I was looking at the results of some of the -9 result_overflows and noticed that the status of the work Unit is 'Completed and validated' . However, when I look at the source code on the seti client it is reported as an error, In analyzeReport:

if (signal_count >= swi.analysis_cfg.max_signals) {
SETIERROR(RESULT_OVERFLOW,"in result_spike");
}

So wondering if this workunit is an error or its okay to have the signal_count to be >= than allowable max signals.

Also noticed that when these errors occur that the run time and cpu times are very small compared to other completed WUs.

Thanks in advance,

BoincSpy

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It has been decided by the project scientists that any work unit that is analyzed to have 30 or more spikes in it is to be flagged as useless. So the task is verified to be correct but of no use. These tasks are what we euphemistically call a "noise bomb" and are processed very fast normally. The fast ones are called early overflows and the ones that run almost the normal length of time are called late overflows.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Not true. The 30th, or 31st, signal might occur after 99.9% of the processing has been done, and the signals found are just as important to the scientific analysis as the signals in any other workunit. A task with more than 30 reported signals is handled via a different, but equally 'normal', exit route: it is treated as a "runtime outlier" to avoid distorting the various scheduler components in BOINC, but the signals are processed through validation and into the science database as normal.

The validation step is important. There have been times in the past when hardware and software problems caused volunteers' computers to erroneously report an overflow exit: most notoriously, when 'Fermi' architecture GPUs reached the retail market before anyone at the project understood that the current v6.08 and v6.09 applications were incompatible with the new hardware. Many false overflow results had to weeded out through validation, and re-worked on compatible hardware, before we got v6.10 deployed.

It is true that the very noisiest WUs, with the shortest run-time before overflow, are unlikely to contain much significant science, but the concept that *every* overflow is a worthless noise bomb has come from volunteers, not from the project scientists.

Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding Richard. I thought any overflow task was not put into the database.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Thank you for the explanation..

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