how to skip over some WU in BOINC v4.19?
25 Mar 2005 14:18:36 UTC
Topic 188731
(moderation:
hi,
I have ended up with more WU than I can process before the deadline. I now know how to avoid doing this again, but have been left with the one off problem of how to tell my client not to waste time doing work which will not finish before it times out.
I am using BOINC version 4.19 - I figured I could detach and re-attach, but is there a more elegant way to make the client ignore the work in its current queue, please?
~~~gravywavy
PS
By the way, before adjusting the general prefs to tell BOINC to connect every xx days, be warned that it seems to make the client download more work units than you'd expect for the time you set. Increase it maybe 0.25 or 0.5 at a time and see how many WU you actually get for each increase, don't increase it all in one go or you might end up with 9 days work to finish in a week, like I did... :-(
~~gravywavy
how to skip over some WU in BOINC v4.19?
)
> hi,
>
> I have ended up with more WU than I can process before the deadline. I now
> know how to avoid doing this again, but have been left with the one off
> problem of how to tell my client not to waste time doing work which will not
> finish before it times out.
>
> I am using BOINC version 4.19 - I figured I could detach and re-attach, but
> is there a more elegant way to make the client ignore the work in its current
> queue, please?
You should upgrade to Version 4.25 - there you can just stop those WUs.
To do so, stop your client, deinstall Boinc 4.19, install 4.25 in just the same directory - you could also use the opportunity to move it to another place (copy it, install into new directory).
No work will be lost, did it several times already.
May be it is possible to stop computation of individual wus in 4.19 also, try rightclick on the WU.
> PS
> By the way, before adjusting the general prefs to tell BOINC to connect every
> xx days, be warned that it seems to make the client download more work units
> than you'd expect for the time you set. Increase it maybe 0.25 or 0.5 at a
> time and see how many WU you actually get for each increase, don't increase
> it all in one go or you might end up with 9 days work to finish in a week,
> like I did... :-(
this seems to be a very common problem theses days.
Don't worry, be happy ;)
> By the way, before
)
> By the way, before adjusting the general prefs to tell BOINC to connect every
> xx days, be warned that it seems to make the client download more work units
> than you'd expect for the time you set. Increase it maybe 0.25 or 0.5 at a
> time and see how many WU you actually get for each increase, don't increase
> it all in one go or you might end up with 9 days work to finish in a week,
> like I did... :-(
Are you sure you have 9 workunits on the 697MHz box? It says so on the website but does it also say you have 9 if you look at the work tab on the Boinc GUI? Actually it looks like you might have some phantom workunits and if so, you wont have a deadline problem if you keep crunching 24/7 until the cache is depleted.
Cheers,
Gary.
> > Are you sure you have 9
)
>
> Are you sure you have 9 workunits on the 697MHz box? It says so on the
> website but does it also say you have 9 if you look at the work tab on the
> Boinc GUI? Actually it looks like you might have some phantom workunits and
> if so, you wont have a deadline problem if you keep crunching 24/7 until the
> cache is depleted.
>
No, I don't have as quite many as it says on the website, but I still have a problem on both my boxes, one box has 4.5 days to process 5 WU, and at just over 24hrs/WU will run out of time during the last WU.
The other box is worse, with a predicted 3 WU that will finish late, on the basis again of past performance
~~gravywavy
> You should upgrade to
)
> You should upgrade to Version 4.25 - there you can just stop those WUs.
no thanks, other threads say 4.25 fights with the firefox (browser) which I use all the time, and I can't afford to spend time introducing known problems to a working box.
Ive tried right clicking on the WU in the Work tab on 4.19, and it does not offer a stop facility. Might it be somewhere else in the user interface?
Or is there an elegant workaround, within 4.19 ?
~~gravywavy
> Or is there an elegant
)
> Or is there an elegant workaround, within 4.19 ?
There really is no elegant workaround with 4.19. You don't have to go as far as detatch and reattach, though, as a project reset is really what you want. A project reset simply clears out everything at the local level and starts it all over, but it leaves your data and connection to the project intact (i.e. it won't create a new host id in your account).
You can adjust your preferences in your account to prevent any new work from downloading (take away its available disk space and it won't download anything new), then when it reaches the point that it won't finish its next work unit do a project reset to clear out what remains. After that, turn your disk space back up in your preferences and do a project update and it will get new work.
The end result will be that you've only wiped out the work you couldn't finish anyway and still kept your host info intact - just requires a bit of babysitting until it gets it all done.
> [snip] a project reset is
)
> [snip] a project reset is really what you want.
Thanks Darren, that is exactly what I was looking for and hadn't spotted that option.
~~gravywavy
> No, I don't have as quite
)
> No, I don't have as quite many as it says on the website,
I thought this was the case. If you want to save some credits out of this, before you do the project reset please do an "update" to lodge your claim for credit for any work completed but not reported. Since you have reduced your cache, it would seem likely that you will have completed work that hasn't been reported.
Once you have done the "update" on both boxes please come back here and tell us how many "real" work units you have left on each box according to the GUI. There are things you can look at to see if you might be given some leeway on the deadline. It might be worthwhile to do this before you ditch the lot.
> but I still have a
> problem on both my boxes, one box has 4.5 days to process 5 WU, and at just
> over 24hrs/WU will run out of time during the last WU.
>
> The other box is worse, with a predicted 3 WU that will finish late, on the
> basis again of past performance
From looking at your results lists, the above may not be quite as bad as you think. Do the "update" and let us know how much real work is left. Before doing the update make sure your connect to network interval is low - 0.1 would be good for the moment.
Cheers,
Gary.
> no thanks, other threads
)
> no thanks, other threads say 4.25 fights with the firefox (browser) which I
> use all the time, and I can't afford to spend time introducing known problems
> to a working box.
I use Firefox and it has no problems with 4.25.
> Once you have done the
)
> Once you have done the "update" on both boxes please come back here and tell
> us how many "real" work units you have left on each box according to the GUI.
> There are things you can look at to see if you might be given some leeway on
> the deadline. It might be worthwhile to do this before you ditch the lot.
> From looking at your results lists, the above may not be quite as bad as you
> think. Do the "update" and let us know how much real work is left.
Thanks for the thought Gary: the figures I gave before *were* the real work, as calculated just after an update, for exaclty the reasons you gave. And on one machine Ive already ditched the remaining WUs yesterday, just after it delivered the last WU that was going to arrive in time.
> Before
> doing the update make sure your connect to network interval is low - 0.1 would
> be good for the moment.
I agree 0.1 is good for people who don't need/want to keep work in hand, and would have been a good idea before I did those updates. It is not a viable option for my longterm settings as I need to keep work in hand to cover for the fact that these boxes are on a LAN with a very dodgy connection to the internet proper.
~~gravywavy
> > other threads say 4.25
)
> > other threads say 4.25 fights with the firefox (browser)
> I use Firefox and it has no problems with 4.25.
hi Heffed,
Thanks for your reassurance. I'm glad your Firefox is happy to live with 4.25. I guess many/most people find the same or there would be a lot more complaints. But there *are* reported problems (see for example http://einsteinathome.org/node/188638 )
Who knows why it works ok for you, but not for the other guy? I certainly don't! And I don't have time to find out, especially not when I fear I might find out the hard way... and not when Darren has supplied a reasonable workaround, which to me seems the safer option.
~~
~~gravywavy