Good idea. The current BS can\'t take into account that cpdn is the only project that accepts results past their deadline. Nor would we want the BS to take decisions about how far past the deadline is acceptable to Oxford.

If Berkeley can\'t offer a choice of BSs for a while, could the cpdn deadline be lengthened? That would surely make climate models demand a bit less time when they\'re first started by multi-project crunchers?

I believe that the next major release of BOINC will show debt on the project tab.

If it doesn\'t it should. It might help people understand on how it allocates time.

Not in the 5.10.x versions, maybe in the 6.x.x ones. The first of the RPCs needed was added recently but the manager does not use it yet.

Just rethink how it all works.
Which is that BOINC will run climate exclusively for some time, perhaps as long as a week. (It depends on your computer speed, the percentage of the day the computer is on, etc.)
Then it will realise that there isn\'t a problem after all, and go back to sharing the cpu among the projects.

There\'s already a couple of automatic backup scripts.

azwoody
And I\'d be interested in knowing how you would restart a model from the very beginning, if this is what you think I meant. And why everyone would assume that\'s what I meant.

Les, isn\'t there one way to recreate a 10-year zip file in a worst-case scenario. Even if the model hasn\'t crashed, restore a backup made before the file creation point (Dec of year ending ...0).

For example, I have a model crunching 2007. I must be certain to back up the complete contents of the boinc folder before the model reaches Autumn 2010.

Backup and restore instructions available through my sig. Les\'s method there, item #1 in the README about avoiding crashes, is really easy to follow.

Hi Azwoody

Trickles are getting through to cpdn in Oxford. The problem is only with the 10-year zip uploads. These appear in the Transfers tab of boinc manager at the beginning of the December of every model year ending in 0, eg 1980, 2030. During all the other model years, as long as there\'s no cpdn zip file waiting in the Transfers tab, we can allow network activity.

But as our models reach a year ending in 0, Les suggests for multi-project crunchers

For those APPROACHING a 10 year point in their crunching, I\'d recommend that:
1) Make sure that the project is set to \"No new tasks\" in the Projects tab
2) Suspend the model in the Tasks tab
3) Wait until the problem is resolved
4) Then restart the model

Doing things this way allows other projects to crunch and contact their server. It avoids the zip file problem by stopping the climate model before this file is produced.

However, single-project cpdn crunchers can if they wish allow the 10-year file to be produced but avoid problems by suspending network activity before the file tries to upload ie before Dec of any year ending in 0.

Anyone (single or multi-project) with a zip file already waiting in the Transfers tab to upload (whether it\'s already produced upload error messages or not) should suspend network activity until the problem is solved. But the model may continue running. This should keep most computers busy until the extra space becomes available, ?next Thursday? Workunits from other projects could be suspended to keep the computer busy with the climate model.

What we must try to avoid is multiple attempts to upload the same zip file. If we can avoid ALL attempts to upload them, that\'s better still. Every failed upload puts the zip file at risk.

The 10-year zip files can lie in the Transfers tab for up to two weeks after the first attempted upload and still be accepted by the server.

If no attempt is made to upload the zip files, I think they will be accepted up to 6 weeks later.

If we can avoid editing the xml files, this is preferable.

And for those who are \"a bit geeky\", it\'s apparently possible to edit an xml file and alter some slot files, to extend the 14 day time limit.

There are 2 issues:
2) People who have been doing nothing for several days before posting here are in danger of losing their 10 year zip before the new server is in place.
This has already happened to at least one person.

Restart / Resume / Get-it-going-again, or whatever wording is used in whichever version of BOINC people are using.
The BOINC people keep changing the wording, and I\'ve given up trying to keep up with it.

If people already have the failing upload problem, then it\'s too late to do much about it.

For those APPROACHING a 10 year point in their crunching, I\'d recommend that:
....
4) Then restart the model.