opencl>
<no_priority_change>0</no_priority_change>
<os_random_only>0</os_random_only>
<process_priority>-1</process_priority>
<process_priority_special>-1</process_priority_special>
<proxy_info>
<socks_server_name></socks_server_name>
<socks_server_port>80</socks_server_port>
<http_server_name></http_server_name>
<http_server_port>80</http_server_port>
<socks5_user_name></socks5_user_name>
<socks5_user_passwd></socks5_user_passwd>
<http_user_name></http_user_name>
<http_user_passwd></http_user_passwd>
<no_proxy></no_proxy>
</proxy_info>
<rec_half_life_days>2.000000</rec_half_life_days> <report_results_immediately>0</report_results_immediately>
<run_apps_manually>0</run_apps_manually>
<save_stats_days>150</save_stats_days>
<skip_cpu_benchmarks>0</skip_cpu_benchmarks>
<simple_gui_only>0</simple_gui_only>
<start_delay>5</start_delay>
<stderr_head>0</stderr_head>
<suppress_net_info>0</suppress_net_info>
<unsigned_apps_ok>0</unsigned_apps_ok>
<use_all_gpus>0</use_all_gpus>
<use_certs>0</use_certs>
<use_certs_only>0</use_certs_only>
<vbox_window>0</vbox_window>
</options>
</cc_config>


Event log from start:

23/02/2018 18:44:00 | | Starting BOINC client version 7.6.33 for windows_x86_64
23/02/2018 18:44:00 | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
23/02/2018 18:44:00 | | Libraries: libcurl/7.47.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2g zlib/1.2.8
23/02/2018 18:44:00 | | Data directory: C:\ProgramData\BOINC
23/02/2018 18:44:00 | | Running under account David
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 1060 3GB (driver version 388.31, CUDA version 9.1, compute capability 6.1, 3072MB, 2494MB available, 4111 GFLOPS peak)
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GTX 1060 3GB (driver version 388.31, device version OpenCL 1.2 CUDA, 3072MB, 2494MB available, 4111 GFLOPS peak)
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | OpenCL CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz (OpenCL driver vendor: Intel(R) Corporation, driver version 6.4.0.25, device version OpenCL 1.2 (Build 25))
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | SETI@home | Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Host name: Enterprise
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Processor: 12 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz [Family 6 Model 63 Stepping 2]
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movebe popcnt aes f16c rdrandsyscall nx lm avx avx2 vmx tm2 dca pbe fsgsbase bmi1 smep bmi2
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | OS: Microsoft Windows 10: Professional x64 Edition, (10.00.16299.00)
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Memory: 31.92 GB physical, 36.67 GB virtual
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Disk: 3.64 TB total, 2.01 TB free
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Local time is UTC +0 hours
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | pogs | Found app_config.xml
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | Rosetta@home | Found app_config.xml
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | SETI@home | Found app_config.xml
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Config: don't use GPUs while lightroom.exe is running
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Config: don't use GPUs while Photoshop.exe is running
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | A new version of BOINC is available. (7.8.3) <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php>Download</a>
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | pogs | URL http://pogs.theskynet.org/pogs/; Computer ID 819200; resource share 0
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | Rosetta@home | URL http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/; Computer ID 3277364; resource share 0
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | SETI@home | URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 8334571; resource share 100
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | SETI@home | General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 04-Sep-2017 20:25:27)
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | SETI@home | Computer location: home
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | General prefs: using separate prefs for home
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Reading preferences override file
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | Preferences:
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | max memory usage when active: 16342.64MB
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | max memory usage when idle: 32685.29MB
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | max disk usage: 12.00GB
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 70%
23/02/2018 18:44:02 | | (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
23/02/2018 18:44:03 | | Suspending computation - initial delay
23/02/2018 18:45:04 | SETI@home | Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
23/02/2018 18:45:04 | SETI@home | Requesting new tasks for CPU
23/02/2018 18:45:06 | SETI@home | Scheduler request completed: got 1 new tasks
23/02/2018 18:45:08 | SETI@home | Started download of blc15_2bit_guppi_58137_30589_HIP46580_0023.12052.818.22.45.68.vlar
23/02/2018 18:45:13 | SETI@home | Finished download of blc15_2bit_guppi_58137_30589_HIP46580_0023.12052.818.22.45.68.vlar

Resouce Share for SETI@home is at 100, other projects at zero used to fill cache during SETI@home maintenance breaks.

Unhid my PC.

A little puzzled by my small cache size but a least it is larger today.

I had this issue few days ago realized didn't realize there was a BOINC Manager Comp Prefs as well as the seti@home pref settings, I was getting 5 or 6 GPU/CPU..
I have mine at 10 days of work ( prolly to much)
and store up to an additional 0.01days of work now get 100 of each..

@David@home

<ncpus>-1</ncpus> ???

u must be kidding ;)

u must adjust it not on cpus , u must count their cores.

on u its 12 cores, if HyperThreading activated = 24 cores !

Hold ur breath if its getting new tasks...

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@David@home

<ncpus>-1</ncpus> ???

u must be kidding ;)

u must adjust it not on cpus , u must count their cores.

on u its 12 cores, if HyperThreading activated = 24 cores !

Hold ur breath if its getting new tasks...

That is the default value for <ncpus>-1</ncpus> Means to use all available cpus. See here for the explanation https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration#Application_configuration

Computers are still hidden. It takes some time for BOINC to recognize the change in that parameter.

I don't see anything untoward wrong in the cc_config other than the start delay and exclusive apps call out.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

If you are getting 100 tasks per cpu and 100 tasks per gpu, then the 10 days of work cache setting is meaningless. The project has a hard limit of 100 tasks per cpu/gpu at any time. You could probably drop the initial work cache setting down to 2 or 4 days and you would still only get 100 tasks per device. That also depends on the device APR.

The 'store additional days of work' setting at 0.01 days forces the Client to contact the project often to keep topping up the cache tank so will always be at 100 tasks per device. The 10 days of work cache setting is a archaic reminder of the early days of the project with slow cpus and intermittent Internet connections.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

That is the default value for <ncpus>-1</ncpus> Means to use all available cpus. See here for the explanation

ok, i used in the cc_config.xml various numbers of ncpus, inside the client
i updated the configuration.

And always it react as usual:

ncpus = 4 runing 4 wus at the same time.
ncpus = 6 runing 6 wus at the same time.
ncpus =12 , i dont run that, perhaps i must compute it ;)

Even i got only 4 cores, ur next. Client version 7.8.3 x64.

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I may have to drop mine from 10 days work as my "store additional days" is set at 0.01 I get 100 CPU/GPU, my comp is not hidden if anyone wants to check in case iv'e made a boo boo somewhere..

Cheers in advance
Steve :)

I know you have slow devices, but considering the current SETI task deadline is two months out from issue date, I don' think you will ever run into not being able to finish a task before deadline.

MilkyWay takes care of cache by limiting maximum allowed tasks at any time to 80 tasks. Einstein is where you could run into troubles as it always issues too much work. But if you have it as only a backup project to SETI with resource share of 0, it shouldn't overwhelm your system when SETI has troubles.

I would probably drop your initial cache down to 2 days and see how that works out. Again, I think the scheduler will keep your cache at 100/100 irregardless of how many days of cache you have set.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Thanks Keith, will make the change now and keep note of what happens..

Steve

Everything looks correct on your system with the Optimized apps. It correctly configured the SoG app for the very slow gpu as a low performance device so it shouldn't impact the system responsiveness.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Just got more work all CPU/GPU at 100 each :)

All this shows something is wrong with the scheduler.

If the host has an average of return of close to 4 days, why it's send 100+100 WU if the cache is set for 2 days?

I know on this case the times will drop after the configuration but the server did not know that for now until it start to receive the crunched WU. So why send too many WU to a slow host and why it not respect the 2 days cache?

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His host has a actual APR and turnaround time of about 1 1/2 days. The BOINC main host stats page only updates every 24 hours. The Applications Details page updates every couple of hours. It will take a couple of days for the main page to reflect somewhat accurate values. And yes, the scheduler is mostly broken as we well know.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I think my initial problem was that I had not crunched for a few months and the scheduler was only giving me one at a time until I had enough work units validated. I seem to get plenty of WUs now.

But, I have another problem. I would like to switch to just Astropulse only. I used to do that on the SETI@home preferences web page and set AstroPulse v7: yes, SETI@home v8: no. I have done this today for all the different groups but I still get Seti@home work units. Does this setting still work?