"Do not download anymore work" option client-side badly needed.

As of the latest version of the Boinc client, there is no efficient way to let a host run through all its workunits (and report them) without downloading more work everytime it communicates with the scheduler. Yes, the "Connect to network about every xx days" option in Boinc's General Preferences on the website can be adjusted, however, this affects all the hosts belonging to a user. Assigning separate preferences for home/school/work does NOT work.

To project developers, please take into consideration this request. There are circumstances when users would want to process and return all downloaded work before downloading more on a particular host, so as to make the report deadline and start fresh with a 2-week window on all future workunits. This option would also cut down on the amount of unreturned/unprocessed workunits resulting from users detaching/resetting the project.

> "Do not download anymore work" option client-side badly needed.
>
> As of the latest version of the Boinc client, there is no efficient way to let
> a host run through all its workunits (and report them) without downloading
> more work everytime it communicates with the scheduler. Yes, the "Connect to
> network about every xx days" option in Boinc's General Preferences on the
> website can be adjusted, however, this affects all the hosts belonging to a
> user. Assigning separate preferences for home/school/work does NOT work.
>
> To project developers, please take into consideration this request. There are
> circumstances when users would want to process and return all downloaded work
> before downloading more on a particular host, so as to make the report
> deadline and start fresh with a 2-week window on all future workunits. This
> option would also cut down on the amount of unreturned/unprocessed workunits
> resulting from users detaching/resetting the project.
>

This facility appears to be available with BOINC cc 4.21 & BOINCView 1.0.

I'm testing it at the momment by running down Seti on 1 PC and Predictor on another, both PCs currently process both projects.

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<img border="0" src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?userID=427&amp;prj=1" />

I am running 4.22 (and getting ready to install 4.23). I've not seen that option. Am I just looking in the wrong place? I know a particular project can be suspended, but all that does is stops all activity for that project. It doesn't allow the current WU to finish but no download new wu.

Jim

>
> This facility appears to be available with BOINC cc 4.21 & BOINCView 1.0.
>
> I'm testing it at the momment by running down Seti on 1 PC and Predictor on
> another, both PCs currently process both projects.
>
>
>
>

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I am in a quandry as to wherther I should destroy my WU's n Start Agian.

I guess it may relate to the same question as you guys are asking. If these WU's are not detached fully there is a real need to be able to give them a push from the client or as you say not allow any more WU's to download...

After the recent outage I cleared some WU's however there are 18 or so that are not being reported back.

I even downgraded BOINC again in the hope that any disconnected WU's might reintergrate.... However there is no change.



Some of the WU's are well over 10 days old now.


cRunchy

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Its a facility that only seems to be accessable via the BOINCView Interface. I guess its in 4.22 but they have just not given direct user access to it.

You can check out BOINCView at the following site which also has forum page.

http://boincview.amanheis.de/

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<img border="0" src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?userID=427&amp;prj=1" />

> I am in a quandry as to wherther I should destroy my WU's n Start Agian.
>
> I guess it may relate to the same question as you guys are asking. If these
> WU's are not detached fully there is a real need to be able to give them a
> push from the client or as you say not allow any more WU's to download...
>
> After the recent outage I cleared some WU's however there are 18 or so that
> are not being reported back.
>
> cRunchy
>
cRunchy,
What you see is perfectly normal. The units showing as "Ready To Report" have already been uploaded. There is a 2nd reporting step that will occur 24 hours before the deadline, if you don't touch anything. This behaviour is by design although I have no idea why it is not done soon after the upload. You can either wait until near the deadline, early in March, or go to the Projects Tab, right-click on the Seti project and select "update" if you want to report all the units immediately. They will then disappear from the list. I just did that with my 20 or so Ready To report units to make sure that "update" still works.
Hope this helps,
AlphaOz

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> I am running 4.22 (and getting ready to install 4.23). I've not seen that option.

But... the latest download is 4.19?
I guess you guys must be talking about beta releases then?

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To further expand on the reasons why this option is needed... a user might want to stop running Boinc on a particular host, temporarily or permanently, and instead of just ditching the cache of workunits on that particular machine, would rather finish processing, upload and report them, so as to not affect other users who have pending credit on those workunits.
Without the option to not download anymore work, it would be impossible for the host in question to not waste any workunits, as it will always manage to download new work when reporting old work to the scheduler. Setting the "Connect to network about every xx days" option to something close to zero is not a solution, as this impacts all hosts belonging to a user (can become a problem for users with a large number of hosts and little to no free time on their hands).

spireite,
Thx for the info, will have to try that, although I'd like to see this option implemented in the Boinc client itself. I can't think of any reason why the developers would not give direct access to this function..

cRunchy,
Just do a manual update (right-click on the Seti@home project in the Project tab), and hope that the scheduler will respond :)

BOINC Manager (V4.2x) needs a "Do Not Download More Work" option...or "Complete Current Cache" option for every project you have, not an overall option but a project specific option. This will allow cached work to be completed but no new work downloaded. This needs to be on the Porjects Tab

Makes sense to me.

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Paul
(S@H1 8888)
And proud of it!

I vote for the term Phaseout when letting WU cache run down.

Some people are saying they are running client version 4.22 and installing 4.23...

I checked the SETI download link and BOINC link, and I only see 4.19. Where are these other client vesions coming from and more importantly - how do I get a copy?

LEX

> Some people are saying they are running client version 4.22 and installing
> 4.23...
>
> I checked the SETI download link and BOINC link, and I only see 4.19. Where
> are these other client vesions coming from and more importantly - how do I get
> a copy?
>
> LEX


Click on 'show development versions also' at the bottom of the download page.

Greetings, Speedy67

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Fruther expansion on the request. Make the request available for each project running. So if I have 3 different projects, I can just request one of them to stop, but the other 2 to continue.

I think this is a wonderful suggestion all around. It makes a lot of sense.

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My movie https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/502242

> > After the recent outage I cleared some WU's however there are
> > 18 or so that are not being reported back.
> > cRunchy

> What you see is perfectly normal........
> .... right-click on the Seti project and select "update" if
> you want to report all the units immediately. They will
> then disappear from the list.......

> Hope this helps,

AlphaOz,

Thanks for that. Now I can't see them they can't bother me ;)

HeHe.. I do like to worry :)

Cheers

cRunchy

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Among other things, it looks like in version 4.62 the devs deleted:

* The work tab progress bar (I haven't seen any transfers yet)
* Any right-click action for various features

and added:

* BOINC mouseover for project status in the system tray
* Project tab team name
* Various other mouseover tips and messages
* Redline messages
* Disk tab shows detailed specific project usage
* Connectivity options under Tools

Did I miss anything?

LEX

> "Do not download anymore work" option client-side badly needed.
>
> As of the latest version of the Boinc client, there is no efficient way to let
> a host run through all its workunits (and report them) without downloading
> more work everytime it communicates with the scheduler. Yes, the "Connect to
> network about every xx days" option in Boinc's General Preferences on the
> website can be adjusted, however, this affects all the hosts belonging to a
> user. Assigning separate preferences for home/school/work does NOT work.

Try setting the amount of disk space available to something very low. That actually works quite well.

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> Try setting the amount of disk space available to something very low. That
> actually works quite well.
>

That would work perfectly if you had only one host running Boinc. Not the case if you have a whole bunch of them, and don't want the General Preferences to affect the workunit caches of the rest of your hosts.

> > Try setting the amount of disk space available to something very low.
> That
> > actually works quite well.
> >
>
> That would work perfectly if you had only one host running Boinc. Not the
> case if you have a whole bunch of them, and don't want the General Preferences
> to affect the workunit caches of the rest of your hosts.
>
>
Exit the client and manually edit the global_prefs.xml file. As long as you do not change the timestamp or set newer preferences on a web page the change will effect that client only.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

I would rather not insist that users edit raw XML. I have entered this as a feature request.

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BOINC WIKI

> I would rather not insist that users edit raw XML. I have entered this as a
> feature request.
>

This feature is already in the BOINC core client (4.24, maybe earlier). I can not figure out how to access it thru BoincManager GUI, but it is accessable thru the 3rd party addon GUI 'BoincView'. I've tested it, and it works. The project/host you activate it on will run dry...

Test it with BOINC v4.24 and BOINCView v1.0rc6

It is 3rd from the right, in the row of buttons on the toolbar at the top.