It may be relevant that the three users reporting apparently spontaneous preferences changes to their Einstein accounts all are listed as running a large number of other projects, and specifically World Community Grid.
It seems likely that an undesired interaction between Einstein and an external project manager, or some other element of the user configurations, is at hand here, not, as described, a purely unprovoked event on the Einstein servers, which mysteriously does not affect hundreds of other users who would be sure to report such an event.
What, if any, project management software do you use to coordinate your many BOINC project participations?
This seems like it may be related. I have this message in my log. It's not causing any obvious problems, but is annoying as it appears with every task.
I am not running any account manager. This is a GPU-only client attached to PrimeGrid, WUProp, Collatz, SETI and of course Einstein. This message only occurs with Einstein tasks.
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:15 PM Computation for task LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0 finished
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:16 PM Starting task LATeah1049af_148.0_0_0.0_4255279_1
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:18 PM Started upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_0
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:18 PM Started upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_1
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:21 PM Finished upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_0
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:21 PM Finished upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_1
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM Couldn't parse preferences file - using defaults
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM Reading preferences override file
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM Preferences:
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max CPUs used: 1
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
That may mean BOINC manager on your PC is currently configured so it believes you want it to use local preferences. Even if you do, it appears to find the file corrupt.
I suggest you consider explicitly telling BOINC manager to use web preferences. Then, if you actually want to use local ones, that you go back and configure them again--perhaps this will cause the file to be re-written in a non-corrupt state.
In case this is not familiar to you (or to some lurker who may read this comment later), to get to preferences control in BOINC manager, first make sure the Boincmgr "View" option is set to "Advanced View", not "Simple View". Then:
Options|Computing preferences
the top of the resulting popup (which may take a little while to display, as the manager communicates with the client) should indicate whether the manager believes you currently want to use web-based preferences or a local override file.
I am using local preferences, and started troubleshooting under the assumption that the local preferences, aka global_prefs_override.xml, were fine; if there was a problem it was with the web preferences, aka global_prefs.xml. I've used local preferences for years, exactly to avoid problems like the one mentioned here, plus it just makes more sense to me to set them locally.
I use separate clients for CPU and GPU work, but I note that the global_prefs for both comes from World Community Grid. I'm not sure how this happened, the GPU client has never been attached to WCG. When I set up a new client I copy files from previous clients, and it's possible I also copied the global_prefs at that time.
The first thing I did was rename the global_prefs file, thinking a new one would be created and that should solve the problem. A new file was created, but the error remained. Rather than risk problems applying the web preferences, since the only problem I had was with the log being spammed, I did this instead.
I copied the GPU client global_prefs_override file to my CPU client, and got no error messages there. Everything worked as expected. I had to change the number of usable CPUs, since it was set to one for GPU use, and had no problems with that. Conclusion: global_prefs_override.xml is fine.
1 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Starting BOINC client version 7.14.2 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
2 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM log flags: file_xfer, task
3 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Libraries: libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh/0.8.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
4 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Data directory: /home/pop8/Documents/BOINC/BOINC_CPU
5 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM No usable GPUs found
6 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM [libc detection] gathered: 2.29, Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2
7 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Host name: pop-os
8 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1276 v3 @ 3.60GHz [Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3]
9 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmper
10 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM OS: Linux Ubuntu: Pop!_OS 19.04 [5.0.0-15-generic|libc 2.29 (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2)]
11 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Memory: 15.60 GB physical, 4.00 GB virtual
12 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Disk: 101.18 GB total, 87.40 GB free
13 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Local time is UTC -4 hours
14 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Found app_config.xml
15 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: allow multiple clients
16 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: GUI RPC allowed from any host
17 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
18 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM 192.168.1.181
19 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: don't use coprocessors
20 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Last benchmark was 119 days 15:30:13 ago
21 latinsquares 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL https://boinc.multi-pool.info/latinsquares/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
22 Universe@Home 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL https://universeathome.pl/universe/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
23 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 0
24 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
25 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM General prefs: from World Community Grid (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13) 26 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Host location: none 27 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM General prefs: using your defaults 28 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Reading preferences override file
29 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Preferences:
30 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
31 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
32 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
33 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max CPUs used: 1
34 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
35 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
36 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Setting up project and slot directories
37 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Checking active tasks
38 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Setting up GUI RPC socket
39 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Checking presence of 253 project files
40 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Suspending computation - user request 41 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM General prefs: from World Community Grid (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13) 42 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Host location: none 43 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM General prefs: using your defaults 44 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Reading preferences override file
45 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Preferences:
46 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
47 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
48 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB 49 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Number of usable CPUs has changed from 1 to 7. 50 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max CPUs used: 7
51 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
52 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
53 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 4:02:31 PM Computation for task ZIKA_000454910_x5jjr_DENV3_NS5_s3_0160_0 finished
######
The CPU client has never run Einstein, and never had any preference errors. I copied the global_prefs from it to the GPU client. There was no error on startup.
1 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM Starting BOINC client version 7.14.2 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
2 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM log flags: file_xfer, task
3 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM Libraries: libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh/0.8.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
4 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM Data directory: /home/pop8/Documents/BOINC/BOINC_GPU
5 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 418.56, CUDA version 10.1, compute capability 7.5, 4096MB, 3958MB available, 15276 GFLOPS peak)
6 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 418.56, device version OpenCL 1.2 CUDA, 10986MB, 3958MB available, 15276 GFLOPS peak)
7 SETI@home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
8 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM [libc detection] gathered: 2.29, Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2
9 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Host name: pop-os
10 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1276 v3 @ 3.60GHz [Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3]
11 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmper
12 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM OS: Linux Ubuntu: Pop!_OS 19.04 [5.0.0-15-generic|libc 2.29 (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2)]
13 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Memory: 15.60 GB physical, 4.00 GB virtual
14 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Disk: 101.18 GB total, 87.41 GB free
15 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Local time is UTC -4 hours
16 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_config.xml
17 PrimeGrid 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_config.xml
18 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_config.xml
19 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: allow multiple clients
20 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: GUI RPC allowed from any host
21 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
22 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM 192.168.1.181
23 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: simulate 2 CPUs
24 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Last benchmark was 119 days 14:16:34 ago
25 collatz 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL https://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
26 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
27 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://www.gpugrid.net/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
28 PrimeGrid 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://www.primegrid.com/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
29 SETI@home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
30 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100 31 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13) 32 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Host location: none 33 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM General prefs: using your defaults 34 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Reading preferences override file
35 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Preferences:
36 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
37 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
38 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
39 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max CPUs used: 1
40 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
41 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
42 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Setting up project and slot directories
43 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Checking active tasks
44 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Setting up GUI RPC socket
45 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Checking presence of 170 project files
46 PrimeGrid 9/15/2019 3:43:05 PM task pps_sr2sieve_125735147_0 resumed by user
######
This is where I resumed PrimeGrid tasks I had paused before stopping the client. I had finished Einstein work and also stopped work fetch for all projects. A couple interesting entries follow.
149 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:13 PM work fetch resumed by user
150 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:50:15 PM work fetch resumed by user
151 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM No tasks sent
152 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM No tasks are available for Long runs (8-12 hours on fastest card)
153 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM No tasks are available for New version of ACEMD
154 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM Project has no tasks available 155 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM Couldn't parse preferences file - using defaults 156 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM Reading preferences override file
157 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM Preferences:
158 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
159 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
160 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
161 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max CPUs used: 1
162 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
163 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
164 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:50:36 PM Started download of LATeah1062L01.dat
######
The error is back! It looks like GPUGrid is having a problem with the preferences. Einstein then downloaded some work and apparently also tried to read the preferences file.
203 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Started download of templates_LATeah1062L01_0308_13672673.dat
204 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 24-Sep-2018 09:37:43)
205 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Host location: none 206 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM General prefs: using your defaults 207 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Reading preferences override file
208 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Preferences:
209 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
210 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
211 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
212 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM max CPUs used: 1
213 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
214 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
######
The error is gone! Einstein isn't having any problem.
Here's the next entry after a work request from GPUGrid.
263 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM No tasks sent
264 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM No tasks are available for Long runs (8-12 hours on fastest card)
265 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM No tasks are available for New version of ACEMD
266 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Project has no tasks available
267 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13)
268 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Host location: none 269 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM General prefs: using your defaults 270 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Reading preferences override file
271 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Preferences:
272 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
273 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
274 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
275 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max CPUs used: 1
276 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
277 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
######
No error now.
I'm not sure what to make of this, except that the local preferences file was fine. I've had a variety of network and other issues with this machine the last week, so it's possible that caused something in the web prefs file to get scrambled. This may be a WCG problem or maybe WCG and Einstein don't play well together for some reason.
I've posted enough log entries, but I noticed that the next GPUGrid work fetch did not print a message regarding preferences at all. It appears that some projects will read preferences on the initial work fetch (probably an update too) and stop if successful. If it fails, it keeps trying. I say "some" projects, because PrimeGrid behaves differently, it was not printing the error with every completed job like Einstein was.
A brief followup: This problem came back shortly after my previous post, but I lacked both time and interest for investigating. After seeing this post on GPUGrid recently I decided to try and fix it again.
"I did get a lot of extra downloads on WCG that I had never seen before, but expect that is a problem at their end(?). That is mainly because I have seen their "settings" reset every few months [emphasis added], and don't entirely trust their servers on that."
I made a minor adjustment in my settings on PrimeGrid. I chose that project because it's the backup project for all my GPU clients. Since then the error message has gone away. I primarily crunch WCG on Android devices so there's no reason for other clients to pull preferences from there anyway.
I've been without problems for some weeks now. I may have found out why.
When I used preferences, I always only used the standard venue. This made trouble. By changing the venue via the whatever-it-is-called-menue (is it dropdown/pulldown/pullup - technically speaking?) for 'Prefecence Set' I then tried to use the others. This didn't work any better.
Now, those some weeks ago I used the compare function (lower left) when working on the preferences. From this I got the idee that I should add those venues before just fiddling with the settings (which is possible here: https://einsteinathome.org/de/account/prefs/project , if there is no venue added). Since I did this nothing changed anymore.
We might discuss a user error, but we might also discuss this being a quite unusal design compared to other projects plus the remaining point that the preferences for the initial venue changed all the time and only stayed what they should after additional venues were added. This can't be the intended way for this to work.
I'll keep my eyes on this, but I don't expect any reoccuring problems.
Still I don't think this is in any way related to the way other projects or management systems handle things.
Thanks to everyone who joined this discussion and tried to shed some light on this. I really appreciate it!
It may be relevant that the
)
It may be relevant that the three users reporting apparently spontaneous preferences changes to their Einstein accounts all are listed as running a large number of other projects, and specifically World Community Grid.
It seems likely that an undesired interaction between Einstein and an external project manager, or some other element of the user configurations, is at hand here, not, as described, a purely unprovoked event on the Einstein servers, which mysteriously does not affect hundreds of other users who would be sure to report such an event.
What, if any, project management software do you use to coordinate your many BOINC project participations?
I do not use BAM or any other
)
I do not use BAM or any other project management systems.
But it happened again about one houre ago.
This seems like it may be
)
This seems like it may be related. I have this message in my log. It's not causing any obvious problems, but is annoying as it appears with every task.
I am not running any account manager. This is a GPU-only client attached to PrimeGrid, WUProp, Collatz, SETI and of course Einstein. This message only occurs with Einstein tasks.
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:15 PM Computation for task LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0 finished
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:16 PM Starting task LATeah1049af_148.0_0_0.0_4255279_1
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:18 PM Started upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_0
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:18 PM Started upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_1
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:21 PM Finished upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_0
Einstein@Home 9/14/2019 2:48:21 PM Finished upload of LATeah1049af_140.0_0_0.0_23377123_0_1
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM Couldn't parse preferences file - using defaults
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM Reading preferences override file
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM Preferences:
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM max CPUs used: 1
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
9/14/2019 2:48:26 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
Nick Name wrote:Couldn't
)
That may mean BOINC manager on your PC is currently configured so it believes you want it to use local preferences. Even if you do, it appears to find the file corrupt.
I suggest you consider explicitly telling BOINC manager to use web preferences. Then, if you actually want to use local ones, that you go back and configure them again--perhaps this will cause the file to be re-written in a non-corrupt state.
In case this is not familiar to you (or to some lurker who may read this comment later), to get to preferences control in BOINC manager, first make sure the Boincmgr "View" option is set to "Advanced View", not "Simple View". Then:
Options|Computing preferences
the top of the resulting popup (which may take a little while to display, as the manager communicates with the client) should indicate whether the manager believes you currently want to use web-based preferences or a local override file.
I am using local preferences,
)
I am using local preferences, and started troubleshooting under the assumption that the local preferences, aka global_prefs_override.xml, were fine; if there was a problem it was with the web preferences, aka global_prefs.xml. I've used local preferences for years, exactly to avoid problems like the one mentioned here, plus it just makes more sense to me to set them locally.
I use separate clients for CPU and GPU work, but I note that the global_prefs for both comes from World Community Grid. I'm not sure how this happened, the GPU client has never been attached to WCG. When I set up a new client I copy files from previous clients, and it's possible I also copied the global_prefs at that time.
The first thing I did was rename the global_prefs file, thinking a new one would be created and that should solve the problem. A new file was created, but the error remained. Rather than risk problems applying the web preferences, since the only problem I had was with the log being spammed, I did this instead.
I copied the GPU client global_prefs_override file to my CPU client, and got no error messages there. Everything worked as expected. I had to change the number of usable CPUs, since it was set to one for GPU use, and had no problems with that. Conclusion: global_prefs_override.xml is fine.
1 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Starting BOINC client version 7.14.2 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
2 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM log flags: file_xfer, task
3 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Libraries: libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh/0.8.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
4 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Data directory: /home/pop8/Documents/BOINC/BOINC_CPU
5 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM No usable GPUs found
6 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM [libc detection] gathered: 2.29, Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2
7 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Host name: pop-os
8 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1276 v3 @ 3.60GHz [Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3]
9 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmper
10 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM OS: Linux Ubuntu: Pop!_OS 19.04 [5.0.0-15-generic|libc 2.29 (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2)]
11 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Memory: 15.60 GB physical, 4.00 GB virtual
12 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Disk: 101.18 GB total, 87.40 GB free
13 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Local time is UTC -4 hours
14 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Found app_config.xml
15 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: allow multiple clients
16 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: GUI RPC allowed from any host
17 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
18 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM 192.168.1.181
19 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Config: don't use coprocessors
20 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Last benchmark was 119 days 15:30:13 ago
21 latinsquares 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL https://boinc.multi-pool.info/latinsquares/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
22 Universe@Home 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL https://universeathome.pl/universe/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
23 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 0
24 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM URL http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
25 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM General prefs: from World Community Grid (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13)
26 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Host location: none
27 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM General prefs: using your defaults
28 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Reading preferences override file
29 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Preferences:
30 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
31 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
32 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
33 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM max CPUs used: 1
34 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
35 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
36 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Setting up project and slot directories
37 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Checking active tasks
38 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Setting up GUI RPC socket
39 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Checking presence of 253 project files
40 9/15/2019 3:34:33 PM Suspending computation - user request
41 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM General prefs: from World Community Grid (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13)
42 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Host location: none
43 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM General prefs: using your defaults
44 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Reading preferences override file
45 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Preferences:
46 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
47 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
48 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
49 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM Number of usable CPUs has changed from 1 to 7.
50 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM max CPUs used: 7
51 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
52 9/15/2019 3:40:30 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
53 World Community Grid 9/15/2019 4:02:31 PM Computation for task ZIKA_000454910_x5jjr_DENV3_NS5_s3_0160_0 finished
######
The CPU client has never run Einstein, and never had any preference errors. I copied the global_prefs from it to the GPU client. There was no error on startup.
1 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM Starting BOINC client version 7.14.2 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
2 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM log flags: file_xfer, task
3 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM Libraries: libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh/0.8.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
4 9/15/2019 3:41:35 PM Data directory: /home/pop8/Documents/BOINC/BOINC_GPU
5 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 418.56, CUDA version 10.1, compute capability 7.5, 4096MB, 3958MB available, 15276 GFLOPS peak)
6 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 418.56, device version OpenCL 1.2 CUDA, 10986MB, 3958MB available, 15276 GFLOPS peak)
7 SETI@home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
8 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM [libc detection] gathered: 2.29, Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2
9 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Host name: pop-os
10 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1276 v3 @ 3.60GHz [Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3]
11 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmper
12 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM OS: Linux Ubuntu: Pop!_OS 19.04 [5.0.0-15-generic|libc 2.29 (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.29-0ubuntu2)]
13 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Memory: 15.60 GB physical, 4.00 GB virtual
14 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Disk: 101.18 GB total, 87.41 GB free
15 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Local time is UTC -4 hours
16 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_config.xml
17 PrimeGrid 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_config.xml
18 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Found app_config.xml
19 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: allow multiple clients
20 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: GUI RPC allowed from any host
21 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
22 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM 192.168.1.181
23 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Config: simulate 2 CPUs
24 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Last benchmark was 119 days 14:16:34 ago
25 collatz 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL https://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
26 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
27 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://www.gpugrid.net/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
28 PrimeGrid 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://www.primegrid.com/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
29 SETI@home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 1
30 WUProp@Home 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM URL http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/; Computer ID 00000; resource share 100
31 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13)
32 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Host location: none
33 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM General prefs: using your defaults
34 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Reading preferences override file
35 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Preferences:
36 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
37 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
38 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
39 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM max CPUs used: 1
40 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
41 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
42 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Setting up project and slot directories
43 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Checking active tasks
44 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Setting up GUI RPC socket
45 9/15/2019 3:41:36 PM Checking presence of 170 project files
46 PrimeGrid 9/15/2019 3:43:05 PM task pps_sr2sieve_125735147_0 resumed by user
######
This is where I resumed PrimeGrid tasks I had paused before stopping the client. I had finished Einstein work and also stopped work fetch for all projects. A couple interesting entries follow.
149 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:13 PM work fetch resumed by user
150 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:50:15 PM work fetch resumed by user
151 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM No tasks sent
152 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM No tasks are available for Long runs (8-12 hours on fastest card)
153 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM No tasks are available for New version of ACEMD
154 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 3:50:18 PM Project has no tasks available
155 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM Couldn't parse preferences file - using defaults
156 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM Reading preferences override file
157 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM Preferences:
158 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
159 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
160 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
161 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM max CPUs used: 1
162 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
163 9/15/2019 3:50:34 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
164 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:50:36 PM Started download of LATeah1062L01.dat
######
The error is back! It looks like GPUGrid is having a problem with the preferences. Einstein then downloaded some work and apparently also tried to read the preferences file.
203 Einstein@Home 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Started download of templates_LATeah1062L01_0308_13672673.dat
204 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 24-Sep-2018 09:37:43)
205 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Host location: none
206 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM General prefs: using your defaults
207 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Reading preferences override file
208 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM Preferences:
209 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
210 9/15/2019 3:50:51 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
211 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
212 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM max CPUs used: 1
213 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
214 9/15/2019 3:50:52 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
######
The error is gone! Einstein isn't having any problem.
Here's the next entry after a work request from GPUGrid.
263 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM No tasks sent
264 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM No tasks are available for Long runs (8-12 hours on fastest card)
265 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM No tasks are available for New version of ACEMD
266 GPUGRID 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Project has no tasks available
267 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM General prefs: from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ (last modified 12-Feb-2019 08:28:13)
268 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Host location: none
269 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM General prefs: using your defaults
270 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Reading preferences override file
271 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM Preferences:
272 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max memory usage when active: 7988.12 MB
273 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max memory usage when idle: 11982.18 MB
274 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max disk usage: 10.00 GB
275 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM max CPUs used: 1
276 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 50%
277 9/15/2019 4:12:52 PM (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
######
No error now.
I'm not sure what to make of this, except that the local preferences file was fine. I've had a variety of network and other issues with this machine the last week, so it's possible that caused something in the web prefs file to get scrambled. This may be a WCG problem or maybe WCG and Einstein don't play well together for some reason.
I've posted enough log entries, but I noticed that the next GPUGrid work fetch did not print a message regarding preferences at all. It appears that some projects will read preferences on the initial work fetch (probably an update too) and stop if successful. If it fails, it keeps trying. I say "some" projects, because PrimeGrid behaves differently, it was not printing the error with every completed job like Einstein was.
A brief followup: This
)
A brief followup: This problem came back shortly after my previous post, but I lacked both time and interest for investigating. After seeing this post on GPUGrid recently I decided to try and fix it again.
"I did get a lot of extra downloads on WCG that I had never seen before, but expect that is a problem at their end(?). That is mainly because I have seen their "settings" reset every few months [emphasis added], and don't entirely trust their servers on that."
I made a minor adjustment in my settings on PrimeGrid. I chose that project because it's the backup project for all my GPU clients. Since then the error message has gone away. I primarily crunch WCG on Android devices so there's no reason for other clients to pull preferences from there anyway.
Time will tell if this worked permanently.
I've been without problems
)
I've been without problems for some weeks now. I may have found out why.
When I used preferences, I always only used the standard venue. This made trouble. By changing the venue via the whatever-it-is-called-menue (is it dropdown/pulldown/pullup - technically speaking?) for 'Prefecence Set' I then tried to use the others. This didn't work any better.
Now, those some weeks ago I used the compare function (lower left) when working on the preferences. From this I got the idee that I should add those venues before just fiddling with the settings (which is possible here: https://einsteinathome.org/de/account/prefs/project , if there is no venue added). Since I did this nothing changed anymore.
We might discuss a user error, but we might also discuss this being a quite unusal design compared to other projects plus the remaining point that the preferences for the initial venue changed all the time and only stayed what they should after additional venues were added. This can't be the intended way for this to work.
I'll keep my eyes on this, but I don't expect any reoccuring problems.
Still I don't think this is in any way related to the way other projects or management systems handle things.
Thanks to everyone who joined this discussion and tried to shed some light on this. I really appreciate it!
- - - - - - - - - -
Greetings, Jens