I've noticed on a couple of my computers that they often complete work units, pending credit is shown as 13-16, but granted credit is shown as zero. Any clues as to why that might be? Between the delays in granting "credit" and the obscure "brownie point" nature of the scoring system, I'm really missing the more stratightforward, responsive and comprehensible system used in seti@home classic.

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I've noticed on a couple of my computers that they often complete work units, pending credit is shown as 13-16, but granted credit is shown as zero. Any clues as to why that might be? Between the delays in granting "credit" and the obscure "brownie point" nature of the scoring system, I'm really missing the more stratightforward, responsive and comprehensible system used in seti@home classic.

This result did not validate. That would be why you were not granted credit. As to why it didn't validate, I can only speculate that there was a slight-but-big-enough difference in how your optimized client crunched the unit and how the others crunching the same unit did.

Your unit got a -9 "overflow" result, but the others crunching the unit did not.

(edit: corrected a factual error)

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

I've noticed on a couple of my computers that they often complete work units, pending credit is shown as 13-16, but granted credit is shown as zero. Any clues as to why that might be? Between the delays in granting "credit" and the obscure "brownie point" nature of the scoring system, I'm really missing the more stratightforward, responsive and comprehensible system used in seti@home classic.

If you looks on computer-1395760 you'll find many of the zero-results.

Taking a closer look on wuid-28641514 and looking on your result for this, it's marked as "invalid". Further it shows you're using an optimized application, and you've managed to generate a -9 result_overflow. The 2 other crunching the same result have not generated a -9 result_overflow, and have used a couple hours in comparison to your 68 seconds on this wu.

For some of the other failed results this computer is again generating -9 result_overflow while the others crunches normal. You even have a client-error on one of them, further showing this computer has a problem. This can be due to too much overclocking, inadequate cooling, using the wrong optimized application, failing memory, cpu, mainboard, psu not delivering enough power, or a software-problem.

Since for a scientific project a computer not crunching correctly isn't usable, but also to guard against users trying to cheat by returning random garbage, under BOINC only results passing validation get any credits. This gives an incentive for users to fix computers having a problem, and discourages users to try cheating.

Also to qualify why it says "Success" this just means a result was crunched and successfully returned. It does not mean the result is valid.

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I've noticed on a couple of my computers that they often complete work units, pending credit is shown as 13-16, but granted credit is shown as zero. Any clues as to why that might be? Between the delays in granting "credit" and the obscure "brownie point" nature of the scoring system, I'm really missing the more stratightforward, responsive and comprehensible system used in seti@home classic.

Hi

It would be easyer when you show us what Host has thouse results.
So we can look at it.

greetz Mike

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I'm really missing the more stratightforward, responsive and comprehensible system used in seti@home classic.

There is a pretty extensive FAQ on the credit issue and why the changes in the Wiki ...

The old straightforward system was simplistic in that it mattered not if you did valid work or not. Thus, some participants voided the point of the system by returning results that were not results at all, but junk.

Behind the scenes, the system also has problems that to this day are still haunting the project team.

From all this, and participant complaints, UCB started with a clean sheet of paper and then BOINC was born. Depressing to some, but, the UCB team *DID* listen and many of the features in BOINC came from those complaints. The two that to my mind are foremost are Work Buffering and "Cheat-Prevention". If you look at my stats you have no doubt in your mind that they were fairly earned for valid science done. If my computer return 10,000 invalid results, well, my tough luck. If I return all valid results, well, I get the Cobblestones.

The point of the Cobblestones is that BOINC is also project agnostic. I am not participating in 7 different projects and work done for each project is accumulated against the project totals, AND against all projects. So, with my signature you can see, if I publish it like I do, at a glance the size and value of my contributions.

The project agnostic is another place where they listened. I wanted to do CPDN and SETI@Home, but, the old applications were all "selfish" and demanded full commitment on each computer. So, I was left with a choice, one project per one computer or no project at all. Now, I can run many projects on each of my computes as *I* see fit ... adding and removing as *I* see fit ...

So, that is a few of the reasons for what you see... A CPDN work unit takes months to finish, a CharMM (sp?) work unit takes 15 minutes ... no way to indicate, easily, how much contribution I have made with work unit counts ...

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Thanks, everyone for all the informative replies. I should have done my homework better before starting the thread. I'm going to try a different client or two on the system that's returning the invalid results, see if that helps. I'd blame it on being an Intel CPU (LOL), but then there is one other system with a P4 doing fine with the same client.

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I also have had a few 0 credit Work Units where as I have never had them before... Yes I am running optimized clients and yes the errors were "-9 result_overflow", but just funny that these all happened kind of right around each other.

The only other time I had 0 Credit WU's is when I overclocked my PC too far and the CPU/Memory were throwing out errors.

Not complaining just wanted to point out that I have had a few 0 WU's in the last few weeks too!

Chad

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I also have had a few 0 credit Work Units where as I have never had them before... Yes I am running optimized clients and yes the errors were "-9 result_overflow", but just funny that these all happened kind of right around each other.

As i mentioned in a thread some time ago, the same happens to me. Seldom, if ever, do I get a low credit -9 by itself. There's always at least one, and sometimes as many as three, other -9's that show up within a day or so. I think they travel in packs.

As i mentioned in a thread some time ago, the same happens to me. Seldom, if ever, do I get a low credit -9 by itself. There's always at least one, and sometimes as many as three, other -9's that show up within a day or so. I think they travel in packs.

They do.

That is why Matt tries to keep a mix of days being split. If there is a "noisy" patch, well, hopefully it gets spread around little so that it does not "bend" the system too much.

And I can see that I have 2 of them ready to be reported my ownself ...

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I sure seemed to see a slug of them at once there. Thought this bit from the wiki error message explanations regarding the -9 error was interesting:

This message means that more data was generated than there was storage space assigned to recieve the data. The most common cause for this message is RFI or Radio Frequency Interference.

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Thought this bit from the wiki

Point of interest
Karl & Laurie, did you know Paul D Buck (the previous poster) created and maintains the Wiki?