The files just spin.

MumpsGuy
MumpsGuy
Joined: 22 Mar 08
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Topic 225209

Recently the files I've been receiving to process have had issues.  They are larger files, they begin to run but 2 or 3 minutes later they restart.  The only way to allow other projects to get system time is to reset the project.  Any thoughts on what the issue is?

thanks

 

mikey
mikey
Joined: 22 Jan 05
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MumpsGuy wrote: Recently the

MumpsGuy wrote:

Recently the files I've been receiving to process have had issues.  They are larger files, they begin to run but 2 or 3 minutes later they restart.  The only way to allow other projects to get system time is to reset the project.  Any thoughts on what the issue is?

thanks 

Your pc only has 2gb of ram total and then when take away some for the OS it's just grinding it's teeth add that to that you are trying to run the GW tasks you have no chance of finishing one. Try a different cpu tasks but my guess is it will be the same thing until you find a way to get more ram in that thing.

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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MumpsGuy wrote:Recently the

MumpsGuy wrote:
Recently the files I've been receiving to process have had issues.  They are larger files, they begin to run but 2 or 3 minutes later they restart.

You wrote a very similar problem report back on March 22.  In your current tasks list on the website there is a completed result for March 23 which looks perfectly normal.

What action did you take at that time which appears to have resolved the issue then?

MumpsGuy wrote:
The only way to allow other projects to get system time is to reset the project.

It's certainly not the only way or even the best way.  BOINC rotates between your projects automatically and you can change the interval over which BOINC will do this.  Have you checked your computing preferences on the website (under the 'Advanced' dropdown) to see what the current setting for "Switch between tasks every:" is set to?  I believe the default is 60 mins but you could change that if you so desired.  If other projects aren't getting a run, maybe you have it set to some much larger value?

You provide essentially no details about your setup or the nature of the problem.  One odd thing I noticed when looking at your host is that, whilst it is multi-core, you only allow BOINC to use a single thread.  Is that deliberate or is it perhaps a mis-configuration?

In looking at your tasks list, apart from the March 22 completed result there are 12 recent 'in-progress' (but no errors) tasks that all show a deadline less than normal.  That is unusual and I guessed that they must be 'lost' tasks.  If the scheduler notices that tasks that have already been allocated to your machine are missing, it will resend them to you as 'lost tasks' but with an adjusted deadline to account for the time that has elapsed from the original issue point.  This is one of the downsides of resetting the project when it's not really necessary.

When 'lost tasks' are resent, it happens in batches of 12.  This is exactly what you have - a batch of 12.  The most recent scheduler contact with your host shows that batch of 12 being resent to your host.  You can easily check this for yourself by looking at your computers list on the website and clicking on the "Last contact" link in the far right hand column.  The next time your host contacts the project, you might get another batch of lost tasks if there were more than 12 when you reset the project.

MumpsGuy wrote:
Any thoughts on what the issue is?

Without much more information from you, it's impossible to say.  It could be some sort of mis-configuration with your setup and you could try having a careful look at the startup messages in your event log when BOINC is restarted.  If you don't know what to look for, you could try posting a copy of those startup messages for others to peruse.

You could certainly give a better description of what you mean by, "... they begin to run but 2 or 3 minutes later they restart."  In BOINC manager (Advanced view), you could look (on the tasks tab) at the running task immediately it starts.  Note the values for 'Progress' and 'Elapsed'  over a period.  At this time BOINC is using 'simulated' progress which may be quite wrong if the estimate for total run time that BOINC is using is way off.

When the first checkpoint is written, BOINC will have a much better estimate and the 'Progress' value could easily be drastically adjusted so as to look like crunching was restarting.

This may be nothing to do with your problem but unless you monitor a task for much longer than 2-3 mins and fully describe what you see, nobody can say for sure.

As far as I'm aware, there are no problems of this nature with other users so it's very likely to be something that only you can resolve for your setup.  Did you make any particular changes to your system in the period before the problem first appeared?

Cheers,
Gary.

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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mikey wrote:Your pc only has

mikey wrote:
Your pc only has 2gb of ram total ...

Good catch!  I hadn't seen your reply before posting mine.  Maybe the low RAM is why BOINC has been limited to using just one thread.

The system was previously able to crunch with that low amount of RAM.  There is plenty of credit and a recently completed valid task so it is possible, even if highly undesirable.  The strange thing is that for an i3-9100 CPU (I'm guessing that needs DDR4) I wouldn't have imagined you could easily get those modules with only 2GB total capacity??   Could it be a mis-reporting by BOINC?

If the RAM is really only 2GB, it probably opens up the real reason for the problem suddenly appearing.  His OS looks quite recent.  Maybe it's just been updated recently and is now using more RAM than before?  I've asked about recent changes.  If there was an OS update, that would be the likely cause.

Cheers,
Gary.

mikey
mikey
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 11889
Credit: 1828193831
RAC: 203141

Gary Roberts wrote: mikey

Gary Roberts wrote:

mikey wrote:
Your pc only has 2gb of ram total ...

Good catch!  I hadn't seen your reply before posting mine.  Maybe the low RAM is why BOINC has been limited to using just one thread.

The system was previously able to crunch with that low amount of RAM.  There is plenty of credit and a recently completed valid task so it is possible, even if highly undesirable.  The strange thing is that for an i3-9100 CPU (I'm guessing that needs DDR4) I wouldn't have imagined you could easily get those modules with only 2GB total capacity??   Could it be a mis-reporting by BOINC?

If the RAM is really only 2GB, it probably opens up the real reason for the problem suddenly appearing.  His OS looks quite recent.  Maybe it's just been updated recently and is now using more RAM than before?  I've asked about recent changes.  If there was an OS update, that would be the likely cause.

I thought of maybe a Vbox running Windows too because yes that is very low to run Windows in.

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