Posts by Grant (SSSF)

41) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 109051) Posted 31 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I don't know whether you should do the same with each of your other projects (as a backstop to pressing the wrong button within Boinc). As long as the above process with Rosetta goes well, it may be worth ensuring your other projects aren't leading your settings astray in the same way. When and how BOINC uses your computer Computing preferences applies to all projects. Preferences for this project XXX preferences are the ones that will apply to only that project. Web settings made on one project will propagate to all projects. If you make different changes on different projects, the last changed settings & values will be the ones that apply to all projects. Bottom line is you should ensure on the Computing tab within Boinc you are using "Local Prefs" and don't accidentally click to use "Web Prefs" From Richard's last posted log. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| GPUGRID \| General prefs: from GPUGRID (last modified 16-Feb-2024 23:38:58) He was using web based preferences when he started this thread.
42) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 109028) Posted 25 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: would definitely be using 0.1 and 0.5 You are always better off using the "Store at least xx days of work" value to set the cache size. Making use of the "Store up to an additional xx days of work" results in unexpected behaviour. This is because "Store at least xx days of work" is the size of the cache that it maintains. "Store up to an additional xx days of work" is exactly that- additional days of work on top of the actual cache value (which is set by "Store at least xx days of work"). 0.5 and 0.1 will result in a cache of very close to 0.5 days of work. As work is completed, it will top up the cache up to meet the 0.5 day setting. The amount of work in the cache will generally be around 0.5 days. 0.1 and 0.5 results in the cache running down to less than 0.1 days of work, before then refilling itself to 0.1 plus the additional 0.5 days worth. The amount of work in the cache will vary between 0.6 days & less than 0.1.
43) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta Beta 6.00 (Message 109021) Posted 21 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: New batch, same problem.
44) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems and Technical Issues with Rosetta@home (Message 109010) Posted 17 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: A flock of work units arrived recently that are behaving oddly, well, all but one of them. They came with a run time of 8 hours, of those which are running, one has elapsed 6 hours and remaining 6 hours odd, this figure wobbles about for a while, then drops some, then starts wobbling again and repeat. The others have remaining times of 2 to 6 days increasing . The percentage complete figure is increasing, but very slowly. <edit> The task is Beta 6.04 running on Windows 10 x64. And the answer is the same as always, but since you have ignored the answer for over 4 years now, there's no point repeating it. Run time 1 days 20 hours 40 min 36 sec CPU time 11 hours 59 min 57 sec Almost 2 days to do 12 hours work, all because of settings you have made & chose not to fix.
45) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta Beta 6.00 (Message 109002) Posted 16 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: Yep, another group of faulty Tasks in with the current batch.
46) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 109001) Posted 16 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: Geees you are a sour old man... Pointing out the same thing to the same people over & over again in just a single thread does have that effect. If the cache is not needed then why did BOINC put it in? There is obviously some benefit to it. BOINC developers don't put stuff in for no reason. Caches are a hangover from dialup days where people didn't have always on internet access and had to pay the call connection fee every time they connected to the internet. It allowed them to get work for several hours, or several days, or even a week, to avoid having to connect regularly to return & get new work, and having to pay each & every time they had to initiate a connection if they already weren't online at that time. It's also from the time when there was just one project, and the supply of work was at best irregular. And today, as i have pointed out already in this thread- even if you have just one project, if it is reliable with it's servers being up and work availability, then there is no need for a cache. If it's not, then a cache will keep your system busy during those periods the project is down. But when you have more than one project, especially so when you're talking more than 3, the odds of all projects having issues all at the same time is small to non-existent, so there is absolutely no need for a cache in such cases. If one or more projects goes down or runs out of work, the other projects will keep your system busy. When they come back up, your Resource Share settings will once again be honoured as they get work from those projects that were previously down, and do less work from the one(s) that weren't, until things have balanced out again.
47) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108997) Posted 16 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: BTW... .1 and .01? what the %%* is that nonsense. At minimum .25 and .25 for a half day queue. or .25 and 0 for a 1/4 day. But honestly....stop messing around with those values. .25 or .50 or some combination of the two for a quarter or a half or three quarters of a day of queued work. But first, NO NEW WORK! Once again you've got it wrong. Set the cache to an appropriate value, which for more than one project is 0. There is no need for a 3/4 day, 1/2 day or 1/4 day cache- it is completely, totally and utterly redundant & pointless unless every single one of the projects you are attached to has intermittent work availability or server up time. Since that isn't the case, there is absolutely no need for a cache of work. And that alone will stop new work from coming until the system is ready for it. There is absolutely no need to remove projects, no need to set No new work on one or more projects, then re-enable it again later on. There is absolutely no need to fart-arse around with such things when setting the cache to 0.1 and 0.01 will do it for you, and stop the issue from re-occurring in the future. Just set the cache to a reasonable level- and for multiple projects that is no cache, which 0.1 & 0.01 provides, while still allowing enough work to download so that when one Task finishes, another is ready to run & you don't have to wait for it to download before it can start. Any more fiddling around than those 2 values is unnecessary.
48) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108995) Posted 15 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I am running only four projects, pretty much all on default configurations. Once again, not true. As i have pointed out time and time again, the majority of your settings are not the defaults, and that just changing your cache to 0.1 days and 0.01 additional days would resolve the missed deadline issues and the difficulty in getting Rosetta work. Yet you continue to do as you always do- Make statements that are factually not correct, ignore advice you have asked for, then go and change something else entirely different to what has been suggested (in this instance removing some projects). Rosetta has twice succeeded in completing tasks on time, in both cases two tasks. And two that missed the deadlines- 50% failure rate. Abysmal. I do not interfere in BOINC's process. Yet the evidence shows that you have, and this thread shows you continue to do so. I have learned, painfully, the less I touch the better off I am. And yet, once again you just go ahead & do something that wasn't suggested, as it wasn't necessary and will likely have little if any impact.
49) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108994) Posted 15 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: Sorry, the other projects are running too well to allow Rosetta to force them out. Complete and utter nonsense. One of your other projects has even more missed deadlines than Rosetta. 24 missed deadlines out of 34 total. 70% failure rate. Beyond abysmal.
50) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108987) Posted 15 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: First, I reduced my projects to four by detaching from several. Which probably won't help much (if at all), as the main cause of your problems are your computation settings. Which you refuse to do anything about. Once again, you choose to do something unnecessary, and ignore that which would actually help. Second, I have now successfully completed two tasks from Rosetta, so things are looking up. Now everything is running well. Having Tasks time out due to not returning them in time is not running well (as is taking 3.5 hrs to do 3hrs of work). When those 2 Tasks were 50% of the work you had, it's actually running extremely poorly by any reasonable standard.
51) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108977) Posted 11 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I would suggest setting 'no new tasks' to almost all your projects and just pick one or two projects to run for now. You can switch running projects in a few weeks or a month. Or just reduce the cache to 0 days + 0.01 additional days. Change 2 values & no more missed deadlines & projects being blocked from work due to existing workload. And no need to change things again in the future. Other settings should be changed to improve things further- but the cache settings are the main ones causing the biggest issues.
52) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108974) Posted 11 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I do not have Prime Grid as one of my projects, unless you mean GPUGRID. It is right there in the list of projects that your computer is attached to, along with GPUGRID. There is a whole world of non-scientists who would like to contribute to scientific research and could do so via BOINC. But we are mostly simple unsophisticated folk who cannot deal with all of the complexities of BOINC. BOINC could attract more of us if it were simpler to use. BOINC is simple to use. But when you change things randomly with no idea of what you are doing, then things get messy. And not all projects are as well behaved as they should be & will require changes to the default settings to reduce their impacts on other projects that are well behaved. And the more projects you attach to, then the more the settings you choose will impact on them doing their work. As i keep repeating- if you need help, you can ask for it. But there's no point in doing that if you choose to ignore the advice you are given. And the fact you are using BAM (BOINC Account Manager) actually makes things more complicated than they need to be. BAM is meant to make things simpler to use, but in doing so it makes things much more difficult to adjust if they need to be. I attached to a number of projects using the default configurations to keep things simple. After installation I did not touch the configuration, but I am told that somehow there were many changes to the projects. I have no idea how that happened. It happened because you went and changed things even though you had no idea of what it was you were doing at the time. They do not change themselves. I am also participating in Folding@home. With this set of projects there is absolutely noting to do after the install. It just runs, even if the browser is closed. Because it is a single project that doesn't pay the slightest bit of attention to anything else running on your computer; which is probably why you have limited the number of cores/threads BOINC is using, although i doubt that Folding@home needs half of them. Possibly BOINC should consider making things simpler which might attract more users. Possibly people should think before they act, and ask for advice, then take heed of that advice & not ignore it. There is no benefit in making something so simple, that it isn't able to do what it needs to do- it is quite unreasonable to expect to be able to use a programme without actually taking the time to learn about it. BOINC projects are much more interesting than those of Folding and should attract many more participants. As has been pointed out- Folding is just a single project, BOINC allows people to pick and choose from dozens of projects, and allow them to give preference to some projects over others according to their personal interests.
53) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108968) Posted 10 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: Third, I have two Rosetta tasks which have started and while only 0.211% progress maybe they will make it in time. Or maybe not. Rosetta has a 3 day deadline. The Tasks normally take 8 hours to process. With your "Use at most 50% of the CPU time" setting (but only using half of your available cores/threads), that will most likely push it out several hours more per Task. But with your "Suspend if no input in last 1.00 minutes" then who knows just how much processing will get actually done during the periods the computer is on. I find it hard to believe that Rosetta might be nearing its end. I have followed David Baker and the Baker Lab at U Washington for a very long time. I hope it is just a lag in getting new work. It has been years since Rosetta had regular work available. This has been the longest period of work being available since March last year. In between, it's been a case of work being available for a few hours or less, with days & often weeks between the next hour or so of work being available. Since the rest of my projects seem to be working O.K., I will not be changing anything. And as i pointed out- that is not true. Your other projects are not "working OK" if you are missing deadlines- especially so if by 5+ days. Looking at your Milkyway Tasks, you have returned 3 Valid Tasks. 27 Tasks have errored out because you didn't complete them in time, so they timed out. Prime Grid you don't have any work, and what you did have timed out because it too missed the deadline. LHC you have no work, yet both projects have work available. So there is no way that you can seriously claim your projects are working OK with your present settings.
54) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108966) Posted 9 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: Any further help will be appreciated. I will attempt to answer any questions. You say further help will be appreciated, yet you won't do what is needed to get what you ask for. THanks for all of your help, but I am not going to change anything in the installation. I installed everything with the default configurations. You may have installed them with the default settings, but you have changed most of them since then. Many of the settings you have are not the default. WCG Resource share setting is 200, the default it 100. The default cache setting is not 0+3 The default Max CPU usage is all, you are only using half. Use at most 50% of the CPU time is actually 100% Suspend if no input in last 1.00 minutes, pretty sure the default for that is 3 (and also pretty sure it's not enabled by default, but i could be wrong on that). You have changed numerous default values to a values that make it damn near impossible for BOINC to actually do what you say you want it to- hence the reason you haven't had any Rosetta work for ages. Here is a good example of why things aren't working well (inspite of your claims) 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| Milkyway@home \| Task de_nbody_11_02_2023_v183_pal5__data__3_1705435140_127599_1 is 5.68 days overdue; you may not get credit for it. Consider aborting it. Your computer hasn't been able to get work for Rosetta until now because it's not able to complete the work you already have in time to actually get Credit for it. Resetting the project was completely unnecessary. If you are going to ask people for help, then you need to actually pay attention to the advice they give you. Doing things at random- which is probably how you have most of your non-default settings, makes things more difficult and is more likely to result in even more issues occurring. EDIT- anyway, soon no-one will be getting any Rosetta work- it's almost out. Other than Resends It could a few days, or a month or 2, before the next batch is available for processing. Even though you don't want to fix the issue, i'll post the fix here for others that might benefit from reading this thread. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| Preferences: 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - When computer is in use 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - 'In use' means mouse/keyboard input in last 1.00 minutes Other than doing timing sensitive work (such as audio recording), "Suspend when computer is in use" should not be selected. (Same for suspend CPU computing when computer is in use, it should not be selected either; in the case of games there are better options). 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - max CPUs used: 8 Should be "Use at most 100 % of the CPUs" 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - Use at most 50% of the CPU time Should be "Use at most 100 % of CPU time" (for a desktop, current laptops with their limited cooling may need that set to 90% or less in order to prevent thermal throttling). 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - max memory usage: 7.81 GB Should be "When computer is in use, use at most 90%" and "When computer is not in use, use at most 90%" on any system with more than 8GB of RAM, otherwise i would suggest 70% for when in use & not in use. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - When computer is not in use 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - max CPUs used: 8 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - Use at most 50% of the CPU time 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - max memory usage: 12.50 GB Should all be the same as for the earlier "When in use" settings. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - Suspend if no input in last 1.00 minutes This should be left blank. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - Leave apps in memory if not running If you've got 32GB or more RAM, and 16 or less cores/threads, this value is OK. Lesser RAM, more cores threads, then it's best not to leave apps in memory if not running, particularly if running multiple projects. Just one project, less likely to be an issue. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - Store at least 0.00 days of work Running more than one project, this should be 0. Even with just one project, unless they are very unreliable, around 0.2 or so. 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - Store up to an additional 3.00 days of work Should be 0.01 3/9/2024 7:57:31 AM \| \| - max disk usage: 10.00 GB Given the size of storage these days, and the size of many project's files, this should be "Use no more than 20 GB" "Leave at least 2 GB free" "Use no more than 60 % of total"
55) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta Beta 6.00 (Message 108957) Posted 9 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: Current batch of Beta tasks have the same naming convention as Rosetta 4.20, and use a similar amount of RAM. Roughly 1.2GB of RAM required per Task. Also running for around 8 hours, not the previous Task runtime of around 3hrs.
56) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108953) Posted 9 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I definitely did not wait 8 hours. I watched my clock and did the five minutes you said to do. Maybe you are being confused by our different time zones. I am in The U.S. and by the way your log expresses the date you are not. I started just after midnight U.S. EST. You need to read what you posted. Once again - 3/8/2024 12:17:22 AM \| Einstein@Home \| Sending scheduler request: To report completed tasks. .... 3/8/2024 8:47:20 AM \| Einstein@Home \| Reporting 1 completed tasks Regardless of the date format- 12:17 am to 8:47am is 8.5 hours all around the world. If you did what you claim to have done- ie re-started BOINC just after midnight, then posted the contents of the Event log after five minutes, then all that would be there in the Event log would be the initial messages, with a time span of around 5 minutes (or less- just like the one i posted) from first to last, not all of the messages you did post (without any of the initial ones we actually need), with a final time stamp 8.5 hours after the first posted message, and 9 hours after the time you said you restarted BOINC. It's that simple. I think all of this is nonsense. Rosetta tells me I completed two tasks so I should have gotten more tasks.There is no reason that it should have quit. I have not changed anything in the installation of any of my projects and all of my other projects are running just fine. What is nonsense is that you come here asking for help, yet you won't provide all the information we need in order to help you. If you were to post what we asked for, we could help you figure out what is going, but as you won't/can't, then we can't help.
57) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108951) Posted 8 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: 3/8/2024 12:17:22 AM \| Einstein@Home \| Sending scheduler request: To report completed tasks. .... 3/8/2024 8:47:20 AM \| Einstein@Home \| Reporting 1 completed tasks Still not what we asked for. The section you posted goes from 12:17 in the morning to 8:47 later that night. That's 8.5 hours. We asked you to exit BOINC. Wait 20 seconds, Restart it. Then 5 minutes later (not over 8 hours, 5 minutes) post the Event log. I posted a copy of mine so you could see exactly what we are asking for. You still haven't done that. Instead of trying to figure out what is actually the problem, i'll tell you what you need to do (but given that twice in a row now you haven't done as we have asked i don't hold out much hope of it being done). In your BOINC Manager, with the Advanced view selected, you need to make sure the Projects tab is selected. Click on Rosetta@home. In the Status tab it should be blank. If it says "Suspended by user", click on the Resume button. If it says "Won't get new Tasks", click on the Allow new Tasks button Given the number of projects you are attached to, you should have no cache at all. Store at least xx days of work should be set to 0.1 Store up to an additional xx days of work should be set to 0.01 If all projects are of equal importance to you, the Resource share setting for each and every one should be 100. If one project is more important, give it a higher value. If one is less important than others, give it a lower value. Normally the Cache & Resource share settings are done using the web based preferences in your account on each project. Resource share is set on each project, the cache settings on one project will apply to all. The cache can be set locally- if yo have done that, then that's where you need to do it now as local settings override Web based settings. However, since you are using BAM you need to use that in order to set your Resource share (and probably many other settings i'm not aware of). So for that, you'll need support from the BAM site. Anything set locally (ie on your computer's BOINC Manager), will probably still need to be done locally. Good luck.
58) Message boards : Number crunching : Beyond newbie Q&A (Message 108949) Posted 8 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: For most projects one job is one work unit, but here we have variable work unit sizes creating multiple models apiece. Like every other BOINC project, one job is still just one work unit, one Task. The number of structures or decoys or whatever done within that one task isn't relevant. One Task is still just one Task. As to what work is done & how it is reported or interpreted for a given Task is entirely up to each project, and each application that they may use. And as for the amount of work done- that's what the Credits represent, the amount of work done over a given period of time. Once again, the number of structures or decoys or whatever done within that one task isn't relevant. So, as we keep saying- One Task, is one job is one work unit, just like every other project. Total Queued Jobs is just Rosetta's terminology for the number of Tasks ready to be sent out for processing, at Numberfields it's Tasks Ready to Send.
59) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108937) Posted 8 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I'm bailing out- i just noticed this in the log that was posted. 3/2/2024 10:20:49 PM \| \| Account manager: BAM! User: 245405, Richard Mitnick 3/2/2024 10:20:49 PM \| \| Account manager: BAM! Host: 1291440 3/2/2024 10:20:49 PM \| \| Account manager: Number of BAM! connections for this host: 33 3/2/2024 10:20:49 PM \| \| Account manager contact succeeded Richard needs to sort this out with those that are familiar with BAM, it takes precedence over web based preferences (although i think local preferences override the BAM settings, but i'm not sure).
60) Message boards : Number crunching : Why no work on my computer since Feb 17, 2024 (Message 108936) Posted 8 Mar 2024 by Grant (SSSF) Post: I see a lot of project, but not rosetta And i see some "CPU: job cache full" Which is why we need to see the log from the start to see exactly what projects are on that computer, whether or not they are suspended, or no new work is set, and what the Resource share is for all the projects that system is doing, and the cache setting. And if it is using web based preferences or local.

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