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Posts by BarryAZ

Posts by BarryAZ

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Total Credit (Message 53842)
Posted 28 Mar 2016 by BarryAZ
Post:
Oh -- I will keep an eye out over here -- I figure to stop by almost daily -- if only to make sure that other participants don't try to assail the messenger <smile>
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Total Credit (Message 53835)
Posted 27 Mar 2016 by BarryAZ
Post:
It seems the gap between those who work to moderate the forum with the actual community base and those directly involved with the research along with those involved with the software hardware support has widened a great deal over the 10 plus years I've done processing for Climate (I started back in the BBC days). I suspect there are other long term supporters who might also be in the same category.

The latest credit evaporation scenario sort of looks like something similar to the market crash of 2008.

In any event, for me, I suspect this particular event is the nail. I've other projects I work with a lot so it simply a case of redirection for me.

I will periodically check back to see if the researchers perceive a need to touch base with the processing community or if the hardware software folks see that need as well.

I do know this, the folks representing the project on the message boards are likely just as troubled by the progressive disconnect over the years. If it were not for their efforts (Les, a shout out to you in particular), I suspect I'd have abandoned this project years ago.
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Total Credit (Message 53825)
Posted 26 Mar 2016 by BarryAZ
Post:
Gosh -- so if I tell you what my credits really were before the apparent credit ponzi schemes occurred can I get them back? <smile>

My actual credit number is 11,562,537

When I see this as a corrected number, I'll probably restart processing for Climate.

Until then, Rosetta and Poem and World Grid thank the folks at Climate for their largess.

4) Message boards : Number crunching : No trickles on webpage (Message 51711)
Posted 27 Mar 2015 by BarryAZ
Post:
Yup no trickles reported -- probably viewed as a non-critical issue by the admins should they be aware of it (those minding the store on the message boards are no doubt aware of but are simply messengers).

No doubt the problem will get addressed with the priority that those who actually do the work choose to assign to it.
5) Message boards : Number crunching : #1 in the World!!! (Message 50487)
Posted 11 Oct 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Yes, I knew there was an archived thread on the topic.

As I recall it included some comments about problems that don't get *fixed* but rather patched so they resurface periodically....

It is unfortunate when a project that seriously lacks the resources to fix a problem once, ends up needing to fix it multiple times.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Found 1 Billion Credits (Message 50465)
Posted 10 Oct 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
It's back!!!!


Total credit 10,908,632,578
Recent average credit 58.51
Archived results (not viewable) 1446
Archived credit (included in total) 6,596,723
7) Message boards : Number crunching : #1 in the World!!! (Message 50464)
Posted 10 Oct 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
It's back!!!!


Total credit 10,908,632,578
Recent average credit 58.51
Archived results (not viewable) 1446
Archived credit (included in total) 6,596,723
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49912)
Posted 1 Sep 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Sadly it seems this project has gotten to a point where its structure has simply gotten too difficult for the available resourced folks to manage.

The issues are less a case of solving a problem and two new ones showing up than a case of solving a problem and then one or two OLD ones resurface.

Most of the issues reported over the past months (or in some cases years), are long standing repetitively. RAID failures, storage space issues, updating issues, scripts and the like. They appear to get patched and then the tape used to patch things up frays and breaks.

The only relatively new problem that has surfaced (and now resurfaced over the weekend) is the 'mega credit' reporting. Even it is now in its second appearance.

My sense here again is simply that this is a project which has grown far larger than the original design envisioned and that available resources are inadequate to the growth in size *and* complexity required to maintain it effectively.

I've supported this project with CPU's for over nine years.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49408)
Posted 24 Jun 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Graham -- I'm much like you in this regard. I realize that the project players have place either a 'least important' *or not of any consequence* priority regarding credit script handling. Like the project, ordinary participants have priorities. As one of those ordinary participants, one who has participated in this project for 9 years, I too have priorities. As a result, when one of my systems which supported Climate needed to be reconfigured, with BOINC installed from scratch, I did NOT include Climate as one of its projects.

There are plenty of other projects out there, some of which are doing quite good work with user contributions. For them, user contributions have a higher priority and users respond to that. For that matter, there are plenty of projects out there whose work is relatively trivial in the scheme of things, but they too have a significantly higher priority regarding the 'care and feeding' of users and again, users respond to that.

To me, the priorities a project has represents choices they make. The response they get from the user community represents the choices the user community makes..



Running the credit script may well be the least important priority for the support crew, and it may not be that important for the hardcore regular contributors to these message boards. However, credit is an important feedback for ordinary participants running climateprediction on their computer, perhaps in conjunction with other BOINC projects.

When I see the climateprediction credit flatline (which for me has been going on since 2nd June) it's discouraging. I'm no longer sure if I'm contributing, and I'm also not sure how the lack of credit is affecting how BOINC calculates the ratio of work between projects: will BOINC decide that as I've apparently done no work on climateprediction recently I must be in need of many more workunits? Maybe not - it might calculate in a different way. But I don't know.

The impression I get from this (and from the weird way in which the longest workunits have the shortest deadlines) is that the project is under-resourced or badly structured. As I say, it's discouraging.

Graham

10) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49261)
Posted 29 May 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
I see that it is believed the data exports issue of the past three monehts has been resolved. I say 'it is believed' as neither of the two sites I typically use reflects an update as of today:

http://www.boincsynergy.com/stats/index.php

http://boinc.netsoft-online.com/e107_plugins/boinc/bp.php?project=4

11) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49201)
Posted 22 May 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Les, yes, that seems fairly apparent. Though to tell the truth, the disconnect between the moderators and the project folks is not really a new thing. While it varies in degree over time, I've observed that over the years.

As to the credit update issue -- the project folks have (based on a three month non-resolution) pretty much placed it specifically on an 'ignore' mode whenever the moderators should be so bold so as to remind the project folks that this is actually an issue and one which (in my view) will have implications for the project, should the project folks seek for client processing power.

The thing is, one of the other situations for this project is that on the resource side, the need for additional processing power has not been an issue -- more user cpu's than work has been an ongoing condition. That might add somewhat to the seemingly blase response to pleas from moderators regarding the credit update problem.

In any event, it is difficult to know exactly what sort of end user drop off there has been due to the lack of credit updating in a general sense, because.... there hasn't been any credit updating for three months.

It is possible that folks back at the project side may be seeing this -- hard to tell, as back and forth communication with the moderators such as yourself, takes time -- and it is fairly apparently that is a limited resource.

As I noted, there are plenty of other BOINC projects that actually support credit update sites, and many of them are quite worthy, so it isn't as if Climate has a captive market for processing time.



One of the problems is that the moderators have be going on about credits to the project people for so long, that they don't talk to us much now.

And they don't have the time to sit around reading through the messages on this board.


12) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49187)
Posted 21 May 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Yes, I'm a long time partisicpant, over 8 years,


And yes, I've seen site update freezes in the past -- but never in my 8+ years here were they over a month or so. Ww're working on 3 months and counting here.

There is no sense of urgency here regarding this -- fair enough. Again, I'm not cancelling participation on systems, I'm just not renewing when a system issue results in a full rebuild, or a start from scratch with BOINC. I've never simply cancelled running Climate because to project issues (running or reporting). When it has been an issue of running, I shift to those other projects I have running so as not the force failed updates -- I'd note that in the past, this approach has been recommended as appropriate by..... Climate admins.

Climate has always been one of my secondary projects, it runs, with the long workunits and trickle updates so I don't need to pay that much attention to it. There was a time I had it running on 6 or more systems. There was a time I was seeing 3K to 4K credits a day, at this point it is down to 1/10 of that.

As to running multiple projects at the same time, originally that was a core concept for BOINC -- still is. I understand folks who only want to run a single project, I don't understand why some folks only running a single project don't understand why folks run multiple projects though. <smile>.

As someone looking for milestones I kind of want the date sent to the external stats sites...

after some quick calculations I realized that my next big milestone is about 3 years away at current effort......

...I think I can wait until the next update.

13) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49177)
Posted 21 May 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Indeed, it seems that it is in the 'noise level management' routine with a mute on noise as it is generated.

I figure it isn't ever going to happen.

It may reduce the work overload for the administrative types as BOINC participants shift to 'greener' fields. In fact, as folks perhaps look at the stats site, they may conclude that this project is simply moribund.

It is possible that they simply have too much data to parse these days.

When one of my computers running Climate suffered a bump, requiring a full reinstall of BOINC, I simply chose not to add Climate back. I suspect I may not be alone in this.



I wouldn�t hold my breath. The credit reporting to outside stat sites has been broken for about three months and fixing it seems to have a priority somewhere between zero and negative 1 million.

14) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 48857)
Posted 20 Apr 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
So Les, realizing that it is a case of limited resources and priorities. Has the credit update component become basically a fall off the table item for the even longer haul? (it's been 2 months so far).

I understand the priorities thing with limited resources as each of us allocates priorities with our limited resources as well.

If the expectation is for updates is to be set as 'once we get around to it' and that you anticipate that 'around to its' won't be in stock for several additional months, that might be useful for end users who also have limited resource to allocate.

Indeed, if some folks who've been in the Client BOINC user base, back off of their activities with Client, that might in fact help with the projects limited resource juggling.
15) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 48703)
Posted 4 Apr 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
I wonder -- I realize the position has been 'limited resources' and focusing on higher priorities. But just how much effort is it expected to take to run a script which in the past ran pretty much automatically?



16) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 48359)
Posted 10 Mar 2014 by BarryAZ
Post:
Les, maybe it is just the admin's way of letting you know they like to hear from you periodically <smile>
17) Message boards : Number crunching : still don't get credits since last breakdown (Message 47023)
Posted 12 Sep 2013 by BarryAZ
Post:
With the credit stall now on four weeks. perhaps it is time to provide a bit of an assessment of what has gone on.

System changes were made to correct an additional system breakdown four weeks ago.

Since then, no credit updates have occurred.

The project admins/developers have been aware of this for several weeks.

So far, the answer is that they simply don't know the cause of the problem.

Frankly this extended unresolved issue suggests to me that the people who need to research and resolve the issue either are not available to do this, or have other higher priority tasks which they are focused on.

I've long since suspended processing on Climate and sent my cpu cycles to programs who have avoided this problem which appears unique to Climate. Thus the inability to resolve this long running problem is pretty much one of 'academic interest'.

I can surely understand the frustration for those who have focused on the Climate project for many years (I started with it over 8 years ago myself) AND for who this is a primary project. For me it is mostly a case of another BOINC project seeming to fade to fizzle.
18) Message boards : Number crunching : still don't get credits since last breakdown (Message 46985)
Posted 7 Sep 2013 by BarryAZ
Post:
Les, thanks for the reclarification of what has been noted over and over again reiteratively, repeatedly, and now with a certain amount of heat (perhaps reflecting a bit of the frustration with current ongoing *non*calculation of credits which has persisted for several weeks and which at this juncture has no resolution in sight.



The credits WON'T be "added" - they'll be re-calculated for ALL existing non archived models.
It normally happens EVERY DAY, during the night, UK time.

This has been explained ad nauseum for years. And over and over as well.


19) Message boards : Number crunching : still don't get credits since last breakdown (Message 46957)
Posted 4 Sep 2013 by BarryAZ
Post:
Les, thanks for the reply on this. Not encouraging but honest -- and that is a good thing.



Mike asked a day back
Hi Andy, Jonathan,

Any news on getting the credit system up & running again?

And the reply was:
This is still being investigated, presently we don't know the source of this issue.

Andy


So, no, we're not there yet.





20) Message boards : Number crunching : still don't get credits since last breakdown (Message 46951)
Posted 3 Sep 2013 by BarryAZ
Post:
Dave, I was pretty sure that some folks connected to the project were aware of the problems -- and I suspect they are trying to correct them within their available resource constraint. (I realize that funding here has been 'slim pickings' for a long time).

I am hoping they are able to resolve the problems and then communicate the resolution to those folks who represent them online on the message boards.

That being said, it seems the nature of this project, with very large data elements and multiple servers which are not co-located, along with parsed out resources with other priorities (none of which has any fault or blame attached) makes a resolution here 'less than trivial'.

I have seen the project work with those constraints for a LONG time (I joined this project over eight years ago). These days it does seem that the problems are increasingly in the lead over the resources -- I hope that isn't the case, but, as they say, it is what it is.



[quote

If you look at this thread you will see that the project people are aware of the problem.

http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=7653
[/url][/quote]


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