[Mr Zippy]

I am getting zero credit for many results with optimzed SETI 4.13 g4 and worker 4.30.

Example:

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/work...p?wuid=3587479

I am 181026.

See all my results http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/resu...?hostid=181026

Is this normal?

Neil

[davygravy]

Not normal, Zippy, certainly not normal.

I had a similar experience using the optimized 4.11 client, but once I went back to the regular standard-issue Boinc client, the problem went away. I experienced it on three machines (three out of four!), and now that I have switch back to the regular standard-issue Boinc client, my Average Daily Credit has jumped back up to where it should be. WIth the optimized client, I was getting about a 90 to 95% failure rate - _I don't care How Fast the optimized client is_ , it just wasn't producing credits for me.

You can read this old thread to see my experiences...

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=231933


Well, I am switching to the 4.13 optimized client to see how things go just in the hope that it will work better than the 4.11 optimized client. It takes 3 or 4 days to see a clear trend and see whether it really is working well. I'll post back to let know how it went.

davygravy

[Mr Zippy]

I am now testing G4 Optimzed SETI 4.13 with the auto downloaded SETI worker 4.02 which automatically downloaded last night (even though SETI site lists newer version 4.07)

My though, it is the manually coded Altivec code in the 4.30 worker that is the issue?

No point in being fast, but not accurate.

[davygravy]

Originally posted by Mr Zippy:
I am now testing G4 Optimzed SETI 4.13 with the auto downloaded SETI worker 4.02 which automatically downloaded last night (even though SETI site lists newer version 4.07)

My though, it is the manually coded Altivec code in the 4.30 worker that is the issue?

No point in being fast, but not accurate.

What I've seen points to the Altivec 4.30 worker being just fine (I have two machines running it just fine), but some problems with the optimized (both G3 and G4 optimized) versions 4.06 and 4.11 of the Boinc client (not the worker,but rather the client that controls the worker, talks w/ server, benchmarks your host, etc.). Some folks report it working just fine for them, but I and others have had problems w/ lots of invalid results. It could just be our machines - but I don't think so. It is important to point out that these versions reportedly work just fine for some folks, and we owe a debt of gratitude for those team members that put time into getting these optimized versions together for hte rest of us. I don't want anything I say to sound critical of their efforrts.


Again, I think the Altivec 4.30 worker is just fine, but the 4.06 and 4.11 client didn't work well for me. I am now testing the G4 optimized 4.13 client, and will post back results in 2 or 3 days.


BTW, version 4.07 of the seti worker is not yet available for Mac OS X. Only for Windows. Hopefully 4.07 worker for OS X will follow soon.

davygravy

[Mr Zippy]

The zero credits are also from the optimzed G4 4.13 client.

I have just found the result errors on the SETI site:

<core_client_version>4.13</core_client_version>
<stderr_txt>
No heartbeat from core client - exiting
SETI@Home Informational message -9 result_overflow
NOTE: The number of results detected exceeds the storage space allocated.

</stderr_txt>

All give the above error, see URL example:

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/resu...ultid=14477432

[mikkyo]

Well there is one clue:
The number of results detected exceeds the storage space allocated.

Not enough room on hard disk based on the restrictions set in the prefs and imposed by the boinc client.
I think when running a customized worker, a lot more results are being generated than when using the generic worker.
What are you space settings on that machine?
You can check how your prefs are set on your seti web page.
What are your
Use no more than
Leave at least
Use no more than
% of total space
Use no more than
% of total virtual memory
settings?

[Mr Zippy]

Use no more than - 100 GB
Leave at least - 0.1 GB
Use no more than % of total space - 50%
Use no more than % of total virtual memory - 75%


Just looked I only have 7 GB left on my boot drive.

I have 1536mb memory total.

I have just freed up boot volume up to 37 GB free.

I am currently running SETI non optimised client and worker for now.

Let me know if you think this was due to lack for hard drive space.

I have 300 GB over 3 hard drives, with around 150 GB space in total, maybe I need to get SETI to use another volume and consolidate my free space.

[mikkyo]

I think a lot of folks mis-configure their prefs due to the odd way boinc has it set up.
For instance, sayd you have a 150GB driver.
Use no more than - 100 GB
Space available to boinc -100GB
Leave at least - 0.1 GB
Boinc will run until there is 100MB left free on the hard disk.
Use no more than % of total space - 50%
150GB * .5 = 75GB - this is less than the space you gave to boinc in the first setting.
I'm not sure how boinc handles the total either, I need to dig through the source code, but I think it doesn't stat its files, but simple looks for 75GB free on the disk and then shuts down. This is the setting that is highly suspect for causing trouble.
Use no more than % of total virtual memory - 75%
I think macs have 2GB of VM always, regardless of RAM. This one shouldn't be an issue, but if boinc is looking at something incorrectly it could be. I've seen high numbers in this setting cause everything to fail too. More code poking needed.

I recommend:
Use no more than - 1000 GB
Use everything even if I don't have it as we are using another setting to control what is really used.
Leave at least - 0.3GB
Less than 250Mb or so free can easily result in a full disk if you are running other applications and a full disk can wipe your prefs, so we never want to go there.
Use no more than % of total space - 100%
Use it all, cause it will stop if we hit 300MB left.
Use no more than % of total virtual memory - 0%
For some reason 0 works, or maybe all my machines have enough RAM to never go into VM space.

If you play with these settings, I recommend changing only one at a time to see what the effect is across all your machines.
It can help to change all the disk space ones to basically use everything except that last little few hundred MB and use it to control space use.
The only reason the other settings must exist is on quota limited systems where you can use no more than 200MB or get warning emails from the sysadmin, ie not most users.
I wouldn't be surprised if the prefs screw up more clients then they help.

[Knightrider]

I have everything set to 75% (including virtual RAM). Make sure that the default and any other prefs you use i.e home.work etc are all set the same and if you multi project set the others to the same also.

I have noticed that I get zero results on the first few wu's if I detach/attach but that it settles down after a short time.

btw - I think the long term aim is to transfer a lot of the prefs settings to the boinc gui.

K.