And the researchers are well aware that these models take a long time to run.
This "BOINC stuff" is only a small part of the research, more "a special treat", rather than "the main course(s)".

or I get a year's worth of work in one delivery and must abort almost all of it.

I have never received close to even six months of work even when work cache set to maximum.

"Preferences for this project" page to allow the BOINCer to specify how many WUs of which project they'd like to download and maintain on their computer.

In the past, CPDN used to allow users to specify which types of task they could receive, N216, N144 etc though this was before those particular types of task made it onto the drawing board but you get what I mean. I and at least one or two of the other moderators would like this but we have been told it isn't going to be changed, at least in the short term.

I assume, I have never had some of the scheduling problems you have because I only run projects other than CPDN when there is no work available here.

Windows tasks all get snapped up within a couple of days of appearing or even less, so on that front the only way more work can be done is for more scientists who want to do the areas of research that is suited to that task type.

Then if it's at all possible make the checkpoints closer together.

In the computing preferences menu item in "Options" there is a box :-checkpoint at most every.... seconds".

What improvements do you have in mind?

This project could easily do ten or twenty times as much work if they'd just make some improvements.

Only if it had ten or twenty times as many researchers asking Oxford to send work out for them.

Ok. This project could easily do ten or twenty times as much work per unit time if they'd just make some improvements.

The main problem with that is not owning the source code - they’re not allowed to make changes to most of it.

This project could easily do ten or twenty times as much work if they'd just make some improvements.

Only if it had ten or twenty times as many researchers asking Oxford to send work out for them.

I was trained in Physics at 'the other place' - the Cavendish Laboratory in fenland. I well remember two bits of advice that they drilled into me:
1) A number is useless unless the units are specified (watch out for those binary/decimal definitions of a megabyte).
2) Do every calculation twice. Once, to the highest precision the available hardware (a slide rule, in my day) is capable of. And again, on the back of an envelope or beer mat, to order-of-magnitude accuracy only. Catches those wayward decimal points.

<max_file_xfers_per_project>1</max_file_xfers_per_project>

The trick with these is to stagger the completion times.
Suspend all but one, give it an hours head start, Resume one and wait another hour, and so on.
That way all of the files won't get bunched up waiting for a turn to upload.

And make sure that nothing else wants to use your net connection at an upload time.

Output file hadam4h_h02w_200802_4_920_012115322_0_r75796790_4.zip for task hadam4h_h02w_200802_4_920_012115322_0 exceeds size limit.

<max_file_xfers>32</max_file_xfers>
<max_file_xfers_per_project>32</max_file_xfers_per_project>

Check the batch number. If it's closed, then that's the reason.

Check the batch number. If it's closed, then that's the reason.

It's a mystery to me how they ever finish a project.

They know how many of a batch will come back in a reasonable time and send out a number of work units that will bring back that many results. Sometimes if a batch is pushing the physics to the limits and consequently gets a higher failure rate than allowed for they will send out some extras.

As a side issue, if you’re running 17 CPDN WUs at a time, 63 WUs reserve is over a month’s worth. Any particular reason for holding that many?