No stats on Boinc Synergy, good leap yesterday however today credit is 0

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Towards the end of the afternoon yesterday we put in a new scheduler to fix a bug with "anonymous platforms" and the way they handle Astropulse workunits. This is working fine as far as I know, but at first there were some brief issues with uploads in general (human error when installing new scheduler).

Today got our new NAS machine into the closet. We're close to removing the old NetApp filer, which still works great after so many years, but the drives are too small and we can't afford support on this system, and buying new replacement drives is prohibilitively expensive. Plus the thing is just physically huge - a whole rack taking up a third of our closet for only 3 TB raw space. We're replacing it with a 3U system that will ultimately have about 7 TB raw space. Getting that into the closet meant I was able to fire up another server-to-be today in our prep lab and get that configured.

Traffic-wise we're still trying to get a feel for our demand and our bottlenecks. Eric wrote a script that is busy deleting antique workunits/results that exist on disk but not in the database (not sure why the antique deleter built into BOINC isn't working...). This will clear up additional much needed room but this is pretty much all we can do short of getting a whole new workunit storage server.

Looks like web code was updated just now, breaking a thing or two. I think Dave's addressing that stuff. I've been mostly catching up on several behind-the-scenes programming projects today.

- Matt

This was posted on the 7th, it is now the 20th. I know Matt is on vacation, and I would not begurdgd him time off for the world. But, isn't there any one else at SAH that could post a short update while is is off? There have been problem up the yeng yang and no info as to what is going on except for a few short notes on the start page. Its no fun being in the dark!!!!

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Towards the end of the afternoon yesterday we put in a new scheduler to fix a bug with "anonymous platforms" and the way they handle Astropulse workunits. This is working fine as far as I know, but at first there were some brief issues with uploads in general (human error when installing new scheduler).

Today got our new NAS machine into the closet. We're close to removing the old NetApp filer, which still works great after so many years, but the drives are too small and we can't afford support on this system, and buying new replacement drives is prohibilitively expensive. Plus the thing is just physically huge - a whole rack taking up a third of our closet for only 3 TB raw space. We're replacing it with a 3U system that will ultimately have about 7 TB raw space. Getting that into the closet meant I was able to fire up another server-to-be today in our prep lab and get that configured.

Traffic-wise we're still trying to get a feel for our demand and our bottlenecks. Eric wrote a script that is busy deleting antique workunits/results that exist on disk but not in the database (not sure why the antique deleter built into BOINC isn't working...). This will clear up additional much needed room but this is pretty much all we can do short of getting a whole new workunit storage server.

Looks like web code was updated just now, breaking a thing or two. I think Dave's addressing that stuff. I've been mostly catching up on several behind-the-scenes programming projects today.

- Matt

This was posted on the 7th, it is now the 20th. I know Matt is on vacation, and I would not begurdgd him time off for the world. But, isn't there any one else at SAH that could post a short update while is is off? There have been problem up the yeng yang and no info as to what is going on except for a few short notes on the start page. Its no fun being in the dark!!!!

I ain't at Berkeley but... There was a rough patch about a week ago... folks worked late and gave up their weekend to make things right. Everything is running better than expected... WUs are being sent out... Results are being received... Everyone is sleeping better at night as a result. Oh yeah... I haven't received an AP WU since 6 Aug... So I figure that the fix worked.

BOINC On...On...
JDWhale

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two things... first, when they started up ap they had at least 3 splitters going. during the mess, they turned 2 off and then settled on running just 2 splitters, which is the case today. so throttling the ap wu creation may have helped to stablize things.

they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well. personally, there are problems with ap and the credit granting that are being hotly discussed. so I don't want to waste any computer time until those issues settle down a bit. maybe in a month or two I will enable receiving ap's. there are plenty of other guinea pigs I suspect.

not everything is right yet with ap because I still have at least two ghost wu's assigned to me eventhough they don't exist on my clients. that should cure itself in september, or earlier if the staff decide to fix up the backend, I suppose.

they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well.

And where exactly is that option?

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they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well.

And where exactly is that option?

Your account SETI@home preferences. Don't forget to update the project in Boinc manager.

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Boinc V7.2.42
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB, GTX470

they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well.

And where exactly is that option?

It's the project-specific preferences, SETI@home preferences, the same place you'll set resource-share, default computer-location, show/hide computers, send/don't send email...

It's possible to configure upto 4 different Venues, in case you'll want to have different applications on various computers.

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"I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might."

two things... first, when they started up ap they had at least 3 splitters going. during the mess, they turned 2 off and then settled on running just 2 splitters, which is the case today. so throttling the ap wu creation may have helped to stablize things.

they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well. personally, there are problems with ap and the credit granting that are being hotly discussed. so I don't want to waste any computer time until those issues settle down a bit. maybe in a month or two I will enable receiving ap's. there are plenty of other guinea pigs I suspect.

not everything is right yet with ap because I still have at least two ghost wu's assigned to me eventhough they don't exist on my clients. that should cure itself in september, or earlier if the staff decide to fix up the backend, I suppose.

We had exactly the same situation back in December when a whole string of "shorties" came through.

You may remember this thread?

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two things... first, when they started up ap they had at least 3 splitters going. during the mess, they turned 2 off and then settled on running just 2 splitters, which is the case today. so throttling the ap wu creation may have helped to stablize things.

they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well. personally, there are problems with ap and the credit granting that are being hotly discussed. so I don't want to waste any computer time until those issues settle down a bit. maybe in a month or two I will enable receiving ap's. there are plenty of other guinea pigs I suspect.

not everything is right yet with ap because I still have at least two ghost wu's assigned to me eventhough they don't exist on my clients. that should cure itself in september, or earlier if the staff decide to fix up the backend, I suppose.

We had exactly the same situation back in December when a whole string of "shorties" came through.

You may remember this thread?

Perhaps they need a quantitative model of how the system should work so that warning flags can be raised and adjustments made before the s..t hits the fan. I guess it's easier not to be proactive, given the nature of the project.

two things... first, when they started up ap they had at least 3 splitters going. during the mess, they turned 2 off and then settled on running just 2 splitters, which is the case today. so throttling the ap wu creation may have helped to stablize things.

they also created an option to not accept any ap wu's. I selected that option and suspect others may have as well. personally, there are problems with ap and the credit granting that are being hotly discussed. so I don't want to waste any computer time until those issues settle down a bit. maybe in a month or two I will enable receiving ap's. there are plenty of other guinea pigs I suspect.

not everything is right yet with ap because I still have at least two ghost wu's assigned to me eventhough they don't exist on my clients. that should cure itself in september, or earlier if the staff decide to fix up the backend, I suppose.

We had exactly the same situation back in December when a whole string of "shorties" came through.

You may remember this thread?

Perhaps they need a quantitative model of how the system should work so that warning flags can be raised and adjustments made before the s..t hits the fan. I guess it's easier not to be proactive, given the nature of the project.

There may be times where that could help.

The solution that has worked reasonably well in the past is to always split tapes randomly. If the work comes in while different studies are controlling the telescope, they'll have a diverse set of angle ranges.

What happens through when all you have is short work -- when everything comes from the same angle range (same telescope motion)?

Seems to me that the only choice is to put a cap on the maximum number of split work units per day (or per hour) and then deal with all the complaints about the project running out of work (and falling RAC).

... or, you can add another study with big run-times and no "shorties" to counterbalance Multibeam when all the Multibeam work is ugly.

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Seems like there might be problems again. I have been getting this message for the past few hours now.

8/21/2008 6:30:58 PM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user. Requesting 0 seconds of work, reporting 10 completed tasks
8/21/2008 6:31:01 PM||Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
8/21/2008 6:31:02 PM||Access to reference site succeeded - project servers may be temporarily down.
8/21/2008 6:31:03 PM|SETI@home|Scheduler request failed: Server returned nothing (no headers, no data)
8/21/2008 6:32:04 PM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user. Requesting 0 seconds of work, reporting 10 completed tasks
8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Scheduler request succeeded: got 0 new tasks
8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Message from server: Server error: can't attach shared memory

Have tried exiting the software but it always come up with the same messages.

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Seems like there might be problems again. I have been getting this message for the past few hours now.

8/21/2008 6:30:58 PM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user. Requesting 0 seconds of work, reporting 10 completed tasks
8/21/2008 6:31:01 PM||Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
8/21/2008 6:31:02 PM||Access to reference site succeeded - project servers may be temporarily down.
8/21/2008 6:31:03 PM|SETI@home|Scheduler request failed: Server returned nothing (no headers, no data)
8/21/2008 6:32:04 PM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user. Requesting 0 seconds of work, reporting 10 completed tasks
8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Scheduler request succeeded: got 0 new tasks
8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Message from server: Server error: can't attach shared memory

Have tried exiting the software but it always come up with the same messages.

See the text in bold above. It is a server error. Someone will kick it shortly, I'm sure.

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Seems like there might be problems again. I have been getting this message for the past few hours now.

8/21/2008 6:30:58 PM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user. Requesting 0 seconds of work, reporting 10 completed tasks
8/21/2008 6:31:01 PM||Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
8/21/2008 6:31:02 PM||Access to reference site succeeded - project servers may be temporarily down.
8/21/2008 6:31:03 PM|SETI@home|Scheduler request failed: Server returned nothing (no headers, no data)
8/21/2008 6:32:04 PM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user. Requesting 0 seconds of work, reporting 10 completed tasks
8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Scheduler request succeeded: got 0 new tasks
8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Message from server: Server error: can't attach shared memory

Have tried exiting the software but it always come up with the same messages.

See the text in bold above. It is a server error. Someone will kick it shortly, I'm sure.

Have a look at the Server Status Page. Somebody is kicking it as we speak.

8/21/2008 6:32:09 PM|SETI@home|Message from server: Server error: can't attach shared memory

Have tried exiting the software but it always come up with the same messages.

See the text in bold above. It is a server error. Someone will kick it shortly, I'm sure.

Have a look at the Server Status Page. Somebody is kicking it as we speak.

To me, a random server error isn't a call-to-action. I just assume that if it needs kicking, they'll kick it sooner or later.

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FYI unless some other staff member picks it up, there won't be any Tech News for awhile. Matt is on vacation.

Out of 170 messages, it was Blurf who first gave us the above news on 12th August.
All will be revealed when Matt gets back. Until then, we will have to be patient!

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I did notice that someone was kicking the server just shortly after I posted the message.
Hope Matt is not on vacation in Florida and actually having some well earned rest and recuperation.
Not too worried about the servers being down again as I ample work to keep me going for ages. Will be fixed when it is fixed.

Thanks for pointing it out that someone was looking at it though.
8PM EST, Cold Bud in fridge, time to consume one or two and then play some Wii :-)

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First, I'm sorry for showing my newbie ignorance. Please be kind.

Have read about the issues Seti is having with their servers, and being new I don't know if or how these are effecting my crunching / credits.

Have several Windows quad-cores crunching Seti only. Downloads, crunching and uploads seem to be working as usual. And the "Total User Credits" seems to be going as usual. I just broke the 1,000,000 mark. :-)

But the stats show that ALL the "Host Averages" on all machines taking a serious dive.

Anyone know why? And if/when back to normal...?

Thanks, Jack

First, I'm sorry for showing my newbie ignorance. Please be kind.

Have read about the issues Seti is having with their servers, and being new I don't know if or how these are effecting my crunching / credits.

Have several Windows quad-cores crunching Seti only. Downloads, crunching and uploads seem to be working as usual. And the "Total User Credits" seems to be going as usual. I just broke the 1,000,000 mark. :-)

But the stats show that ALL the "Host Averages" on all machines taking a serious dive.

Anyone know why? And if/when back to normal...?

Thanks, Jack

Welcome to the message boards.

A couple possibilities for Host Averages(RAC) dropping...

1) Recent drop of credit per WU being enacted by the project.
2) Introduction of Astropulse WUs that are currently underclaiming credit.

If you make your hosts visible, the forum experts might be able to offer some additional help or suggestions.

Lots of good reading over in the Number Crunching forum.

Kind Regards,
JDWhale

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First, I'm sorry for showing my newbie ignorance. Please be kind.

Have read about the issues Seti is having with their servers, and being new I don't know if or how these are effecting my crunching / credits.

Have several Windows quad-cores crunching Seti only. Downloads, crunching and uploads seem to be working as usual. And the "Total User Credits" seems to be going as usual. I just broke the 1,000,000 mark. :-)

But the stats show that ALL the "Host Averages" on all machines taking a serious dive.

Anyone know why? And if/when back to normal...?

Thanks, Jack

Welcome to the message boards.

A couple possibilities for Host Averages(RAC) dropping...

1) Recent drop of credit per WU being enacted by the project.
2) Introduction of Astropulse WUs that are currently underclaiming credit.

If you make your hosts visible, the forum experts might be able to offer some additional help or suggestions.

Lots of good reading over in the Number Crunching forum.

Kind Regards,
JDWhale

OK... as long as folks are aware. I'll just hang in there.

Seems strange though. If the project wants to move toward Astropulse, why not promote the move with higher credits... not less credit. Hummm. Strange.

Oh well. thanks for the answer. Jack

First, I'm sorry for showing my newbie ignorance. Please be kind.

Have read about the issues Seti is having with their servers, and being new I don't know if or how these are effecting my crunching / credits.

Have several Windows quad-cores crunching Seti only. Downloads, crunching and uploads seem to be working as usual. And the "Total User Credits" seems to be going as usual. I just broke the 1,000,000 mark. :-)

But the stats show that ALL the "Host Averages" on all machines taking a serious dive.

Anyone know why? And if/when back to normal...?

Thanks, Jack

Welcome to the message boards.

A couple possibilities for Host Averages(RAC) dropping...

1) Recent drop of credit per WU being enacted by the project.
2) Introduction of Astropulse WUs that are currently underclaiming credit.

If you make your hosts visible, the forum experts might be able to offer some additional help or suggestions.

Lots of good reading over in the Number Crunching forum.

Kind Regards,
JDWhale

OK... as long as folks are aware. I'll just hang in there.

Seems strange though. If the project wants to move toward Astropulse, why not promote the move with higher credits... not less credit. Hummm. Strange.

Oh well. thanks for the answer. Jack

Offering more credits would only cause problems with other BOINC projects that are not offering as much, and would encourage them to higher the amount of credits that they offer to attract any number of lost users. If every project did this, there would be a credit inflation problem which would devalue each contribution.