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Backoff timers, how long is the minimum wait period?

Backoff timers, how long is the minimum wait period?

Message boards : Number crunching : Backoff timers, how long is the minimum wait period?
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Nuadormrac
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Message 42396 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 2:59:34 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jun 2011, 3:01:08 UTC

I have recently moved, and have absolutely no Internet at home (can't even get dialup). As a result I might be in a situation where there could be weeks between the time I can get back on the Internet, and I can't necessarily be up for hours.

As such, far from always on, this box now has to be never (or almost never) on unless/until some stuff gets sorted out. I went to update this project (due to the long WU size and deadlines), but as BOINC was supsended to get on something which was CPU intensive and this laptop doesn't have the compute power to run BOINC and the other stuff, without some computer latency issues, and it got no results. Wanting to rectify this, how long does one have to wait to be able to get work?

There's only a WU for one core, and when I go off, which will have to be soon, I'm likely to not be able to bring this computer back online for a week or more. There simply is no connection I can get ready access to, even at a driving distance, on a regular basis atm. BOINC wants to backoff for hours, but at 11 pm, I can't remain at someone elses house hours past that. It's just, not reasonable when one has to bum off someone elses Internet to get a box on when one's out of service and can't resolve their own Internet possibly within a month or so.
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Message 42397 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 3:30:36 UTC

Current CPDN work, if you are lucky enough to grab a task, has tens of megabytes of download files. Then, especially on a laptop, it will run for a long time -- and the scientists want these results as soon as possible.

For what it's worth, I'm not trying to get any for my laptop, only for my quads.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.
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Les Bayliss
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Message 42398 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 3:59:35 UTC

I agree with Astro on this. For several weeks the project has been rebuilding lots of thing, and currently only has a few long models. These are 40 years long, and are going to take about 40 days on my fast quads.

Because of lack of work, all the computers have been hammering the servers looking for work, causing download failures for what is available. And now that there's a small amount of work, the back off interval has been set to about one hour. Also, lots of files to download, some big, and a big upload at the end.

Best to try one of the other projects for a few months.


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Les Bayliss
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Message 42399 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 4:10:52 UTC

PS

Credits haven't been granted for weeks, due to ongoing problems, and it may be weeks more before they are again.
So not the place to be for them at present.


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Message 42400 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 4:53:24 UTC

You can override the backoff and try immediately again for a download by highlighting climateprediction in the Projects tab of Boinc manager and pressing the Update button. But before you try that please check the server status page (it's in the menu on the left) to see whether there are tasks for download.

If necessary you'll have to join another project or two in addition to CPDN if you can't get enough work atm.

Do you already know which other projects have long completion deadlines (what would be the ideal minimum? two weeks? a month?) or would you like other crunchers here to make suggestions?

Hope you're enjoying living in such splendid isolation.
Cpdn news
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Les Bayliss
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Message 42401 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 5:31:56 UTC - in response to Message 42400.  

... try immediately again for a download by highlighting climateprediction in the Projects tab of Boinc manager and pressing the Update button


If you try that, you get the message:
11/06/2011 1:25:50 AM|climateprediction.net|Message from server: Not sending work - last request too recent: 2862 sec

Which as you can see resets the timer to 47.7 minutes.


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Message 42402 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 5:35:50 UTC - in response to Message 42400.  
Last modified: 11 Jun 2011, 5:36:44 UTC

You can override the backoff and try immediately again for a download by highlighting climateprediction in the Projects tab of Boinc manager and pressing the Update button.

Not so, Mo. Unfortunately. That used to be true but all it gets now is an additional hour (and 33 seconds) backoff. Maddening!

My guess is that the purpose is to forestall dodgy machines sucking up the small number of high-priority tasks. Understandable, but frustrating nonetheless.

Edit: Beat me again, Les!
"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.
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Les Bayliss
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Message 42403 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 8:35:19 UTC

Another good reason not to try and get one: It looks like there's a problem with them. :(


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Message 42404 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 9:59:38 UTC - in response to Message 42403.  

Though the ones that have failed on me have all failed after restarting boinc even when I have suspended computation and closed boinc down first. Also they have been hours rather than minutes which has been reported by some.
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Message 42405 - Posted: 11 Jun 2011, 12:16:11 UTC - in response to Message 42404.  
Last modified: 11 Jun 2011, 12:33:07 UTC

This is a new problem, with a failure at about 13 hours.
It's been reported, and we're waiting for word from the project. Then I'll post a News item.
I posted about it here to stop the OP from wasting his time, in view of his connection problems.

edit
I've decided to make a temporary News post and to lock this thread for a while to stop it being hijacked.
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Message 42419 - Posted: 14 Jun 2011, 21:11:32 UTC - in response to Message 42402.  

Actually, I did get the error Les Bayles was reporting one would get. But of course that brought up the question on the minimum wait to avoid the "last request too recent error".

Now in my case, the size or number of files has not been an issue, at broadband is involved, not dialup, but well a little explanation would help. I had recently moved, and for various reasons was unable to get Internet hooked straight up at my new place. Things are in the process of being resolved; but during that period was getting online from work. This would be useing the standard ethernet over an organization's external pipe to the Internet.

However, some questions came up about using the Internet for some outside useage between tasks (which have been hours between, with not really much to do). The immediate boss didn't want to say, without getting a final answer from above, so it went to meetings. And then, I was offline, till I could get on elsewhere. Matters have been resolved, the meetings have been had, etc, so I won't be off for the extended periods it was looking, though I'll only be on several hours 5 days a week.

Needless to say, given not every PC one might crunch with will always be online 24/7; this is of course useful info. For instance if one has permission to crunch on their work PC, and even leaving it running over the weekend, if it has to be isolated till Monday morning from Internet access, or whatever might come up, it could help people address their queues for machines that might be cut off for a bit; when physically, they simply won't be able to get the box back on "latter in the day"....

In anycase, thanks for the replies
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Message boards : Number crunching : Backoff timers, how long is the minimum wait period?

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