So it appears that we're getting closer to another new milestone of sorts. 2^32 tasks.

Hey Cosmic_Ocean, I am trying to keep up with you!
How did you find we are getting close to that number before losing count?

In round numbers I am reading that the Master Science Data Base is stuffed with 1.76 * 10^9 workunits. Also, for convenience I note that 2^32 ~= 4.29 * 10^9.

Dividing 1.76 / 4.29 the result is ~ 41% full.

This is not yet ominous. But maybe this is not what you are talking about.

When you are viewing your tasks look at the far left column labeled "Tasks". The number there reflects how many tasks how many tasks have been generated. Note the number of tasks exceeds the number of workunits by a minimum of 2 to 1. There are at least 2 tasks per workunit & up to 10.
That integer is what tends to be the issue. I would have to reread Matt's previous posts, but I recall that they must define the integer length in the table. Previously when we ran into a number larger than the table could accept. So work generation comes to a stop until they modify the table to accept the larger integer. Which seems to be done by creating a new table and then copying the data into the new table.

The standard BOINC database schema (schema.sql)

 221 create table workunit (
 222     id                      integer         not null auto_increment,

 258 create table result (
 259     id                      integer         not null auto_increment,

still uses type "integer" (which I think means 32 bits) for both workunit and result (=task) IDs.

The most recent task I've been issued, a couple of minutes ago, is 4278193638. Allow for another 333,889 tasks already generated and ready to send, that means that we're within 16,500,000 of reaching 2^32 tasks and not being able to split any more work (because they can't be inserted into the table).

With a turnover of ~72,500 per hour, we would reach that point in 226 hours - or almost exactly the end of July. I hope we're already non-standard.

Reading Matt's Funny story from November 2011, I'm not exactly reassured. He hasn't typed the figures '6' and '4' in that order since then, so they may be in for a surprise. I think I feel an email coming on...

They appear to be informix SERIAL8 types on the seti db code. If I'm interpreting the IBM documentation correctly, then it should be allowed up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

Serial8
int8

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

They appear to be informix SERIAL8 types on the seti db code. If I'm interpreting the IBM documentation correctly, then it should be allowed up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

Serial8
int8

Matt said they'd been using 8-byte longs in the Informix (science) database

We've been bitten by this long ago in informix, and have since been storing larger numbers there as int8's (8 byte integers) or doubles.

'long ago' in 2011. But they were still caught out by the limits of the MySQL (BOINC) database.

They appear to be informix SERIAL8 types on the seti db code. If I'm interpreting the IBM documentation correctly, then it should be allowed up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

Serial8
int8

Matt said they'd been using 8-byte longs in the Informix (science) database

We've been bitten by this long ago in informix, and have since been storing larger numbers there as int8's (8 byte integers) or doubles.

'long ago' in 2011. But they were still caught out by the limits of the MySQL (BOINC) database.

ah. Yeah I wonder if there's another schema file for that hiding... [Edit:] I see, probably some limits in the code that uses the databases. Could indeed amount to a cross-fingers and see what happens situation.

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Reading Matt's Funny story from November 2011, I'm not exactly reassured. He hasn't typed the figures '6' and '4' in that order since then, so they may be in for a surprise. I think I feel an email coming on...

It's only been about 4 years. I'm sure it's in the "to do" pile.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
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