After experimenting with various settings for the past 4 days, all I can conclude is the SETI BOINC server isn't computing the preference settings correctly and as a result, not sending work units for my machine to process.

My machine, a Mac running 10.3.4, has a 74.5GB drive with 26.1GB available. I've set the disk space limits to many different settings with the SETI server consistently telling me there are work units available, but I don't have enough space to process the WU.

My current settings, which are set to where just about any work units should fit, are: work for .1-.3 days, no more than 10GB, leave 2GB and use no more than 8% of available space.

Is it possible that the SETI client is providing the wrong capacity to the server to compute the available space? In my case, 8% of 74.5GB equals 5.96GB, well under the 10GB limit I've set for the use no more space.

It sure would be nice if the seti client were written to provide some useful information for configuring/debugging these situations. Using the SETI BOINC client is like flying blind.

Any help appreciated.

Here is the SETI client information I get from the situation described in the above post:

2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] General preferences have been updated
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] Message from server: No work available (there was work but you don't have enough disk space allocated)
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] Message from server: No work available (there was work but you don't have enough disk space allocated)
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [---] General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 2004-07-12 07:32:28)
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [---] General prefs: using separate prefs for home
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] Project prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] No work from project
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] No work from project
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] Deferring communication with project for 1 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds
2004-07-12 09:20:58 [SETI@home] Deferring communication with project for 1 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds

I do not have any experience at all with Mac, but do you have your HD in different partitions?

Greetings from Belgium.

No, it is just one partition on my machine.

Moc OS X is pretty much BSD Unix. I just wonder if one of the Apple modifications to BSD Unix might be how OS X replies with the amount of available space or maximum space. Something definitely keeps BOINC from thinking the machine has sufficient space to process work units.

> I do not have any experience at all with Mac, but do you have your HD in
> different partitions?
>
> Greetings from Belgium.
>
>

Try this thread and this thead:

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=1158
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=1114

I've tried everything, but to no avail. I think it's stupid to have that % of total HD space used, expecially after you've already told BOINC how much space to use. "Ok, let's get out the calculator here on percentages..." I wish I could just tell BOINC, "Just download one *enter bad word here* wu like the old SETI@home" and have it at that.

*sigh & sorry again*
Eric

P.S: Why can the old SETI figure out that there's enough disk space but the new BOINC can't do it right??? Yeah, I know, it's in the numbers.....

You set it to use only 10g of space and leave 2g of that 10g free and then you tell it to use only 8% of the 8g left. Do not think that is any where near enough space, if I understand boinc setup that gives you 64000k appox.

8% of 26GB is 2.08Gb, and this should be more than enough. Some people have reported difficulties when stating numbers larger than 4GB for amount allowed to use.

BOINC with Predictor and S@H uses less than 100 MB of space.

I changed the settings to use only 4GB and use only 5% of the space. Is it 5% of the total drive space or 5% of the available drive space? Either way it should work. I waited my hour and when the client connected to the seti server I got the familiar message of not enough disk space allocated.

There definitely is a bug or incompatiblity between the SETI server and BOINC running on OS X




> 8% of 26GB is 2.08Gb, and this should be more than enough. Some people have
> reported difficulties when stating numbers larger than 4GB for amount allowed
> to use.
>
> BOINC with Predictor and S@H uses less than 100 MB of space.
> <a> href="http://www.boinc.dk/index.php?page=user_statistics&userid=9915">
>
>

I have the same problem with redhat 9. I've tried everything from 100mb to

now
Use no more than 2.5 GB
Leave at least 1 GB
Use no more than 90% of total space

I wonder if this is some sort of unix compatability issue, i'm running the latest client, wish I could download an older version to try.

I would also like to see something from the admins telling us, we are aware and are working on it. Right now I don't know if anyone is paying attention.

Bah!!! I am in it for the money.

Message from the Head ;o) of the
Horse Head Nebula Branch of Seti@Home,

Check is in the mail

J. Brent,

After weeks of experimenting and getting no where, this finally worked for me:

Keep enough work on disk to last between
0.1 and 3.0 days

On multiprocessors, use at most
1 processors

Write to disk at most every
60 seconds

Limits on disk space used by BOINC:

Use no more than
60 GB

Leave at least
.1 GB

Use no more than
80% of total space

The releases didn't make any difference in my situation.

Hope this gets you working or at least gets you close.

Paul

Make sure you include leading zeros where needed when editing your preferences (trailing zeros probably wouldn't hurt either). There have been reports that a setting over 4GB may cause an overflow but it doesn't happen consistantly.

BOINC should use whichever of the 3 settings that results in the lowest amount of usable space.

ie. With settings 10%, 2gb max, 1 gb free
a 10gb drive would allow BOINC to use 1 gb unless there is more than 9gb in use. (%=1gb max=2gb free=9gb (if drive is empty))
a 30 gb drive would allow BOINC to use 2gb unless there is more than 29gb in use. (%=3gb max=2gb free=29gb (if drive is empty))

John Keck
BOINCing since 2002/12/08

This is funny, I reset my preferences to

Use no more than 100 GB
Leave at least .2 GB
Use no more than 95% of total space

This seesm to be working now. So I'm going to guess there is some sort of issue with the use no more than pref in linux perhaps. Anyhow I downloaded my first boinc wu's today af ter trying for a week.