Ever restarting tasks!

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Gunnar Hjern

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Message 90568 - Posted: 23 Mar 2019, 22:10:04 UTC

One of my computers (host-id:3672956, HP6530b, Core2 Duo w. Xubuntu 18.04 (64bit) and Boinc ver 7.9.3 )
is currently working on two tasks (1064244530 and 1064244633, both Rosetta v4.08 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu),
but it never gets any longer than 5% before it restarts calculating from 0% again.
I haven't seen this problem on any of my other computers, what might be wrong?
//Gunnar
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Message 90570 - Posted: 24 Mar 2019, 0:52:00 UTC - in response to Message 90568.  

Is the computing preference to leave tasks in memory while preempted set? This might help.
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Gunnar Hjern

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Message 90572 - Posted: 24 Mar 2019, 1:06:37 UTC - in response to Message 90570.  

No, it was a new computer that I installed, and I didn't remember to check it.
But in fact it was not changing task at the moment it happened the last time.
First I wondered what might have happened, as the tasks should have been ready by then.
When I was investigating that, I happened to see it just when it happen, and of course, I then also understood why no new tasks were coming from that computer.
(However, I normally do check that box on almost every computer.)
//Gunnar
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Message 90573 - Posted: 24 Mar 2019, 9:14:47 UTC - in response to Message 90572.  
Last modified: 24 Mar 2019, 9:15:08 UTC

However, I normally do check that box on almost every computer

Check that in your online computing preferences and you will never have to think about it again.
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Gunnar Hjern

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Message 90579 - Posted: 25 Mar 2019, 18:14:13 UTC - in response to Message 90573.  

I wonder if that box isn't checked by default, because I cannot remember myself doing that.
In any case it is checked, and the task memory shouldn't be an issue in this case.
The computer in question also features 2Gb RAM per core, so it should be enough for now I hope.
Maybe I do another test with that machine some other day - preferably when I installed it properly with a permanent OS.
Two other of my computers have recently finished some tasks successfully, and yet another one will hopefully complete two more tasks on Tuesday.

Happy Crunching!!!

//Gunnar
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Sid Celery

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Message 90581 - Posted: 25 Mar 2019, 23:16:17 UTC - in response to Message 90579.  

I wonder if that box isn't checked by default, because I cannot remember myself doing that.

I don't think it is checked by default. Default Boinc settings are rubbish, if not literally counter-productive in my experience
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Message 90584 - Posted: 26 Mar 2019, 18:53:19 UTC - in response to Message 90581.  

I wonder if that box isn't checked by default, because I cannot remember myself doing that.

I don't think it is checked by default. Default Boinc settings are rubbish, if not literally counter-productive in my experience

No, it's not checked by default. The idea behind the default settings is that BOINC should not give the user any reason to think, that it might be slowing down anything else the user is doing. But yes, for anybody who cares at least a bit about crunching, rubbish is a good word to descibe those settings.
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Gunnar Hjern

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Message 90585 - Posted: 26 Mar 2019, 19:08:20 UTC - in response to Message 90584.  

The checkbox I meant is that in the Rosetta project preferences, and not the one in the boinc-manager GUI.
( https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/prefs.php?subset=global )
It was a long time since I started crunching Rosetta, so I cannot remember if I modified it or not. ;-)
//Gunnar
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Message 90586 - Posted: 27 Mar 2019, 8:40:46 UTC - in response to Message 90585.  

I would suspect that you are running low on memory and maybe exhausting it. Try "vmstat 1" and watch the amount of swapping the machine is doing.
You want to see zeroes in the si and so columns. Numbers in those 2 columns mean that memory blocks are being temporarily moved to disk and back.

You might try running just one Rosetta work unit and see if it completes it.

vmstat 1
procs -----------------------memory---------------------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- --------cpu--------
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st
14 0 0 2437816 1077404 6773368 0 0 0 12 0 3 81 2 16 0 0
12 0 0 2437628 1077404 6773252 0 0 0 0 13061 2510 94 2 4 0 0
13 0 0 2438440 1077404 6773404 0 0 0 0 13180 2733 94 2 5 0 0
11 0 0 2438476 1077412 6772936 0 0 0 16 13016 2403 94 2 4 0 0


I also like "top ic" which prints more information about the running jobs.
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Gunnar Hjern

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Message 90588 - Posted: 27 Mar 2019, 12:37:27 UTC - in response to Message 90586.  

Thanx for the Linux tips!!! :-)

There sure are a whole lot to learn about Linux, and bash isn't all that easy all the time,
but given how much one really can do, and the user power gained, it sure is worth it anyway!! :-)

I'll have a closer look on this issue this weekend.

Happy crunching!!

//Gunnar
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Message boards : Number crunching : Ever restarting tasks!



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