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Posts by Steve Wenner

Posts by Steve Wenner

1) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46100)
Posted 29 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Belfry, I would think that it would not be difficult to distinguish between a model bug and a problem on the host. If the crash was caused by a bug, then when the model was started from a backup it would crash again at the same point; however, if the problem was a host glitch, then the program would sail merrily along past the previous fail point.

I see from Les's backup post that in 2006 Richard Rodway had an automatic backup utility. Has that panned out, or is there something more recent?
2) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46090)
Posted 28 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Sorry, I see that I have been habitually closing BOINC by hitting the "x", rather than shutting down properly. I guess I got in the habit of doing that because the "x" is the only way of closing my browser, Chrome.
3) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46089)
Posted 28 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Oh, I meant to ask one other question:

It would seem that the obvious solution to the problem of occasional model corruption (due to too hasty shutdowns, or whatever) would be for CPDN to make automatic periodic backups on the client computer, say, every day or so; then, when a model failed to load, the program could automatically retrieve from backup. I'm sure you guys must have thought of this. Why couldn't that work? It is really disappointing to run a big model for weeks, only to have it ultimately fail.
4) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46088)
Posted 28 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Thanks Les, I added both BOINC folders (both in Program Files and ProgramData) to my AV exceptions list. One question, when I exit BOINC Manager, does it also close down my running tasks? It doesn't seem to, since when I relaunch the manager the tasks seems to be running without any delay to scrounge stuff from disk.
5) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46081)
Posted 27 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Hi Mo, thanks for the suggestions.

I see that my other projects have finally given me tasks, after I deleted the old CPDN folders left over after crashes that were hogging my BOINC disk allocation.

On those crashes:

My computer is not over clocked.

I normally shut down my computer without bothering to close applications. Does this upset BOINC? If so, I will be careful to close BOINC in the future.

I have not excluded BOINC from AV scans. Should I do that?

I normally only update applications when I am absolutely forced to; I have been burned too many times by updates that ruined a perfectly good app version. But, I took your advice and updated BOINC - I didn't realize that I was running an alpha version! (Another rule I have is to never run alpha or beta versions of any software!).

Les, thanks for all the detailed instructions. I didn't want to make a career of running BOINC, but I see that if I want to have some fun running multiple projects then I need to get a little more familiar with how things work. One thing that seemed to confuse me was the difference between BOINC preference settings and Project (e.g., CPDN) settings - it seems like both are accessible from the CPDN page. Anyway, I think you have given me enough info to sort it out. Thanks again - I appreciate your dedication.

One suggestion: I notice that other projects send me notices when my disk allocation is insufficient (which happened because CPDN was hogging 13GB with orphan tasks!). Why can't CPDN suspend processing and send a notice when disk allocation is running low?
6) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46066)
Posted 27 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Nevermind. I found the BOINC data folder.
7) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46065)
Posted 27 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Also, is there a way I can limit the space allowed to CPDN, to make room for tasks from other BOINC projects? Or, are we only able to set the disk allotment for all BOINC projects in aggregate?
8) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46064)
Posted 27 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Thanks Les. But, where is the climateprediction.net folder? Sorry that I'm not more familiar with my folder structure. By the way, I have blocked new hadcm3n tasks as per advice in another thread, because they almost always crash on my (very beefy) computer after running for a very long time!
9) Questions and Answers : Preferences : CPDN hogging disk (Message 46060)
Posted 27 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
In preferences I set the max disk space to 4GB several weeks ago, but the BOINC Manager shows CPDN is taking 13GB.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45941)
Posted 16 Apr 2013 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Hi, I'm a committed participant, usually running 6 CPDN tasks simultaneously, but I rarely check my account. I just noticed that of the 16 tasks that ended in the last eight months, only one completed. All the others stopped with "Error While Computing" or "Error While Downloading". What gives? Should I bail out of CPDN? I hate to think that I am accomplishing nothing with my CPU cycles because of these errors. Anything I can do?
Thanks,
Steve
11) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44486)
Posted 29 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Les, thanks for the link to your other board (not sure I understand why there are two boards). Anyway, I gave my two-bits on the suggestion thread. Now I can annoy moderators on both boards!
12) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44480)
Posted 28 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
AstroWX, Les,

Thanks for your replies, and I apologize if I've been a pain. By way of explanation, I volunteered for climateprediction several years ago, but it seemed like BOINC was crashing my computer; so, I had to bail until I eventually bought a new computer with plenty of horsepower. Now I've being running BOINC on 6 of my 8 CPUs (actually, quad core double threaded with 16 GB of memory) with absolutely no problems! But, having been away for so long, I really do feel like a novice; so, your patient explanations have been helpful.

Obviously, if I am the only one to have ever requested those extra buttons, they would not be worthwhile to do.

Which leads me to another suggestion: how about finding a way for volunteers to vote on the ideas in the "wish list", so you might know how to prioritize your volunteers requests?
13) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44462)
Posted 26 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Les, are all the climateprediction.net experiments using "regional models" (weatherathome stuff)? We've got projects, experiments, Applications, models, Names and tasks: it's a little hard for the newbie to keep these words straight and to know what they mean and which are synonyms. That's one reason why a task-specific info button would be useful. I guess "model" refers to computer code, and "experiment" refers to a specific objective that a research team is trying to achieve by running the model; but, this simple deduction wasn't obvious at the start!
14) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44456)
Posted 25 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Thyme, thanks for your thoughtful reply. I understand that I am asking for additional BOINC functionality to make it possible to link to info about specific models and tasks; but, you did call this forum a "wish list"!

The "climateprediction.net" and "Your account" buttons do not do the job - they send the user to the same project web page, regardless of which task is selected. I imagine that by scouring the climateprediction site I can eventually find out what experiment and model are associated with the application "UK Met Office HADAM3P Pacific North West 6.09" and task "hadam3p_pnw_b9ke_1997_1_007898701_1", but I don't think it is easy (I have tried). I imagine that "HADAM..." denotes the specific computer model being employed by the experiment, but it would be nice to learn some basic details of the model.

Anyway, this is a minor gripe. You guys are doing a great job. By the way, I bought a new very beefy computer recently with 8 CPUs, and I am donating 6 CPUs to BOINC spread among 3 projects. ClimatePrediction is the only one for which I have some trouble finding out what my tasks are doing.
15) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44453)
Posted 24 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
(just expanding my comments a bit) I notice that under the Tasks tab it is not immediately clear what the difference is between the Application and the Name; some Applications have tasks with different Names - it would be nice to have a button which clarified these things, without forcing the curious volunteer to search the project web site.
16) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44452)
Posted 24 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
The buttons are different for the three projects I am supporting (climateprediction, Milkyway@home and LHC@home). Also, within a given project, like climateprediction, some buttons return different results for each task (e.g., the "Properties" button for climateprediction). It seems to me the button functions could be enhanced to give some info about the experiment (maybe just a link an experiment page), as well as provide some info about the model being used for the selected task. (I see no need for any more project-level button functionality, just a need for more experiment-level and model-level info).
17) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44451)
Posted 24 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
I notice that the buttons and button functions and button results are specific to each project and task; so, they can't be just a BOINC thing. Obviously,both the project people and the model people have a hand in determining what buttons are displayed and what they do.
18) Questions and Answers : Wish list : would like a command button for task info (Message 44447)
Posted 23 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
The "Show graphics" button in the Command section of the Task tab is very nice - could you add two more buttons, one linking to the model page (describing the model) and another to the experiment page (the particular experiment using the model)? This would provide an easy way for the newbie volunteer to quickly identify and get information on each task (both the simulation model and the experiment) without having to laboriously search through the climateprediction.net site. The "properties" button doesn't fill that function, being nothing more than a simple list of technical run data.
19) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : What experiment am I running? (Message 44288)
Posted 3 Jun 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Thanks Les, that clears up a good bit of my confusion. I had been laboring under the misconception that the models were developed specifically for each experiment; I now understand that the researchers designing each experiment generally pick an off-the-shelf model that best fits their needs (I guess the model developers and the experimenters are generally from different organizations or groups).

I should probably post this under the section for new feature requests, but I still think there might be an easy fix that most users would appreciate: the "Show graphics" button in the Task tab is very nice - could you add two more buttons, one linking to the model page (describing the model) and another to the experiment page (the particular experiment using the model)?
20) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : What experiment am I running? (Message 44228)
Posted 26 May 2012 by Steve Wenner
Post:
Thanks Les and Iain,

So, I gather from your hints that "hadcm3n..." denotes the Coupled Ocean Model in the Hadley Center's suite of simulations for the RAPID-RAPIT experiment. I also see that "hadam3p_pnw..." denotes the Seasonal Attribution Model with a higher resolution grid for the Pacific Northwest.

I was still a little confused because a site search of "hadam3p" gave as the first result the statement that HadAM3p had retired in mid-2010.

To avoid this confusion for new volunteers, why not simply present the list on the experiments page something like this?:

Thermohaline Experiment
(model ?????)

Seasonal Attribution Experiment
(model "HadAM3P...")

RAPID-RAPIT Experiment
(models "HadCM3N", ...)

By the way, I notice that "HadCM3N" is missing from the list of Complete Model Simulations in the Experimental Status panel. Does this mean that no simulations have yet been competed?


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