Task validation

grn
grn
Joined: 6 Nov 14
Posts: 17
Credit: 30,339,583
RAC: 0
Topic 197878

I have a number of completed tasks pending validation (26 at last count) with completed submit dates ranging from 26th November till today. I was wondering if these tasks will eventually be validated and why it seems to take so long?

Most task completions do not seem to be added to the pending validation list or, if they do, are very quickly validated. Just curious as to what causes tasks to end up on the pending validation list.

Thanks

Pooh Bear 27
Pooh Bear 27
Joined: 20 Mar 05
Posts: 1,376
Credit: 20,312,671
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Task validation

Simply put, the wingperson you are assigned to.

Einstein has every task validated against a minimum of two people. Sometimes it takes more. Since there is a vast number of users, it's the luck of the draw of the wingperson you get. Ones that validate quickly are usually you were the second or later person to send back that task. The ones you wait for, you wait on someone else.

Different people crunch different ways. Some crunch part time, some crunch several different projects, some download large queues of work, so the time they crunch can be vast.

It's kind of like depositing a check. Some get validated immediately and you get access to the money right away. Some have to go through channels. Local checks may go faster, out of state longer, out of country even longer.

So sit back and just watch your credits grow and enjoy helping find all kinds of fun things in our universe.

archae86
archae86
Joined: 6 Dec 05
Posts: 3,157
Credit: 7,182,504,931
RAC: 771,796

For any given task on your

For any given task on your pending validation list, you can answer this question by clicking on the Workunit link.

Assuming all is well, the usual reason is that your current quorum partner has not yet reported their result--so it cannot be subjected to basic tests, and if passing those, compared to yours--with sufficient agreement yielding validation.

Reasons your quorum partner might be later than you like:

1. sometimes the system can take a while to find a suitable partner and send them work to go into their queue that happens to be your WU of interest.
2. sometimes your first quorum partner may not reply within the deadline (maybe they quit, or mismanaged their queue, or just went on vacation...). Which means your current quorum partner did not even receive the work until weeks after you did.
3. sometimes a quorum partner does not like some part of their work queue and aborts tasks. Again the second partner only gets the work in their queue after this event.
4. sometimes the first quorum partner returns work that does not pass basic sanity checks--only then does work get sent to the second.
5. sometimes your quorum partner may be one who intentionally keeps much more in-process work on hand than you do (big queue).

Other things

1. once in a great while the project discovers something amiss in the validation process and suspends validation for a little while (typically hours or a few days). Usually the scope of such a suspension is all work of a given type--so it is not then a source of the unit-to-unit inconsistency you mentioned.

2. sometimes both your and your quorum partner pass basic sanity checks, but don't agree closely enough to get an immediate validation pass. In that case, the work is sent to yet another quorum partner, which on return will be compared to see if there is a satisfactory match.

I'm sure there are others, but I think I've hit enough of the most common ones to give you a flavor.

Again, you can click along on your own work pending units and think about whether you see some of the cases I've cited. I think you will (hint: I looked at a few before writing).

grn
grn
Joined: 6 Nov 14
Posts: 17
Credit: 30,339,583
RAC: 0

Many thanks for both replies.

Many thanks for both replies. I was just curious as to the reasons why some validations seemed to take longer than others.

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