. . . Aug 10, 2008

The upload server has been down since yesterday. We are aware of and are working on the problem

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Or, instead of going into panic mode and doing all that, you can just give it time. Even without an update, which I agree would be most helpful, there is no need to panic because of a few workunits that can't upload or download for a couple days.
I think people tend to panic too much and turn to micromanaging BOINC when there is a perceived problem. There are some computers on my account which belong to family members who have no idea when there are server problems or not. They simply go about their day, using their computer as usual, never even knowing if anything is wrong. They do not panic, they do not start pressing buttons and they don't check in on the website if there appears to be a problem. And BOINC always recovers on its own.

If I see 10 or more workunits that won't upload for two days, and no news about server downtime, I assume it's an error on my side.
If it is on MY side, it won't just magically go away in few days, so I do a lot of micromanaging. I just lost 2 hours checking my connections, settings, restarting, upgrading BOINC to the new version, restarting few more times and just went crazy because servers should be up and I cannot upload. All because seti@home team was too lazy to post one sentence in the News saying "servers down".
I can see the latest News entry now, but as any journalist will tell you: news about something that happened yesterday is not really news.

But that's just it. You assume. But you assume incorrectly. Do you assume incorrectly because of lack of news on the front page? Or is it hard to believe the messages which state that the servers may be down and it will try again?

Further, anytime there is a major server problem, the forums fill up with dozens of posts complaining about the issue. One look in the forums will tell you that others are having issues too, thus making a proper diagnosis that the servers are down (or are having problems). See? No assumptions needed. Just a little sleuthing goes a long way.

But if you didn't micromanage in the first place, you wouldn't even notice the servers being down and they'd eventually fix themselves without you ever even having to press buttons or make assumptions.

Its not about laziness on the part of the SETI team like you want to make it out to be, but about them living their lives when they're out of the lab. Its OK for them to do this.

A moment-to-moment online service such as SETI will lose members if the members are not informed. It is likely more members/visitors will see the "News" column on the setiathome.berkeley.edu home page than expecting visitors to dig into the message boards.

... but that's just it.

SETI isn't a "moment-to-moment" online service.

If they're up long enough from time to time to fill up caches, work continues. I've got 60 hours before my main cruncher runs out.

If you prefer to think of this as moment-to-moment, remember that the BOINC software on your computer(s) is part of the BOINC system.

... if you aren't tolerant of outages, make sure you run a large enough cache, and don't worry about the uploads. They'll happen eventually.

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A moment-to-moment online service such as SETI will lose members if the members are not informed. It is likely more members/visitors will see the "News" column on the setiathome.berkeley.edu home page than expecting visitors to dig into the message boards.

I think SETI can enhance its excellent and generous reputation by performing much more frequent (and small) updates of the "News" column on the home page. This should take less staff time than posting multiple messages to the boards.

There is no need to feel embarrassment about a service outage - this is bleeding-edge stuff and no pain is no gain. We all know SETI is on the edge and is driven by passion as much as anything else.

Remember that when our crunching computers choke, we jump into action at our homes and offices and reload BOINC, reset our computers, do numerous Project Update commands, fiddle with our settings, Google for "SETI no new tasks" and read about an issue 5 years ago, etc. In other words, if I could have found out that my idle computers were not a result of some mistake on my part, I would be very sympathetic to all the fine scientists trying to keep SETI together with that magic bailing wire and duct tape.

Keep up the good work! But please save us users from the angst that comes with not knowing.

1.) A note that the servers are down has been on the front page for a while now.

2.) I have not run out or SETI work units yet, although a few are waiting to upload.

3.) My machine is happily crunching work units from other projects.

4.) I rarely jump into action and do all that other stuff you mention except when the boinc client crashes, and then I normally just restart it.

Do not hurry when you are lost. First figure out what is wrong. If your machine is up and running other projects, normally no action is called for.

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The info we seek was there all along . . .

Doh! I finally sacrificed a full 30-seconds touring the SETI home screen. Under 'ABOUT' there is the 'Technical News" option. There it is! It has all the info we were asking about. Updated often.

I just increased my "Download Enough Work For" setting from 5 to 10 days (Max allowed), so that should this happen again my puters will have a bunch of files to crunch until the connection with the mothership is reestablished and they can "Phone Home" again. Perhaps that will help some folks...

The info we seek was there all along . . .

Doh! I finally sacrificed a full 30-seconds touring the SETI home screen. Under 'ABOUT' there is the 'Technical News" option. There it is! It has all the info we were asking about. Updated often.

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My XP Machine is working ok now, though the new WU are coming in quite slowly.

Vista machine however is requesting x seconds, but getting no new tasks.

It was new up yesterday, so I'm wondering if I'm having some Vista issue.

I have a ton of Rosetta WU on it tho, so it is working some fashion.

My XP Machine is working ok now, though the new WU are coming in quite slowly.

Vista machine however is requesting x seconds, but getting no new tasks.

It was new up yesterday, so I'm wondering if I'm having some Vista issue.

I have a ton of Rosetta WU on it tho, so it is working some fashion.

I have 3 Vista machines and 3 XP, so far only one of each has got WU's, 2 for the XP and one for the Vista. So I would just wait, it's gonna take a while.

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