Hello!

Did not find any thread about this so i created a new..

Does anyone know what has happend to the project? My servers is not getting any WU.. I thought Rosetta was a stable project? ..

Maybe have to increase the WU queue a bit then.. :)

Have you run out already?

Why would you increase your queue if none are coming down? That would just increase the number that don't come down. It's only worth increasing your queue AFTER the problem's fully fixed and IF you've run out. This is what your queue is for.

If you increase your queue you only prolong the number of people who are without work (if any). Another solution may be to increase your run time a little.

---

From the looks of the home page there are 0 task queued which is why you're not getting any work which is strange because Rosetta@home usually has a few hundred thousand or more ready to send. Oh well looks like I'm crunching WCG and E@H during the dry spell.

Have you run out already?

Why would you increase your queue if none are coming down? That would just increase the number that don't come down. It's only worth increasing your queue AFTER the problem's fully fixed and IF you've run out. This is what your queue is for.

If you increase your queue you only prolong the number of people who are without work (if any). Another solution may be to increase your run time a little.

Hi, yes i ran out because i only run 0,5 or 1 day queue on rosetta.. I have a little heat issue in the office where i run the server so i sometimes have to shutdown the pc:s .. But now it starting to get winter and coold outside so i can run them 24/7 now..

Yes of course i will increase the queue when rosetta starts to function again.. :)

I have been running milkyway for a while now but now im back with rosetta again :) I also started one climate prediction thread on each server now since i noticed rosetta is not sending any work.. But hope they are back soon..

What queue setting do you guys run with? .. I'm thinking of putting 4-5 days cache or something like that... Should be enough...

---

What queue setting do you guys run with? .. I'm thinking of putting 4-5 days cache or something like that... Should be enough...

If you have other projects configured, I would leave the 1/2 to 1 day queue. On the other hand, if you get one climate task per CPU, your machine will be committed for some time to climate. Just depends upon what you desire your resource shares to be. I always felt I had to set climate to no new work whenever I got a task, because BOINC would sometimes try to get more, and I didn't want to crunch them.

If you are crunching 24/7 now, I would also suggest (while your queue of work is small) that you increase your runtime preference. This is done in your account profile, in the Rosetta preferences. I generally recommend only make gradual changes to runtime preference. But once you get it bumped up to 12 or 24 hours, this will reduce your traffic to the servers, and also tend to keep your machine happily crunching through most periods where work is not available (which typically only last less then a day, depending on the cause).

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

What queue setting do you guys run with? .. I'm thinking of putting 4-5 days cache or something like that... Should be enough...

If you have other projects configured, I would leave the 1/2 to 1 day queue. On the other hand, if you get one climate task per CPU, your machine will be committed for some time to climate. Just depends upon what you desire your resource shares to be. I always felt I had to set climate to no new work whenever I got a task, because BOINC would sometimes try to get more, and I didn't want to crunch them.

If you are crunching 24/7 now, I would also suggest (while your queue of work is small) that you increase your runtime preference. This is done in your account profile, in the Rosetta preferences. I generally recommend only make gradual changes to runtime preference. But once you get it bumped up to 12 or 24 hours, this will reduce your traffic to the servers, and also tend to keep your machine happily crunching through most periods where work is not available (which typically only last less then a day, depending on the cause).

When i also get a climate task i set it just as you do to "no new work" cause that job runs for 30 days or something on one processor thread.

Can you explain to me what this runtime preference is? I saw it in my settings for rosetta now, never seen it before, its set to default (3 hours) now.. Is that how long a task runs on a CPU??

In that case its very nice.. :)

---

Yep, it is the amount of CPU time you would PREFER to have each task run. The longer you let them run, the more models they complete from the starting point of that task. More models = more science results. So you get more work done with the same downloaded files. The resulting upload is proportionately larger based roughly on the number of hours you spend crunching on it. So upload per WU is larger, but per day is not.

I put PREFER in caps, because it is not an upper limit. Some tasks can and will exceed your preference. Rosetta has a watchdog in place to assure they don't exceed it by more then 4 hours. Otherwise the watchdog will mark the task completed and report it back. In general, it does a great job of meeting your preference, so long as it is 3hrs or more.

The problem people can get in to is just that if you have 50 WUs already on your machine, the runtime for all of them will increase when you change the setting. And this can lead to missing deadlines. So it is best to change when number of WUs is low. And yet don't go overboard because BOINC still hasn't seen how long the new tasks take, so it orders work assuming they'll take about as long as they have historically (i.e. 3hrs). So even if your slate of work is empty, BOINC can still end up requesting too much because when it requests 24hrs of work, it will get 8WUs, not knowing that they EACH will now take 24hrs (or the time of your new preference).

The opposite can also be a problem. If you have a 24hr preference and then want to drop it down, the running tasks on your machine will try to comply with the new preference. If your new preference is 6 hrs, then the watchdog sees the task that has been running for 10 or more hours out of what was originally 24 as having run "too long" (i.e. exceeds the new 6hr plus 4hrs of total runtime allowed) and wraps it up.

So simplest thing is just to only change the preference a notch or two each day or longer. This helps BOINC request approximately the proper amount of work, and helps the watchdog stay out of the way.

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Yep, it is the amount of CPU time you would PREFER to have each task run. The longer you let them run, the more models they complete from the starting point of that task. More models = more science results. So you get more work done with the same downloaded files. The resulting upload is proportionately larger based roughly on the number of hours you spend crunching on it. So upload per WU is larger, but per day is not.

I put PREFER in caps, because it is not an upper limit. Some tasks can and will exceed your preference. Rosetta has a watchdog in place to assure they don't exceed it by more then 4 hours. Otherwise the watchdog will mark the task completed and report it back. In general, it does a great job of meeting your preference, so long as it is 3hrs or more.

The problem people can get in to is just that if you have 50 WUs already on your machine, the runtime for all of them will increase when you change the setting. And this can lead to missing deadlines. So it is best to change when number of WUs is low. And yet don't go overboard because BOINC still hasn't seen how long the new tasks take, so it orders work assuming they'll take about as long as they have historically (i.e. 3hrs). So even if your slate of work is empty, BOINC can still end up requesting too much because when it requests 24hrs of work, it will get 8WUs, not knowing that they EACH will now take 24hrs (or the time of your new preference).

The opposite can also be a problem. If you have a 24hr preference and then want to drop it down, the running tasks on your machine will try to comply with the new preference. If your new preference is 6 hrs, then the watchdog sees the task that has been running for 10 or more hours out of what was originally 24 as having run "too long" (i.e. exceeds the new 6hr plus 4hrs of total runtime allowed) and wraps it up.

So simplest thing is just to only change the preference a notch or two each day or longer. This helps BOINC request approximately the proper amount of work, and helps the watchdog stay out of the way.

Ahh, great.. i will test this.. :) Yes, i have the problem right now that rosetta is using quite much bandwith. Before it was even a bigger issue when i just had 0,35Mbit/s.. Then it had problem downloading all the requested tasks for all my servers.. But now i have a 2Mbit line.. so not a problem anymore..

I will test this tomorrow! Thanks

---

Yep, each task will still have the same required download files, but you will be able to spend much longer working on each task. And because your machine is happily working on stuff, it doesn't contact the project as frequently for more work and etc. So, overall, the number of MB used per month drops. Good for the Rosetta servers, good for your bandwidth, good for your ISP.

If BOINC's use of the network is conflicting with your use of your computer, you can either schedule network access to specific times of day (be sure to request enough work on hand to keep your machine busy during the times it is not allowed to use the network), or you can set limits on the data rate you allow BOINC to use for uploads and downloads. By setting it to, for example, half of your maximum speed, it assures BOINC always leaves half of the pipe available for you to do your downloads, surfing, etc.

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Yep, each task will still have the same required download files, but you will be able to spend much longer working on each task. And because your machine is happily working on stuff, it doesn't contact the project as frequently for more work and etc. So, overall, the number of MB used per month drops. Good for the Rosetta servers, good for your bandwidth, good for your ISP.

If BOINC's use of the network is conflicting with your use of your computer, you can either schedule network access to specific times of day (be sure to request enough work on hand to keep your machine busy during the times it is not allowed to use the network), or you can set limits on the data rate you allow BOINC to use for uploads and downloads. By setting it to, for example, half of your maximum speed, it assures BOINC always leaves half of the pipe available for you to do your downloads, surfing, etc.

Yes, been there done that.. (scheduling the time the app is allowed to use internet access) it worked very fine. But it's not needed anymore :)

Is there a max time for the time my computer will work on one WU? or can i set it to like 72 hours or something? I mean, will it ever be done with a WU?

---

The runtime preference allows you to configure from 1 to 24 hours per task. And in the event that a task runs that long and then happens to snag a long running model, the watchdog wouldn't let it run any longer then 28 hours.

So, your configured runtime preference, plus 4 hours (give me 4.25 hrs) is the maximum a given task should ever run.

Note that I'm talking about actual CPU hours. The newer versions of BOINC show you "elapsed time". You see CPU hours in the details of a specific task. The difference is that since BOINC runs a lowest possible priority, it may sit waiting for other tasks if your machine is busy. Thus elapsed time increases, but the task is getting little CPU time. Most machines can't keep themselves that busy for that long though. That's the whole idea of BOINC, use that idle time to do something useful.

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Note that a task will stop when it hits the 100 decoy limit. This happens a lot if you specify a long runtime on a fast machine.

Note that a task will stop when it hits the 100 decoy limit. This happens a lot if you specify a long runtime on a fast machine.

Good point, yes. 99 is actually the limit I believe. So some types of tasks will take an hour per model or whatever and in 24hrs will come nowhere close. Others can do a model every 5 minutes and can hit the 99 model limit in about 8 hours. So it doesn't mean ALL tasks are able to run for the full target runtime, but most are. And the occasional variation can confuse the BOINC client as it tries to figure out how much work to ask for.

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

The wus seem very sparse. It has taken Boinc 90 min to get 8 wus. Keep getting 0 tasks. But server showing "Ready to send 37,422".

---

There are a number of other posts around today indicating work units are immediately failing... that sort of thing can run the pool of work dry in a hurry. I'm sure it will settle down very soon.

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Hi, yes I ran out because I only run 0,5 or 1 day queue on rosetta...

What queue setting do you guys run with? .. I'm thinking of putting 4-5 days cache or something like that... Should be enough...

Ok, I didn't realise you ran quite short.

After some previous supply issues I'm set to 2 days of 4 hour WUs since some problems at the beginning of the year. This has been enough to cover all problems that have arisen since February, including the combination with the WU failures of the last day or so.

The advice given by others is good and I'd agree with it all.

---