This wu is one reason why people are leaving or have left SETI@home. I thought we were just having to worry about 4.45 clients, but to still see a 4.19 client out there it's pretty disheartening to think that the project doesn't care about giving credit where credit is due....

Live long and BOINC!

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

Agreed, but are these crunchers common?

A new script to only take results from the newer S@H clients would improve this.

At least you will be able to use the SSE3 version ot the Alex code port and gain some compensation in 3-4 days.

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

This wu is one reason why people are leaving or have left SETI@home. I thought we were just having to worry about 4.45 clients, but to still see a 4.19 client out there it's pretty disheartening to think that the project doesn't care about giving credit where credit is due....

Live long and BOINC!

I still (occasionally) trip over a 3.x client that gives zero credit for a perfectly valid WU! If people can't accept that it goes with the territory then that's their loss.

F.

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Fred we accept it is a risk, but people running clients that old clearly have no interest in the project. This has been discussed so many times.

It is about time a cut off point is made with the old clients. When 6.x.x is actually made live them anything older the 5.2 should be defunct.

hiamps just posted the e-mail that he gets every year at this time asking for more users, we get messages from various sources saying that Seti needs more crunchers to cope with the amount of data it has. I'm sorry but it is about time something is done. On an average day I reckon I lose anything from 100 to 250 credits due to old versions of Boinc. Granted for my machine it's not a big lose, but if your running an older less efficient CPU that could be a large percentage of your RAC.

A lot of people will wonder what the point is letting their computers technically waste energy and CPU cycles when they do not get the full recognition for that.

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Fred we accept it is a risk, but people running clients that old clearly have no interest in the project. This has been discussed so many times.

It is about time a cut off point is made with the old clients. When 6.x.x is actually made live them anything older the 5.2 should be defunct.

hiamps just posted the e-mail that he gets every year at this time asking for more users, we get messages from various sources saying that Seti needs more crunchers to cope with the amount of data it has. I'm sorry but it is about time something is done. On an average day I reckon I lose anything from 100 to 250 credits due to old versions of Boinc. Granted for my machine it's not a big lose, but if your running an older less efficient CPU that could be a large percentage of your RAC.

A lot of people will wonder what the point is letting their computers technically waste energy and CPU cycles when they do not get the full recognition for that.

@Satan
Agreed, this has been discussed many, too many, times. And I don't want to open up the whole can of worms again but this point I must make:

I'm afraid I don't agree with your figures. Just because you may be losing 100 - 250 credits per day doesn't mean that an older less efficient machine will be losing the same number per day - rather they will be losing 100 - 250 credits in however long it takes them to rack up 10,537 credits (i.e. your RAC as I write). So we are all losing 1 - 2% of the credits due to us; that's less than the difference between the flavours of Optimised App.

And they are still returning valid science. And until they are not returning valid science I suspect there will be little incentive on the project to debar them so this is one recumbent horse that is unlikely to respond to any amount of flogging.

F.

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This wu is one reason why people are leaving or have left SETI@home. I thought we were just having to worry about 4.45 clients, but to still see a 4.19 client out there it's pretty disheartening to think that the project doesn't care about giving credit where credit is due....

Live long and BOINC!

I think these machines are basically on autopilot. Maybe a college student that set up BOINC on Mom's computer, maybe a former employee running BOINC (without authorization) on a machine at work, or maybe a "SETI Bumblebee" that went from flower to flower pollenizing as he went (installing BOINC on every computer he walked past).

But it doesn't bother me as long as valid science is being returned, and this is part of the risk of crunching just like bad calls by the referee is a part of the scoring in most sports.

The odds of hitting one of these ancient clients is pretty small. Not zero, but small.

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Is there really sufficient data to prove that people are leaving over this? Or is this mostly conjecture in an effort to force SETI into action by making unverified claims?

I would say that most crunchers don't even look at their credits that closely to even care. I would also say that it's unfair to claim that people who don't upgrade their BOINC clients somehow don't care about the project when, as far as they know, everything is running fine. Not everyone is interested in checking in every minute of every day for updates and info on server issues.

BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier don't give you correct credit..
Since when BOINC V5.2.6 is available.. since days? ;-)

So I think it's time to ban BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier! :-)

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BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier don't give you correct credit..
Since when BOINC V5.2.6 is available.. since days? ;-)

So I think it's time to ban BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier! :-)

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SEND A MESSAGE,oh capsl, through such an old client, that it is OUTDATED AND NEEDS TO BE UPDATED ?
Or send an e-mail if the adress is known.

Must be SOMEONE, totaly forgotten, where and on what computers he installed BOINC, in 2001 ;), or earlyer.

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IS IT POSSIBLE TO SEND A MESSAGE,oh capsl, through such an old client, that it is OUTDATED AND NEEDS TO BE UPDATED ?

BOINC already sends a message found in the Messages tab if you're using an older version. Unfortunately, with all the messages found there, its easy to get lost amongst all the other data.

BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier don't give you correct credit..
Since when BOINC V5.2.6 is available.. since days? ;-)

So I think it's time to ban BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier! :-)

There are platforms (not Windows or Linux) that do not have 5.x clients available.

Newer BOINC clients do not support Windows 9x or NT. I expect something similar on the Mac side of things.

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Or send an e-mail if the adress is known.

Assuming that they haven't abandoned or lost the E-Mail address on file.

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Here's some personal experience on this matter.
Over the past 7 months or so I have processed about 1200 units (1 machine part-time) and encountered a grand total of 9 units where my opposite number has been using Boinc 4.xx leading to a reduction in my granted score.
So less than 1 per cent of my units have received (on average) about half the credits they would have received on current versions of Boinc. A reduction in my credit total of less than 0.5 per cent over that period. Individually frustrating, but when you put it in context . . .
In that period of time, I have also received no less than 60 units which have failed due to noisy traces giving result overflow. These also often give poor "credit per hour" scores.
It has been my practise for the past year, where the user has provided the information, to email the Boinc 4 users that I have encountered gently pointing out how much better the current version of Boinc is (improved presentation, better error handling etc), how easy it is to upgrade, and (finally) how their scores would be doubled. Since I don't keep a record of those people I don't know how successful my campaign has been although I did receive a message from one to say he would be upgrading all his computers as a result of my email - thank you Ed!
Peter

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It looks like your computer claimed only 41 credits and that there's a possibility that you're running hot just like one of mine. I downloaded PC Wizard SpeedFan to get my cpu temperatures. One is at 83C and is probably throttling back (but not always) to save itself.

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For me personally the reason for the odd WU giving poor credit was absolutely no contribution to why I have recently decided to seriously ramp down my contribution to Seti and BOINC.

It was because I find increasingly difficult to justify running 3-4 computers 24hrs/day when a) there is no feedback to what my contribution has delivered and b) energy costs are just too high to justify a contribution over and above normal computer usage.

So now the computers are on when they need to be used and off when they don't. And I have swapped a lot of the remaining resource to Rosetta where I have a feeling that the results are used and valued

There was a short period of withdrawal symptoms when my RAC dropped but now I don't care and will certainly be financially better off with immediate effect.

It was because I find increasingly difficult to justify running 3-4 computers 24hrs/day when a) there is no feedback to what my contribution has delivered and

This statement always fascinates me, because it seems fairly obvious.

It seems to me that in the search for ET there really can only be two possible results:

a) we're still looking

- or -

b) we found 'em.

As much as we'd all like an intermediate result, I don't see a way to deliver one, or is there something I'm missing?

For a number of reasons, all SETI really asks is that we run BOINC on computers we already have, when we turn them on to use them. I don't run any machine that isn't otherwise engaged.

-- Ned

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BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier don't give you correct credit..
Since when BOINC V5.2.6 is available.. since days? ;-)

So I think it's time to ban BOINC V5.2.5 and earlier! :-)

There are platforms (not Windows or Linux) that do not have 5.x clients available.

Newer BOINC clients do not support Windows 9x or NT. I expect something similar on the Mac side of things.

Ohhh nooo.. :-(

So we will have BOINC V4.x clients so long as SETI@home is living, or?


BTW.
Every day min. ~ 60 less Credits.. ;-)

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My take...
I like being part of this SETI program thing..
Do i understand it all? Not even close. I'm a machinist by trade.
Do I care? very much. I SO DO HOPE there is some thing found before 'my time is up'
And about RACs? Well.. the more people can do the better. I check mine every day as if this was some sort of contest to see who can get 'there' first but in the end, I really don't care who does the most, the least or falls in the middle. All I want, is to see SOMETHING done with all the validized work units.

One thing 'I think' seti needs desperatly is some kind of charting of the sky showing where the 'hot spots' are coming from.. what angles, azimuth and such. I have seen this lots of times in the forums. "where's the science". I feel like the numbers returned from my computers are basically being stored away in a database for.. what? Future analisist?
I may sound a little down but Im not.. I just think there would be many more that would join and stay if there was some graphical reporting on the data gathered.
Over all, the seti pages are a bit boring to me. there are not many COLORS.. mostly all black text on white back grounds. Don't get me wrong here.. I would hate this place looking like iwon's site or pogo's but some more 'life' would make it a bit more upbeat and appeal to more.
Those are MY thoughts and I know some are very happy with things the way they are but when I shop for a new car.. there better d*** well be some style.

I was doing crunching back in 2001 and left. Why you may ask? Because I didn't know if anything was being done with the work I did.. not enough info.. no charts showing anything useful to a total novic like me. I know better now but I still think the place needs INFO that people can look at so its more interesting than having just the forums.
If I had access to the data, I'd do something on my own just out of curiosity as to where these 'hot spots' are... but I don't and I won't ever have access.

For those of you thinking this is a waste of watts, think of the explores of our planet that lost their lives just for the sake of defining what Earth is about. All you have to do, is crunch work units and by just doing that, you are participating in what will surely be remembered as something remarkable after we (as in, the people of SETI) do find an alien signal.

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Not Ready Reading BRAIN. Abort/Retry/Fail?

Newer BOINC clients do not support Windows 9x or NT. I expect something similar on the Mac side of things.

Windows 98 is still supported, even by 6.x. Windows 95 and NT4 support was dropped a while ago.

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Contribute to the Wiki!

Newer BOINC clients do not support Windows 9x or NT. I expect something similar on the Mac side of things.

Windows 98 is still supported, even by 6.x. Windows 95 and NT4 support was dropped a while ago.

I have two machines crunching. Neither of them will run the current 6.0 alpha version.

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