Ah, I can finally post without having a "the server took too long to respond" page in front of me.
Quote:
Anyway, if the 6.6.20 scheduler still uses debts then it seems to me Bryan's story must, in the end, be a debts thing and pretty much the way Gary R. explained it (Einstein received more than its share for some time so it got no work for a while to allow SETI to catch up). Why the coincidence with the reset and the work fetch?
When coming from any old BOINC to 6.6.20, the old debts are translated to the new debts. Old debts had a mean of zero, new debts have a maximum of zero. Meaning that if Einstein had a big debt already, this gets translated to that same big debt when in 6.6.20 and so it won't fetch work easily.
A reset makes sure your debt starts at zero, making the project eligible to fetch work. I have tested with two machines here, one with a reset of all projects (be it those on NNT or not) and one for which I didn't do a reset. The one with the reset fetched work normally from all projects, was very quickly 'worked in' with regards to DCF and work fetch amounts. The machine I didn't reset is still not acclimatised. And it has been 4 weeks ago.
I did request an automated debts reset for all projects when changing to this new client, but was ignored. Oh well. :-)
For helpdesk volunteers, moderators, and anyone else not yet familiar with BOINC clients v6.6.20 and above:
There's a new 'Properties' button on the 'Projects' and 'Tasks' tabs of BOINC Manager (advanced view: bottom item in top group of commands. left hand side of screen). Here are the project properties for Einstein on the host I logged earlier:
The top two lines under "Scheduling" - 'CPU scheduling priority' and 'CPU work fetch priority' are what used to be familiar as Short Term Debt and Long Term Debt respectively. Jord is suggesting that you check, in particular, 'CPU work fetch priority' after upgrading: if it's large and negative, the project reset (while no work is running, ready to start or ready to report: you'll lose it) may help.
Thanks for the more detailed info regarding scheduler and work fetch changes in 6.6.20. It explains a lot of the wierdness I've been seeing here, for example tasks running on high priority when they absolutely have no reason to be. Reseting debts cured the wierdness on my host.
I installed 6.6.20 on a Linux host so never saw an option to reset debts because there simply is no such option in the Berkeley installer for Linux. I'm not whining for one, just saying be prepared for posts from other Linux users perplexed by similar wierdness.
P.S. The 6.6.20 manager does not run on my Fedora 5 host so I didn't see the Properties button Richard mentions. Must be needing an update to wxWidgets or something. I haven't tried the 6.6.20 manager runs on my Fedora 9 host yet.
Thanks for the more detailed info regarding scheduler and work fetch changes in 6.6.20. It explains a lot of the wierdness I've been seeing here, for example tasks running on high priority when they absolutely have no reason to be. Reseting debts cured the wierdness on my host.
Resetting adjusts the debts and acts as if you have installed this version of BOINC clean (no prior installation of BOINC, or with the BOINC directory deleted). It really is the way to upgrade to the 6.6 versions, in my very humble opinion. It is easier to teach BOINC everything there is to learn about the projects allowed to fetch work anew, than it is to change the way you teach it to do things in the middle of the school year and still expecting it to be ready for the exams in 2 weeks time. (does that make sense? ;-))
I am still writing the Release Notes (since on one else seems to be doing so...), so I'll make sure to make notice of it in them.
Ah, I can finally post
)
Ah, I can finally post without having a "the server took too long to respond" page in front of me.
When coming from any old BOINC to 6.6.20, the old debts are translated to the new debts. Old debts had a mean of zero, new debts have a maximum of zero. Meaning that if Einstein had a big debt already, this gets translated to that same big debt when in 6.6.20 and so it won't fetch work easily.
A reset makes sure your debt starts at zero, making the project eligible to fetch work. I have tested with two machines here, one with a reset of all projects (be it those on NNT or not) and one for which I didn't do a reset. The one with the reset fetched work normally from all projects, was very quickly 'worked in' with regards to DCF and work fetch amounts. The machine I didn't reset is still not acclimatised. And it has been 4 weeks ago.
I did request an automated debts reset for all projects when changing to this new client, but was ignored. Oh well. :-)
For helpdesk volunteers,
)
For helpdesk volunteers, moderators, and anyone else not yet familiar with BOINC clients v6.6.20 and above:
There's a new 'Properties' button on the 'Projects' and 'Tasks' tabs of BOINC Manager (advanced view: bottom item in top group of commands. left hand side of screen). Here are the project properties for Einstein on the host I logged earlier:
The top two lines under "Scheduling" - 'CPU scheduling priority' and 'CPU work fetch priority' are what used to be familiar as Short Term Debt and Long Term Debt respectively. Jord is suggesting that you check, in particular, 'CPU work fetch priority' after upgrading: if it's large and negative, the project reset (while no work is running, ready to start or ready to report: you'll lose it) may help.
Ageless and
)
Ageless and Richard...
Thanks for the more detailed info regarding scheduler and work fetch changes in 6.6.20. It explains a lot of the wierdness I've been seeing here, for example tasks running on high priority when they absolutely have no reason to be. Reseting debts cured the wierdness on my host.
I installed 6.6.20 on a Linux host so never saw an option to reset debts because there simply is no such option in the Berkeley installer for Linux. I'm not whining for one, just saying be prepared for posts from other Linux users perplexed by similar wierdness.
P.S. The 6.6.20 manager does not run on my Fedora 5 host so I didn't see the Properties button Richard mentions. Must be needing an update to wxWidgets or something. I haven't tried the 6.6.20 manager runs on my Fedora 9 host yet.
BOINC FAQ Service
Official BOINC wiki
Installing BOINC on Linux
RE: Thanks for the more
)
Resetting adjusts the debts and acts as if you have installed this version of BOINC clean (no prior installation of BOINC, or with the BOINC directory deleted). It really is the way to upgrade to the 6.6 versions, in my very humble opinion. It is easier to teach BOINC everything there is to learn about the projects allowed to fetch work anew, than it is to change the way you teach it to do things in the middle of the school year and still expecting it to be ready for the exams in 2 weeks time. (does that make sense? ;-))
I am still writing the Release Notes (since on one else seems to be doing so...), so I'll make sure to make notice of it in them.