Posts by Nigel Garvey

1) Message boards : Number crunching : no credit awarded? (Message 68198) Posted 4 Feb 2023 by Nigel Garvey Post: Problems with files not downloading from download.cpdn.org have now been fixed so I'm told. Too late for the undownloadable task I aborted after my previous post. But as if it heard you, my Mac was working on another HadCM3 from a year ago this morning that it had successfully downloaded last night. It's uploaded three trickles so far and these — like the trickles for all three of the tasks it's completed recently — are not showing in the task page.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : no credit awarded? (Message 68188) Posted 2 Feb 2023 by Nigel Garvey Post: Downloading is subject to the usual vagaries of internet access at your location. There's no problem with Internet access here. Only with CPDN. I'm getting "Project communication failed" errors in the Event Log, so either the URL's dead or the server hosting it is. I think I'll ditch the task. Maybe even ditch this project altogether as there's very little work for Macs now and I'm not confident that the days of work spent on the previous three tasks have contributed anything to the research. Thanks, both, for your replies.
3) Message boards : Number crunching : no credit awarded? (Message 68181) Posted 2 Feb 2023 by Nigel Garvey Post: My Mac's completed and — after the server eventually accepted the trickles — reported three HadCM3 tasks in recent weeks. They're shown on the site as completed and valid, but the trickles aren't shown and no credit has been awarded. https://www.cpdn.org/result.php?resultid=22249638 https://www.cpdn.org/result.php?resultid=22293889 https://www.cpdn.org/result.php?resultid=22294323 I was assigned another such task a couple of days ago, but the server's yet to send (or finish sending) the files. https://www.cpdn.org/result.php?resultid=22304961
4) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 65416) Posted 5 May 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Well, for now, if you want to get something running, shut down your BOINC client (closing BOINC Manager should do it), head over to /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data, and something like this ought to help you (back up client_state.xml first). sed -i -e s/'https:\/\/download.cpdn'/'http:\/\/download.cpdn'/ client_state.xml Neat. If we get the same issue on Linux tasks I will remember that. Thank you hopefully the more savvy of our Mack users can use this while waiting for a fix from the project. The same command in the macOS Terminal would be some variation on: sed -e 's\|https://download.cpdn\|http://download.cpdn\|' -i '' 'client_state.xml' But as it's the project's problem, not mine, I'm more inclined to get on with other projects as usual rather than fool around with the actual file in "BOINC Data".
5) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Can climatprediction.net run on Apple Macintosh OSX v10.4.11 ? (Message 65149) Posted 12 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Four days ago, I wrote: I wrote: I've also just re-enabled CPDN on the MacBook Pro, which I haven't done up till now because the tasks are likely to take a week or more of continuous running on it and I've been reluctant to have it working so hard for so long at its age. I'm currently waiting to see if it manages to get any tasks and how it gets on with them. Yes. It received one today and seems happy with it so far. Estimated processor time: nine and a quarter days…. The task was still processing happily up until last night. It had returned five trickles and the sum of the elapsed and remaining times had reduced from nine and a quarter days to around eight and a half. But in order to give the cooling fan a rest (it's the second the machine's had), I suspended BOINC computation before going to bed last night and shut down the machine. On starting up it again this morning, the BOINC initialisation messages included the news that computation for the CPDN task had finished and that the remain output files were missing. Given the timing of events, it seems likely the task simply didn't like being interrupted. Since I'm not willing to have the replacement fan working that hard continuously for over a week, I've suspended that machine's CPDN work fetch again. https://www.cpdn.org/result.php?resultid=22192600 Meanwhile, one of the tasks on my iMac (which I hadn't shut down) also errored during the night, but this appears to be through natural causes. ("NEGATIVE PRESSURE VALUE CREATED.") https://www.cpdn.org/result.php?resultid=22192521
6) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Can climatprediction.net run on Apple Macintosh OSX v10.4.11 ? (Message 65123) Posted 8 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: I wrote: I've also just re-enabled CPDN on the MacBook Pro, which I haven't done up till now because the tasks are likely to take a week or more of continuous running on it and I've been reluctant to have it working so hard for so long at its age. I'm currently waiting to see if it manages to get any tasks and how it gets on with them. Yes. It received one today and seems happy with it so far. Estimated processor time: nine and a quarter days….
7) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 65120) Posted 8 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Jean-David Beyer wrote: … normal users. :-D
8) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Can climatprediction.net run on Apple Macintosh OSX v10.4.11 ? (Message 65115) Posted 8 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Les Bayliss wrote: Have you had this problem? Hi Les. I had to give up Einstein@home on my old PowerMac (Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) some years ago because Leopard could no longer handle the SSL connections to EAH's server(s). I've just tried connecting to my CPDN account page using the Safari on my now semi-redundant MacBook Pro (macOS 10.11 El Capitan) and was presented with a display saying "This Connection Is Not Private". Clicking the "Show Details" button in the display got me the explanation that the site's certificate was invalid — although of course it was that Safari's data that were out of date. There was a link at the end to visit the site anyway and after I clicked that, OK-ed an "Are you sure?" dialog, and entered my machine user password into a security dialog, Safari updated itself to accept the CPDN certificate and connected to my account page. I had to repeat the process to connect to CPDN's front page, but not to connect to the fora. If you already have BOINC installed on your MacBook Air, I think you should be able to attach to your existing CPDN account from BOINC Manager. But you'll probably need to follow the above procedure if you have to download BOINC in the first place! My iMac is comparatively young and it's just fortuitous that I chose not to upgrade it beyond Mojave because of other 32-bit software that I want to keep using for now. In view of the revelation that CPDN tasks can't run on later systems, I've temporarily suspended work fetch for my other BOINC projects in order to take up some of the slack. I've also just re-enabled CPDN on the MacBook Pro, which I haven't done up till now because the tasks are likely to take a week or more of continuous running on it and I've been reluctant to have it working so hard for so long at its age. I'm currently waiting to see if it manages to get any tasks and how it gets on with them.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 65110) Posted 7 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: But not as George has shown post Catalina. Not post Mojave actually. 32-bit support was dropped as from Catalina (macOS 10.15).
10) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Can climatprediction.net run on Apple Macintosh OSX v10.4.11 ? (Message 65104) Posted 7 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Well. I hope my Mac's not the only one here still running Mojave. It would take a while to get through the 2247 tasks still waiting to be sent! ;)
11) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Bad CPU type (Message 65086) Posted 6 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Richard Haselgrove wrote: Unfortunately, he tends to talk in terms of Mac OS X versions, which are are given different ID numbers from the Darwin numbers reported by BOINC. Just to point out that this is a peculiarity of BOINC rather than of Charlie. :) Darwin is just a part of macOS.
12) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Bad CPU type (Message 65083) Posted 6 Feb 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Dave Jackson wrote: As is often the case, once you know, the answer it is obvious! Duh! I was so close. The need to continue using a couple of old 32-bit applications is the very reason I haven't progressed my iMac beyond macOS Mojave. It just never occurred to me back in August that the CPDN executable was 32-bit only, since Macs have been able to run 64-bit software for some years. And I'd forgotten about this thread when I posted to the "New work Discussion" topic recently. Sorry. :\
13) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 64979) Posted 17 Jan 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: Dave Jackson wrote: It will be interesting to see if the batch which uses restarts from the successes of this batch has the lower failure rate the project are hoping for. I understand the theory that the initial conditions for the failing batches are thought to be a bit whacky but all too often I have seen a difference between theory and practice with some of these. My Mac looks set to complete the seventh of the seven tasks it's received from the current HadCM3 batch tomorrow. Five of the work units had previously failed on other computers and three of them on two others. The eight previous computers all have a history of failing HadCM3s. The work units in this batch only get three chances each, so if their third chances go to "bad" computers, presumably they'll be "weeded out" as bad units. This and the 11.5-month deadlines make me wonder what useful science is actually being done here. :\
14) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 64951) Posted 10 Jan 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: I wrote: my iMac … picked up two more yesterday, both of which had previously failed on other machines: one on another Mac after just one trickle; the other on two Linux systems almost instantly. Both of these later tasks have now been successfully completed and reported. Another, received this morning, which had previously failed immediately on both a Mac and a Linux system, is currently 13% done and has returned one trickle. So the failures aren't just due to bad work units. WU 12129231 WU 12129961 WU 12127970
15) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 64926) Posted 8 Jan 2022 by Nigel Garvey Post: FWIW, my iMac's just completed and reported two of the HadCM3s, which it received three days ago. It picked up two more yesterday, both of which had previously failed on other machines: one on another Mac after just one trickle; the other on two Linux systems almost instantly. As I write, both tasks have been running on my machine for 26 hours and have returned four and three trickles respectively. I've no idea why my iMac should be more successful with these than other machines. One thought is that when I joined this project nearly twelve years ago, I followed a tip that was linked to in the help pages at the time for quadrupling a Mac's shared memory allocation. But I don't know if it's relevant.
16) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Bad CPU type (Message 64285) Posted 8 Aug 2021 by Nigel Garvey Post: Hi. My own current Mac's so far completed every task it's received — although it's having difficulty downloading one as I write, no doubt because of the IT work in Oxford. Two of its tasks from the current batch have previously been failed with "Bad CPU type" errors on other Macs. And looking back through its previous tasks to November last year, three others have similarly failed with that error on macOS machines. I can't see any obvious reason why those other Macs should be throwing that error, but they do have a number of interesting things in common which are different from my own case: • All have coprocessors listed. • All are running Darwin 19.6.0. • Four of them are using BOINC 7.14.2, the fifth BOINC 7.12.0. • All have tended to download four tasks at a time. • Two of them successfully completed a couple of tasks in 2019, but have barfed everything since. My own Mac has no BOINC-usable coprocessors, runs Darwin 18.7.0 (macOS 10.14.6 Mojave) and BOINC 7.16.14, and only receives one CPDN task in any one download, although it may have two in progress at the same time. It's also configured with an increased shared memory, a hint I picked up when I first started crunching for CPDN eleven years ago. … none of which seems to have anything to do with a bad CPU types. :\ Mind you, the full error is "Bad CPU type in executable", so maybe the "executable" part's relevant. Another wild guess would be that it's something to do with macOS security settings.
17) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Computer types. (Message 63705) Posted 16 Mar 2021 by Nigel Garvey Post: This project has a blind spot for Macs? :) My iMac's completed and received credit for five HadCM3 shorts since November and is halfway through a sixth as I write. https://www.cpdn.org/results.php?hostid=1443916 They're the only Climateprediction.net tasks it's ever received. Before that, my old MacBook Pro received a couple of unfinishable tasks in April 2018 and before that there'd been none since September 2017. The project's been essentially dead on Macs for the past few years and I'd be surpised if there were many still attached to it. I've only kept my iMac requesting tasks all this time in the hope that it'll prevent my previous credit from being lost in the name of GDPR, as happened to a lot of people who hadn't been actively contributing for a while when the regulation was about to be introduced.
18) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : New work! (Message 62933) Posted 12 Nov 2020 by Nigel Garvey Post: My iMac picked up an HadCM3 short task today! Its first ever CPDN task and the first that either of my current machines has received from the project for two-and a-half years. (I've kept just one machine asking for work in the hope that it'll prevent my existing credit from being deleted in the name of GDPR.) The "Applications" page on the site shows the app as having been created a year and a day ago. Is that right? Or should it just be a day ago?
19) Message boards : Number crunching : Work Units for MacIntosh (Message 58910) Posted 24 Oct 2018 by Nigel Garvey Post: Art Masson wrote: I'm considering dropping the CPDN project on my Mac, since there has been no work unit developed or available for quite some time. Any insight appreciated. I've considered detaching from this project too, since no-one there seems capable of developing a Mac app that works. But I've been put off by CPDN's purge of no-long-active users a year or two back, which essentially disassociated them from their CPDN credit (eg. https://stats.free-dc.org/userdate/bcpdn/14734). At least having my Macs ask for tasks every now and then seems to be keeping them "active" in my account, which hopefully will protect it from similar purges in the future. The inconvenience to me and my computers is minimal. This shouldn't be an issue if you're also running other platforms on your account (as I see you are).
20) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit Status (Message 57326) Posted 6 Nov 2017 by Nigel Garvey Post: Since CPDN is from UK, they have to comply with UK law, and now, apparently the law mandates that they have to delete inactive accounts. It's a bit stupid, we aren't giving CPDN any crucial info. Given that this is the UK and that this is CPDN, it's more likely to be either the law being applied stupidly or the law being used as an excuse to cover something else such as freeing up server space or reducing the time spent updating credit. Two other projects for which I've crunched in the past have shut down altogether, but their participants' association with their credit hasn't been expunged from the BOINC record, as has apparently happened here: http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=userdate&proj=bcpdn&startdate=14734. (An additional, CPDN-specific cross-project identifier has been generated for every user deleted from CPDN, thus shifting the strain onto the stats sites' servers.) This was in the news thread last month: From Andy at CPDN staff: … Project credits from these accounts will be retained but will no longer be linked to an email address or username. What a useless statement! :D Current, active, volunteers, or those who have been active in the last three years, will not be affected by this policy. What does "current, active" mean, exactly? Will all the remaining Mac and Linux users' accounts be deleted too in three years' time if viable apps aren't produced for them by then? Or will we be able to hang on to our current credit simply by requesting tasks in vain for the rest of our lives?

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