I have pointed out problems with S@H in the past. I do not chime in when many others are reporting a common problem, that is just a waste of forum space. If the problem has been sufficiently intolerable, which it almost never is, I temporarily stop work until the problem is addressed. There is no grand announcement that I am doing so, that helps absolutely no one.

Just my opinion and that is all it is, just my opinion. But I will assert that I am not alone in this opinion.

Jim,

I think you and msattler are basically in agreement: there is a great big stack of things that the SETI servers need to do. Exporting stats is just about last on that list.

... and the credits aren't lost, they're just not reported in a timely enough manner for our friend Martin, apparently.

If he didn't suspend work, he'd get a nice bump when they do start reporting again. If he does, his bump will be smaller.

... but when credits become so incredibly important that even the timely reporting to some 3rd party stats-site becomes reason for such angst, well, anyone who thinks they're that important should reexamine their priorities.

-- Ned

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Jim Wilkins. That is no way to respond even if You get anoyed at someone.

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/TB

No stats updates for 5 days -> I will suspend SETI@Home until they figured out how to resolve this issue (going on holidays is O.K., but not without replacement!).

Is there some kind of cash prize for having the highest BOINC RAC for the day? If someone is offering a prize, can you post the URL?

I thought the point was to do science. Maybe I'm wrong.

Calm down, all your credits are in the vault and you'll see them in .xml some time soon.

Gary

LOL......I would like that URL too.........credits to cash......woot.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

credits to cash.

Google to the rescue: CreditstoCash.

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credits to cash.

Google to the rescue: CreditstoCash.

Would be nice, though, would donate it to SETI, anyway ,)
Almost a week without work, due to some compute error's and RAM problems, 2 hosts in repair, when i got them fixed, SETI ran out off work, well this can happen, I saw my RAC dropped to 50% or less.
But since 2 day's work is coming in, wich I think, is more important, then the UPdate off my RAC, as you all stated, they're in a vault and they wont, deflate-inflate-dissapear or whatever.
Maybe once or twice a week, when I feel like it, look at the BOINC stat's.
But they're only stats!
To Crunch, or Not To Crunch, that's the question ;)
Besides, there is more to life then crunching and computers . . .

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Mark, ET AL ... correct me if I'm wrong, but... the XML file for the daily updates are generated from the backup database server, so that the stats are behind tells me that the master database and the backup are not in sync. this has happened alot lately, and it has always been resync'ed on their tuesday outage. part of the 'maintenance' is to create a backup of the master, and insert it into the backup. they may have allowed the backup to fall behind on purpose, to allow the rest of the project to 'catch up', network bandwidth being finite. maybe i'm wrong, but i dont hink im too far off... please correct me if I am!

Best to all... John

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Hello everyone. Since it seems that everyone else is putting in their two cents on these outages I guess I'll do the same. I recently returned to Seti, joned in 2000, after having got too busy with other things in my life. I've only been back for a few months but I've heard more bickering and whining in those few months than any time I can remember. This project is a scientific endeavor. It is not a contest. It is not a McDonalds or a Macy's. There is no customer service and there shouldn't be. The people that run this program and maintain the equipment work their butts off trying to scrounge equipment and money just to keep this afloat. I don't know any of the staff personally but I've gotten a sense of how much it takes to run something like this...and I'm sure I'm underestimating by at least an order of magnitude. The last thing that these hard working and dedicated people need are a bunch of whiners and cry-babies taking their focus away from the work. We aren't their customers, we're their collegues and coworkers. If people want to talk about professionalism maybe they should take a long and honest look in the mirror.

There, I've said my piece and now it's time for me to go back to my room with the soft walls and take my medicine.

Kevin

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Trust no one.

If the stats export is a big issue there is always the statistics tab of the boinc manager to view :)

Hello everyone. Since it seems that everyone else is putting in their two cents on these outages I guess I'll do the same. I recently returned to Seti, joned in 2000, after having got too busy with other things in my life. I've only been back for a few months but I've heard more bickering and whining in those few months than any time I can remember. This project is a scientific endeavor. It is not a contest. It is not a McDonalds or a Macy's. There is no customer service and there shouldn't be. The people that run this program and maintain the equipment work their butts off trying to scrounge equipment and money just to keep this afloat. I don't know any of the staff personally but I've gotten a sense of how much it takes to run something like this...and I'm sure I'm underestimating by at least an order of magnitude. The last thing that these hard working and dedicated people need are a bunch of whiners and cry-babies taking their focus away from the work. We aren't their customers, we're their collegues and coworkers. If people want to talk about professionalism maybe they should take a long and honest look in the mirror.

There, I've said my piece and now it's time for me to go back to my room with the soft walls and take my medicine.

Kevin

After thinking back on my previous post, I realized that some of you might take it in a way that wasn't meant. My rant was not directed at everyone nor was it directed at anyone in particular and if anyone took it that way I am sincerely sorry. There are a lot of good people here who actually try to inject some sanity and be the voices of reason in the middle of this craziness. The point that I was trying to make so inelegantly was that if people go out and spend a bunch of money so they can improve their RAC that is their business. If they want to spend the extra money to run 4 Q6600 boxes at home, again, their business, althought it does effect everyone through global warming -- but we have a project for that. But don't blame the people who run the project because you suddenly have $3000 dollars worth of paper weights laying around your house. Science is sometimes a slow process but we make progress. Progress means that there will some stumbling and a few setbacks along the way. I joined Seti because I am a Gemini. Although I don't believe in astrology, Geminis are supposed to have isatiable curiousity and a craving for knowledge which describes me very well. I joined figuring that I would find people with a similar spirit who would be willing to spend a few dollars per month to run their computers 24/7...for the betterment of mankind and to possibly change the future history of the world. I makes me sad to see what Seti has became, a technological arms race to see who can pass or stay head of the other guy, which would be fine if it was about finding the signal. Unfortunately these races seem to have everything to do with egos and nothing to do with science. If you are so worried about stats, take up baseball. Those baseball stats will be just as useful in helping us to find ET as the stats that you earn here.

Kevin

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Trust no one.

If you are so worried about stats, take up baseball. Those baseball stats will be just as useful in helping us to find ET as the stats that you earn here.

Kevin

If you build it, ET will come!

For those movie producer types out there, Copyright 2008 Gary Charpentier.

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No stats updates for 5 days -> I will suspend SETI@Home until they figured out how to resolve this issue (going on holidays is O.K., but not without replacement!).

What's the issue, Martin?

Your credits are all there, safe and sound, and when they update the XML feed, you're gonna have a big day!!

msattler,

I am with SETI@Home for almost 10 years now and I expect a little professionalism by now - or at least some information about ongoing problems on the front page. It is MY computers and MY electricity bill (plus a few donations) that I offer to the team. Therefore it is MY decision to suspend or quit this project if they do not follow the basic rules of customer relations (not to talk about customer satisfaction).

you could not have said i better,just let is know what's going on a little communication's goes a long way.

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you know.....i can see where you are coming from. really can. people talk about doing "science" for seti. fact is, there is no science being done. the project has become one big pack rat of doing nothing but collecting the results we send in daily. nothing is being looked at. therefore, no science is being done. ntpckr has always been "just around the corner" since 2005. until the results of our completed workunits are actually looked at and the results of each of those workunits posted and reported there is no science.

so all the crunchers have to talk about is their rac, total credits, how fast their particular computer is. things like that. only element we have in common until the "science" of seti becomes a reality, if and when that day actually comes.

so i understand your frustration. wish there was "science" but there isn't. so that is what we are left to talk about.

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you know.....i can see where you are coming from. really can. people talk about doing "science" for seti. fact is, there is no science being done. the project has become one big pack rat of doing nothing but collecting the results we send in daily. nothing is being looked at. therefore, no science is being done. ntpckr has always been "just around the corner" since 2005. until the results of our completed workunits are actually looked at and the results of each of those workunits posted and reported there is no science.

so all the crunchers have to talk about is their rac, total credits, how fast their particular computer is. things like that. only element we have in common until the "science" of seti becomes a reality, if and when that day actually comes.

so i understand your frustration. wish there was "science" but there isn't. so that is what we are left to talk about.

You are in error, my friend.

There IS valuable science being done here........
The final analysis of the results are not done yet, but nitpicker is in development, and Astrokitty was just launched......

Do not diss this project so fully when you are really just expressing your own dissatisfaction with what you perceive to be the facts.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

you know.....i can see where you are coming from. really can. people talk about doing "science" for seti. fact is, there is no science being done. the project has become one big pack rat of doing nothing but collecting the results we send in daily. nothing is being looked at. therefore, no science is being done. ntpckr has always been "just around the corner" since 2005. until the results of our completed workunits are actually looked at and the results of each of those workunits posted and reported there is no science.

so all the crunchers have to talk about is their rac, total credits, how fast their particular computer is. things like that. only element we have in common until the "science" of seti becomes a reality, if and when that day actually comes.

so i understand your frustration. wish there was "science" but there isn't. so that is what we are left to talk about.

Just because there's not much science to be discussed (because frankly, the only thing to discuss is if we found ET or not), doesn't mean there's nothing to talk about other than RAC. You make it sound like without the science all we have is RAC in common.

Look around. There's an entire message board community full of people from all over the world gathered for a single cause, each with their own way of life and philosophy. I can't imagine that there's any shortage of stuff to talk about. We have different sections of the board set up for things to talk about: SETI Science, regular Science, Politics, Q&A, etc. If you choose not to participate in any of that, that's your choice, and that's OK. But don't expect much sympathy from the hardcore users when you obsess about irrelevant things such as RAC (irrelevant to the bigger picture called life).

As far as I'm concerned, saying that RAC is the only other thing to talk about is a cop out. Its a poor excuse for people who have an obsessive personality and they want to find something to use as a vehicle for that obsession. They need to re-prioritize their lives and think about the bigger picture and quit making lame excuses for their obsession.

Mark, ET AL ... correct me if I'm wrong, but... the XML file for the daily updates are generated from the backup database server, so that the stats are behind tells me that the master database and the backup are not in sync. this has happened alot lately, and it has always been resync'ed on their tuesday outage. part of the 'maintenance' is to create a backup of the master, and insert it into the backup. they may have allowed the backup to fall behind on purpose, to allow the rest of the project to 'catch up', network bandwidth being finite. maybe i'm wrong, but i dont hink im too far off... please correct me if I am!

Best to all... John

It's possible that they just don't want the extra load on the backup database given the extra synchronization from the outage and all the "shorties."

I'm pretty sure that the sync is automatic unless some glitch takes the backup DB off-line.

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so i understand your frustration. wish there was "science" but there isn't. so that is what we are left to talk about.

"Science" or "Science News"??

What would you consider to be actual "Science" that could be reported (short of finding E.T.)?

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ntpckr has always been "just around the corner" since 2005. until the results of our completed workunits are actually looked at and the results of each of those workunits posted and reported there is no science.

so i understand your frustration. wish there was "science" but there isn't. so that is what we are left to talk about.

Dorphas--

I will respectfully disagree with you. The reason (as I have been informed) for Astropulse to be merged into Seti@home was to free up other resources for NTPCKR. The team simply doesn't have the resources to cover 3 active projects--but once the issues of the merging are worked out they'll be that much closer to putting NTPCKR up. I do know they are actively in the preparation mode.

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Mark, ET AL ... correct me if I'm wrong, but... the XML file for the daily updates are generated from the backup database server, so that the stats are behind tells me that the master database and the backup are not in sync. this has happened alot lately, and it has always been resync'ed on their tuesday outage. part of the 'maintenance' is to create a backup of the master, and insert it into the backup. they may have allowed the backup to fall behind on purpose, to allow the rest of the project to 'catch up', network bandwidth being finite. maybe i'm wrong, but i dont hink im too far off... please correct me if I am!

Best to all... John

It's possible that they just don't want the extra load on the backup database given the extra synchronization from the outage and all the "shorties."

I'm pretty sure that the sync is automatic unless some glitch takes the backup DB off-line.

Last time we had a stats outage, the date/timestamps on the exported files kept changing, but the contents remained the same - indicating a loss of synchronisation between the master database and the replica.

This time, the files themselves have not been generated (most recent ones are still showing 10-Aug-2008 14:40, Pacific time), so it's a different problem this time round.

I have to disagree with the "no science being done". We had a Dr. Kevin Douglas in from I believe it was Canada for part of 2007 that was doing work with the science we had. He was not looking for ET, but he was using the science for other things. He posted it in several areas of this board, etc.

Please DO NOT say there is no science being done. Work has been done with the results, and published. Here is one post with some of that science that was done.

Plus, how did we get to SETI Enhanced, and Astropulse without having science? They had to build new applications, etc.

Please use facts.

Hello everyone. Since it seems that everyone else is putting in their two cents on these outages I guess I'll do the same. I recently returned to Seti, joned in 2000, after having got too busy with other things in my life. I've only been back for a few months but I've heard more bickering and whining in those few months than any time I can remember. This project is a scientific endeavor. It is not a contest. It is not a McDonalds or a Macy's. There is no customer service and there shouldn't be. The people that run this program and maintain the equipment work their butts off trying to scrounge equipment and money just to keep this afloat. I don't know any of the staff personally but I've gotten a sense of how much it takes to run something like this...and I'm sure I'm underestimating by at least an order of magnitude. The last thing that these hard working and dedicated people need are a bunch of whiners and cry-babies taking their focus away from the work. We aren't their customers, we're their collegues and coworkers. If people want to talk about professionalism maybe they should take a long and honest look in the mirror.

Nicely said.

There, I've said my piece and now it's time for me to go back to my room with the soft walls and take my medicine.

Got any extra?

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Join the PACK!