Invalid global preferences problem

Zalster
Zalster
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I still get this

I still get this message. 

As long as my system crunches and I get no errors on the work units,   I ignored this message. 

SMTB1963
Joined: 3 Dec 17
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Hello I received this message

Hello I received this message this morning:

"2/8/2018 8:56:05 AM | Einstein@Home | Invalid global preferences supplied, please check https://einsteinathome.org/community/forum/19 on how to fix that."

I am running BOINC Manager 7.83 (x64).  I have never received that message before; the only thing I changed recently was the project resource share.

 

Cheers!

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Magiceye04
Magiceye04
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Hello, i have seen this

Hello,

i have seen this message often in the past, but the link to the forum didnt help, maybe the thread #19 does not exist any more?

Because everything runs fine in the past, i gnored the message.

But since today the server does not send me new work - only this (for me) useless message.

Here the last 2 WUs were sent back - since then i got no new WUs.

Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:35 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[Reporting 2 completed tasks]]>
Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:35 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[Requesting new tasks for NVIDIA GPU]]>
Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:37 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks]]>
Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:37 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[Invalid global preferences supplied, please check https://einsteinathome.org/community/forum/19 on how to fix that.]]>
Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:37 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[No work sent]]>
Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:37 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[see scheduler log messages on https://einsteinathome.org/host/12523728/log]]>
Sa 02 Mär 2019 19:47:37 CET | Einstein@Home | <![CDATA[Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo) is not available for your type of computer.]]>

Or is this just a strange way to tell me, that the server has no WUs available for FGRPB1G at the moment? Then i suggest to write this clearly in the messages.

And i also would prefer an linking between the 2 different names of the project. FGRPB1G might be Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GPU) ? or is it Gamma-ray pulsar binary search #1 (GPU) ?

So please write the short names in brackets after the long names - they are hardly to match.

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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MagicEye wrote:... since

MagicEye wrote:
... since today the server does not send me new work - only this (for me) useless message.

Why would you think that a benign information message you have been seeing for years would be the cause of your current lack of work?  There is an existing report in the correct forum that explains the current lack of work.  It's nothing to do with this very old technical news item.

The information message is certainly not 'useless'.  It's there to remind you that you should do something about it.  If you read this thread, you will see that Christian Beer and Richard Haselgrove did a lot of investigation and Richard was able to demonstrate what the problem really was - a bug in the BOINC server code.  Christian went back and updated the opening post to include information about what to do.  It also says there that:-

Quote:
... I adjusted our scheduler to ignore such invalid preferences ...

so this means that the scheduler will work around the problem and continue to send you work anyway, even if you choose to ignore the message.  This is exactly what you have experienced for quite a while now so this message really has nothing to do with the project being out of work.  By checking the server status page, you would see zero tasks ready to send for FGRPB1G and that's why you (and everybody else) can't get work.

MagicEye wrote:
Or is this just a strange way to tell me, that the server has no WUs available for FGRPB1G at the moment? Then i suggest to write this clearly in the messages.

If you want to stop the 'useless messages' I suggest you do something about the real problem.  A quick thing to do would be to stop BOINC and check for yourself for the missing </venue> tag as documented in the discussion earlier in this thread between Christian and Richard.  Just navigate to the BOINC data directory and find the file called global_prefs.xml. Open the file with a plain text editor and read through the contents, noting the various preference blocks for "home", "work", "school", etc.

Each block will start with an opening tag, like <venue name="home"> and will end after all the preference settings with the end tag </venue>.  Can you find where one of these end tags is missing?  If you can, you could just edit the file to add the missing tag.  Use a 'correct' block as an example of exactly what to add.  You could then save the file, making sure it gets saved exactly as global_prefs.xml and doesn't inadvertently get an extra .txt added at the end of the name.

I've never had these warnings so I can't guarantee this will be a permanent fix.  It shouldn't do any harm and it may well be permanent.  If not, go though this thread carefully for other approaches you could take.

MagicEye wrote:

And i also would prefer an linking between the 2 different names of the project. FGRPB1G might be Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GPU) ? or is it Gamma-ray pulsar binary search #1 (GPU) ?

So please write the short names in brackets after the long names - they are hardly to match.

FGRP stands for "Fermi Gamma-Ray Pulsar".  FGRP5 stands for "Fermi Gamma-Ray Pulsar search #5" which is for running on CPUs.  FGRPB1G stands for "Fermi Gamma-Ray Pulsar Binary seach #1 on GPUs".  If you consult the applications page you will see the full names of the searches as centralised headings for each block of applications and in the 'plan_class' section of the app name you will see the abbreviations (like FGRP) being used.

The key thing to understand is that there are two distinct categories of pulsars being searched for - ones that emit gamma-rays (GRP=Gamma-Ray Pulsar) and the others that emit in the radio part of the spectrum (BRP=Binary Radio Pulsar).  The gamma-ray data comes from NASA's Fermi satellite (hence FGRP - Fermi Gamma-Ray Pulsar) and the radio data comes from ground based radio telescopes like Arecibo and Parkes.  The radio searches are particularly interested in pulsars in binary configurations - hence the abbreviation BRP4G which stands for "Binary Radio Pulsar search #4 on GPUs".

For more information, try looking under science -> Data Analyses.  There is also other information to explore under that 'science' menu item.

 

Cheers,
Gary.

Tim B
Tim B
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One of my three crunchers

One of my three crunchers seems to be affected . I don't know . is there a fix for this issue .no wu s coming through .

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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Tim B wrote:One of my three

Tim B wrote:
One of my three crunchers seems to be affected . I don't know . is there a fix for this issue .no wu s coming through .

Hi Tim,

Your computers list shows 4 machines.  Two have no tasks at all and no evidence of any recent work.  One has 56 tasks received yesterday with none processed so far.  The final one has lots of tasks with 1050 in progress, 510 valid and 474 error.  The error tasks all appear to be ones that were not returned by the deadline.  It's not clear which machine is the particular one you're talking about.

Are you sure you're seeing the message about invalid global preferences that this thread is concerned with?  An example was shown in the opening post.  If so, can you please list the host ID for the particular machine and post a snip from the event log to show the message plus some context for people to look at.  In this case, you need to read through the discussion about this issue and try the things suggested in messages by Christian Beer and Richard Haselgrove.  Have you had a look inside the global_prefs.xml file to see if there is indeed a missing </venue> tag?

If you're not seeing a reference to invalid global preferences, please start a new thread (in the Problems and Bug Reports section and not Technical News) and give as much detail as possible about exactly which machine and the messages you do see that are causing you concern?

 

Cheers,
Gary.

[AF>Le_Pommier] Jerome_C2005
[AF>Le_Pommier]...
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Hi I got the invalid

Hi

I got the invalid preference error (for the first time I think) using boinc 7.14.2.

I did the update preference technique described in the first post, I think it worked.

But this is a very old thread : I did not read all the pages after the first post, but I was understanding this was going to be fixed in a definitive way ?

Strange.

Thanks

 

Bill F
Bill F
Joined: 24 Dec 05
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Ok for me a different

Ok for me a different resolution and perhaps the error message was a red herring.  I found in my Account Preferences for the Project an unused "Home" profile that dated back years ago when I ran separate Work and Home preferences.  Over the years Einstein had made changes to their profile rules and the way I had the "Home" profile was invalid.  I deleted the unused Home profile and the Event Log error on my BOINC client disappeared.

 

Thank you to those who helped

 

Bill F

 

Dallas TX

In October of 1969 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
There was no expiration date.

Frank
Frank
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I just saw this on my laptop

I just saw this on my laptop recently:

 

2022-05-10 12:44:53.4369 [PID=21345]   Request: [USER#xxxxx] [HOST#12825890] [IP xxx.xxx.xxx.29] client 7.16.21
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4727 [PID=21345] [debug]   [HOST#12825890] Resetting nresults_today
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4727 [PID=21345] [debug]   have_master:1 have_working: 1 have_db: 1
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345] [debug]   using working prefs
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345] [debug]   have db 1; dbmod 1516077761.000000; global mod 1516077761.000000
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345]    [send] effective_ncpus 4 max_jobs_on_host_cpu 999999 max_jobs_on_host 999999
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345]    [send] effective_ngpus 2 max_jobs_on_host_gpu 999999
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345]    [send] Not using matchmaker scheduling; Not using EDF sim
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345]    [send] CPU: req 0.00 sec, 0.00 instances; est delay 0.00
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4728 [PID=21345]    [send] ATI: req 0.00 sec, 0.00 instances; est delay 0.00
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4729 [PID=21345]    [send] Intel GPU: req 0.00 sec, 0.00 instances; est delay 0.00
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4729 [PID=21345]    [send] work_req_seconds: 0.00 secs
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4729 [PID=21345]    [send] available disk 5.19 GB, work_buf_min 8640
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4729 [PID=21345]    [send] active_frac 0.328670 on_frac 0.636809 DCF 5.570814
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4758 [PID=21345] [debug]   [HOST#12825890] MSG(high) Invalid global preferences supplied, please check https://einsteinathome.org/community/forum/19 on how to fix that.
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4759 [PID=21345]    Sending reply to [HOST#12825890]: 0 results, delay req 60.00
2022-05-10 12:44:53.4760 [PID=21345]    Scheduler ran 0.043 seconds
Keith Myers
Keith Myers
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I would ignore the message. 

I would ignore the message.  You are using one of the debug modifiers for the Event Log and since Einstein uses very old and heavily modifed server software it does not align with the modern BOINC client releases in a lot of places.

Benign message and can be ignored.

 

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