This (total) is the only part that has me confuddled, still :/
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
The answer is quite simple really as any good Aussie worth his salt should know :). With a nick like the one you have chosen, you must be an Aussie :).
If you look closely at your results list you will see that in recent days you have been returning around 4 or 5 results per day. If you go back to the days of 28, 29, 30, 31 August, there is only one result per day left for those days. Any results that were validated quickly have already been deleted from the online database. This happens around 7 days after validation. Results that took a while to validate will linger longer :). The difference of 193 that you mention represents the ones that have already been deleted. This difference will grow each day from now on as more results get deleted. You do not lose any credit. Just the expired results get deleted.
With a nick like the one you have chosen, you must be an Aussie :).
:P
You can blame my son for that (though I was easily convinced ;))
I understand fully what you mean. Problem is, the notes on my desk in front of me,
do not expire, until I throw that sheet of paper out - I physically write down every successful result, from day one.
Furthermore, I save the successful results in a text file.
Therefor, it matters not so much what the results pages show, rather, it matters to the total shown, compared to my notes as well as the results pages.
I am not sure if I'm making sense?
I'd like to, once again, stress that it's the intrinsic link between a successful result and the credit attached to that.
The credit itself, is completely unimportant to me. If I could give it to someone else, I would.
The project needs recognition and credit, not me.
The lack of replies indicates .. that I have an unknown problem, or one I'm imagining?
Quote:
If you look closely at your results list you will see that in recent days you have been returning around 4 or 5 results per day.
I have never returned more than 3 results per day and my CPU isn't capable of crunching through 5 or more per day, so I'm not sure where you got that info from :/
I'm really not bothered anymore, but I am pretty iffy about the accuracy as a whole now, and will remain this way, until an answer is presented to me to show where the 'mysterious' 193.89 points/credits came from.
The lack of replies indicates .. that I have an unknown problem ....
Actually, not quite correct. In my case anyway, the lack of a response simply indicates that I've been away on business with no internet access and no means of replying. I'm as persistent as anybody in trying to track down a real problem if one exists ....
I've read and re-read all of this thread several times, trying to understand what you are saying and I'm still having difficulty in really understanding the problem other than to say that maybe it might be clearer for me if you explain your true meaning in a few places. For ease of reference I'll number your posts from 1 to 8 as you have made 8 posts in this thread to date.
Post #1 - Comments about RAC. I'll ignore this completely as RAC is useless in any discussion on total granted credit which is what I believe this discussion is really all about.
Post #2 - Still really about RAC where you seemed not to understand that an upload of two results that were not validated that day is actually a nil upload as far as RAC is concerned.
Post #3 - Follows immediately after #2 and you say:-
Quote:
Never mind.. it's really going skew-iffed now.
Instead of the 6+ results, I'm now back to only 5 results, and my credit (of 533.17) no longer matches the actual credits now displayed (of 339.38).
WTF?
This makes absolutely no sense to me as you completely fail to indicate where the two numbers (533.17 and 339.38) come from. I'm also just guessing when you refer to 6+ results going back to 5 results that you are not talking about total results but validated results, excluding "pendings". You also don't make it clear that in fact you may not be talking about the results list on the website but rather about a "list on a piece of paper" the concept of which was introduced in Post #7 where you (for the first time) actually mentioned a piece of paper which doesn't expire.
My assumptions regarding Post #3 are that you are always talking about validated results and never pendings. At one stage you had 6 (or possibly more) validated results and then when you looked again, to your horror you could only see 5 on the website whereas you had more on your piece of paper. When I first got involved in this discussion, I had a look at your results list on the website and I could see there that you were taking about 19,000 seconds to do a result and that you had multiple results for the latest days (eg you still have 4 dated Sept 11) but you had very few (mainly 1 or maybe 2 at the most) for the last days of August. If you ran 24/7 then it would be possible to do 4.7 results per day. You had numbers approaching 4.7 visible around 8-9 Sept so I made the assumption that you probably had more results than 1 or 2 originally for the last days of August. If this were so, it would explain perfectly why 6+ had gone back to 5 as you stated. Some results, validated around 28, 29, 30 August could easily have expired by 8 - 9 September.
Post #4 - Follows explanations by Bill Michael and eberndl where initially you seem to be satisfied. You made the statement :-
Quote:
I must admit I'm less miffed; my presumptions were based upon actual awarded credit, though.
According to my account there are 16 credits pending, not 20+
which seemed to indicate that you were troubled by the changing number of pendings as reported by BM (20+) and as seen by yourself more than 2 hours later (16). Surely you are aware that a "pending" can convert to a "validated" at a moments notice so the above behaviour is not surprising and really not worthy of comment. I assumed that if you were puzzled by this that you probably were unaware that validated results can also disappear at a moments notice from your website results listing. Even though the current deadline is two weeks and therefore some results will hang around for three weeks or more, those validated very early can disappear quite quickly. I might be wrong but I think 7 days after validation is the approximate figure. If true, that would mean that some results could be gone before the original actual deadline had expired if all results were in early.
Post #5 - About an hour later you were having doubts again. You said that you didn't understand "timing out" which is the term Bill Michael used for results expiring from the online database and therefore becoming "invisible" and you produced a list of 6 results (adding to 404.4 credits) and you finished with the completely baffling statement that
Quote:
That would now make the total 533.17?
With that statement you completely lost me. Even now I can only guess that you might be saying that the combination of what you have on your non-expiring piece of paper together with the list of six totalled up to 533.17. Is that the case?? If so, where's the problem?? The list on the website is always going to be less than what you have on your non-expiring piece of paper because results on the website do expire??
Bill Michael responded to your post by assuming that it was too soon for results to have started expiring and so he was happy to agree that you had a real problem. I'm not at all convinced and unless someone shows me to the contrary, I really do think it is possible for results to have expired from the online database within 8 - 10 days of their original issue.
Post #6 - You responded to Bill with the statement :-
Quote:
The totals shown on my results pages, do not match the total of the actual awarded credit, as shown in my sig.
At the moment my sig reckons it's 731, which, with only 8 awarded credits, would mean that I'd be getting over 91 credits on average.
My actual total at the moment is 537.24 - a difference of some 193.
When you used the term "Results pages", every man and his dog would assume you were referring to the website results pages. It now appears that you may in fact be referring to your non-expiring piece of paper. This was the point where I joined the discussion and I was very much in the "every man and his dog" group. At this time there was no hint of a non-expiring piece of paper. Every bit of evidence was screaming out that "he doesn't realise that some results have already expired". For example, 8 results giving 731 credits - unlikely as you say. But how about 11 results giving 731 credits - entirely believable.
Post #7 - This is the first hint of the infamous piece of paper. You say you wrote down every successful result. At what stage did you write it down?
(a) As soon as it appeared in the work list in Boinc Manager?
(b) As soon as it was shown as "Ready to report" in Boinc Manager?
(d) As soon as it was shown as a completed (pending) result on the website?
(e) As soon as it was shown as converted from pending to an actual credit?
(f) Occasionally when you logged in and had a look at the results list on the website?
Are you absolutely sure you couldn't have missed about three results that were validated quickly and had got themselves deleted from the online database before you had really established your pattern of "recording all results"??
Post #8 - This is where you show me that you haven't really been paying close attention to what has been on your results pages and you start telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.
Quote:
Quote:
If you look closely at your results list you will see that in recent days you have been returning around 4 or 5 results per day.
I have never returned more than 3 results per day and my CPU isn't capable of crunching through 5 or more per day, so I'm not sure where you got that info from :/
Well try this for size. 19,000 seconds per result is ~4.7 results per day. That's where 4 to 5 per day came from. I'm a "details" person and I looked very closely at your results list on September 8 when I first posted. At that time there were several recent days where there were 4 reported results per day. I just looked again and there were 4 reported results for September 11 for example. Of course it does depend on whether or not you run 24/7 but at times you must have, or pretty close to it. Your statement of never more than three per day is simply not true and this leads me to conclude that you may very well be mistaken about your piece of paper really containing the absolute complete list. How many results are shown on your piece of paper as having been reported on September 11?? Also, I never said 5 or more as you imply so yet again you are being a little bit careless with reporting factual details.
I'm really not trying to attack you in any shape or form. I'm attacking the content of your last message where you are still claiming that there is a problem with the proper recording of results and accounting for credits. You are implying that there is something "iffy" about the whole project when in fact I strongly believe there is something "iffy" about the way you are accounting for all of the stages in the results uploading and reporting and all of the validation stages with your infallible piece of paper. I would much rather believe that E@H/BOINC has got it right rather than your manual system.
If you really believe there is a problem, please explain more carefully exactly how you can come to that conclusion.
Thanks for your candid response Gary; I know I write like a doofus sometimes.
Please note though, that none of this was ever directed at anyone in particular as such - I've been in this game too long to know better.
Perhaps the fact that my brain's stuck between two completely different languages (due to an impending international move), has made it difficult for me to express myself properly.
Reading back the posts, I understand what you mean ;) My sincere apologies.
I have traced the problem though: hardware.
More accurately, my CPU was sporadically overheating, without shutting the system down, causing all sorts of weird behaviour. This did not become apparent to me, until I started to notice other things (like folders on the HDDs, or even some of the posts in this very thread) disappear and errors finally made their way into BOINC.
I suspended BOINC until I remedied the problem.
It is because of this, that none of the info from BOINC manager through to whatever was displayed on the results pages, could ever add-up right.
Everything does now! (btw, I wasn't about to continue writing the results down - an observationary period would suffice :))
The point with credit was simply to illustrate the fact that, if your credit isn't going up, whilst still churning away on the project(s), you'd be returning invalid results. As my results weren't being returned as invalid, it seemed strange to me that the results (total or otherwise) would fluctuate this wildly and, in fact, at one stage go down.
Of course, none of that _actually_ happened - it was simply part of this most odd behaviour, caused by the CPU. I do not understand why it didn't shut down :/
A smear of good old arctic silver and a fresh install of my web browser has seen all problems off :)
I'm less confident about this thing surviving the trip but..
A smear of good old arctic silver and a fresh install of my web browser has seen all problems off :)
I'm less confident about this thing surviving the trip but..
I'm very pleased that you have sorted out your problems. Hardware issues, particularly where heat is involved are often tricky to pin down because of the intermittent nature of the beast. So, well done in sorting that out :).
RE: This (total) is the
)
The answer is quite simple really as any good Aussie worth his salt should know :). With a nick like the one you have chosen, you must be an Aussie :).
If you look closely at your results list you will see that in recent days you have been returning around 4 or 5 results per day. If you go back to the days of 28, 29, 30, 31 August, there is only one result per day left for those days. Any results that were validated quickly have already been deleted from the online database. This happens around 7 days after validation. Results that took a while to validate will linger longer :). The difference of 193 that you mention represents the ones that have already been deleted. This difference will grow each day from now on as more results get deleted. You do not lose any credit. Just the expired results get deleted.
Cheers,
Gary.
RE: With a nick like the
)
:P
You can blame my son for that (though I was easily convinced ;))
I understand fully what you mean. Problem is, the notes on my desk in front of me,
do not expire, until I throw that sheet of paper out - I physically write down every successful result, from day one.
Furthermore, I save the successful results in a text file.
Therefor, it matters not so much what the results pages show, rather, it matters to the total shown, compared to my notes as well as the results pages.
I am not sure if I'm making sense?
I'd like to, once again, stress that it's the intrinsic link between a successful result and the credit attached to that.
The credit itself, is completely unimportant to me. If I could give it to someone else, I would.
The project needs recognition and credit, not me.
Ta mate :)
Earth.com corrupted.
Reboot Universe (y/n)?
The lack of replies indicates
)
The lack of replies indicates .. that I have an unknown problem, or one I'm imagining?
I have never returned more than 3 results per day and my CPU isn't capable of crunching through 5 or more per day, so I'm not sure where you got that info from :/
I'm really not bothered anymore, but I am pretty iffy about the accuracy as a whole now, and will remain this way, until an answer is presented to me to show where the 'mysterious' 193.89 points/credits came from.
Thanks all for your thoughts!
:)
Earth.com corrupted.
Reboot Universe (y/n)?
RE: The lack of replies
)
Actually, not quite correct. In my case anyway, the lack of a response simply indicates that I've been away on business with no internet access and no means of replying. I'm as persistent as anybody in trying to track down a real problem if one exists ....
I've read and re-read all of this thread several times, trying to understand what you are saying and I'm still having difficulty in really understanding the problem other than to say that maybe it might be clearer for me if you explain your true meaning in a few places. For ease of reference I'll number your posts from 1 to 8 as you have made 8 posts in this thread to date.
Post #1 - Comments about RAC. I'll ignore this completely as RAC is useless in any discussion on total granted credit which is what I believe this discussion is really all about.
Post #2 - Still really about RAC where you seemed not to understand that an upload of two results that were not validated that day is actually a nil upload as far as RAC is concerned.
Post #3 - Follows immediately after #2 and you say:-
This makes absolutely no sense to me as you completely fail to indicate where the two numbers (533.17 and 339.38) come from. I'm also just guessing when you refer to 6+ results going back to 5 results that you are not talking about total results but validated results, excluding "pendings". You also don't make it clear that in fact you may not be talking about the results list on the website but rather about a "list on a piece of paper" the concept of which was introduced in Post #7 where you (for the first time) actually mentioned a piece of paper which doesn't expire.
My assumptions regarding Post #3 are that you are always talking about validated results and never pendings. At one stage you had 6 (or possibly more) validated results and then when you looked again, to your horror you could only see 5 on the website whereas you had more on your piece of paper. When I first got involved in this discussion, I had a look at your results list on the website and I could see there that you were taking about 19,000 seconds to do a result and that you had multiple results for the latest days (eg you still have 4 dated Sept 11) but you had very few (mainly 1 or maybe 2 at the most) for the last days of August. If you ran 24/7 then it would be possible to do 4.7 results per day. You had numbers approaching 4.7 visible around 8-9 Sept so I made the assumption that you probably had more results than 1 or 2 originally for the last days of August. If this were so, it would explain perfectly why 6+ had gone back to 5 as you stated. Some results, validated around 28, 29, 30 August could easily have expired by 8 - 9 September.
Post #4 - Follows explanations by Bill Michael and eberndl where initially you seem to be satisfied. You made the statement :-
which seemed to indicate that you were troubled by the changing number of pendings as reported by BM (20+) and as seen by yourself more than 2 hours later (16). Surely you are aware that a "pending" can convert to a "validated" at a moments notice so the above behaviour is not surprising and really not worthy of comment. I assumed that if you were puzzled by this that you probably were unaware that validated results can also disappear at a moments notice from your website results listing. Even though the current deadline is two weeks and therefore some results will hang around for three weeks or more, those validated very early can disappear quite quickly. I might be wrong but I think 7 days after validation is the approximate figure. If true, that would mean that some results could be gone before the original actual deadline had expired if all results were in early.
Post #5 - About an hour later you were having doubts again. You said that you didn't understand "timing out" which is the term Bill Michael used for results expiring from the online database and therefore becoming "invisible" and you produced a list of 6 results (adding to 404.4 credits) and you finished with the completely baffling statement that
With that statement you completely lost me. Even now I can only guess that you might be saying that the combination of what you have on your non-expiring piece of paper together with the list of six totalled up to 533.17. Is that the case?? If so, where's the problem?? The list on the website is always going to be less than what you have on your non-expiring piece of paper because results on the website do expire??
Bill Michael responded to your post by assuming that it was too soon for results to have started expiring and so he was happy to agree that you had a real problem. I'm not at all convinced and unless someone shows me to the contrary, I really do think it is possible for results to have expired from the online database within 8 - 10 days of their original issue.
Post #6 - You responded to Bill with the statement :-
When you used the term "Results pages", every man and his dog would assume you were referring to the website results pages. It now appears that you may in fact be referring to your non-expiring piece of paper. This was the point where I joined the discussion and I was very much in the "every man and his dog" group. At this time there was no hint of a non-expiring piece of paper. Every bit of evidence was screaming out that "he doesn't realise that some results have already expired". For example, 8 results giving 731 credits - unlikely as you say. But how about 11 results giving 731 credits - entirely believable.
Post #7 - This is the first hint of the infamous piece of paper. You say you wrote down every successful result. At what stage did you write it down?
(a) As soon as it appeared in the work list in Boinc Manager?
(b) As soon as it was shown as "Ready to report" in Boinc Manager?
(d) As soon as it was shown as a completed (pending) result on the website?
(e) As soon as it was shown as converted from pending to an actual credit?
(f) Occasionally when you logged in and had a look at the results list on the website?
Are you absolutely sure you couldn't have missed about three results that were validated quickly and had got themselves deleted from the online database before you had really established your pattern of "recording all results"??
Post #8 - This is where you show me that you haven't really been paying close attention to what has been on your results pages and you start telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.
Well try this for size. 19,000 seconds per result is ~4.7 results per day. That's where 4 to 5 per day came from. I'm a "details" person and I looked very closely at your results list on September 8 when I first posted. At that time there were several recent days where there were 4 reported results per day. I just looked again and there were 4 reported results for September 11 for example. Of course it does depend on whether or not you run 24/7 but at times you must have, or pretty close to it. Your statement of never more than three per day is simply not true and this leads me to conclude that you may very well be mistaken about your piece of paper really containing the absolute complete list. How many results are shown on your piece of paper as having been reported on September 11?? Also, I never said 5 or more as you imply so yet again you are being a little bit careless with reporting factual details.
I'm really not trying to attack you in any shape or form. I'm attacking the content of your last message where you are still claiming that there is a problem with the proper recording of results and accounting for credits. You are implying that there is something "iffy" about the whole project when in fact I strongly believe there is something "iffy" about the way you are accounting for all of the stages in the results uploading and reporting and all of the validation stages with your infallible piece of paper. I would much rather believe that E@H/BOINC has got it right rather than your manual system.
If you really believe there is a problem, please explain more carefully exactly how you can come to that conclusion.
Cheers,
Gary.
Thanks for your candid
)
Thanks for your candid response Gary; I know I write like a doofus sometimes.
Please note though, that none of this was ever directed at anyone in particular as such - I've been in this game too long to know better.
Perhaps the fact that my brain's stuck between two completely different languages (due to an impending international move), has made it difficult for me to express myself properly.
Reading back the posts, I understand what you mean ;) My sincere apologies.
I have traced the problem though: hardware.
More accurately, my CPU was sporadically overheating, without shutting the system down, causing all sorts of weird behaviour. This did not become apparent to me, until I started to notice other things (like folders on the HDDs, or even some of the posts in this very thread) disappear and errors finally made their way into BOINC.
I suspended BOINC until I remedied the problem.
It is because of this, that none of the info from BOINC manager through to whatever was displayed on the results pages, could ever add-up right.
Everything does now! (btw, I wasn't about to continue writing the results down - an observationary period would suffice :))
The point with credit was simply to illustrate the fact that, if your credit isn't going up, whilst still churning away on the project(s), you'd be returning invalid results. As my results weren't being returned as invalid, it seemed strange to me that the results (total or otherwise) would fluctuate this wildly and, in fact, at one stage go down.
Of course, none of that _actually_ happened - it was simply part of this most odd behaviour, caused by the CPU. I do not understand why it didn't shut down :/
A smear of good old arctic silver and a fresh install of my web browser has seen all problems off :)
I'm less confident about this thing surviving the trip but..
Earth.com corrupted.
Reboot Universe (y/n)?
RE: Thanks for your candid
)
No problems, you're welcome.
I'm very pleased that you have sorted out your problems. Hardware issues, particularly where heat is involved are often tricky to pin down because of the intermittent nature of the beast. So, well done in sorting that out :).
Good luck with your international move.
Cheers,
Gary.