Posts by Jim1348

1) Message boards : News : Project update (Message 1785)
Posted 29 Aug 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Thank you for your determined efforts. It is a pleasure to work on a project at the cutting edge in any field, and this is one of them.
I hope the funding situation improves after your publication. We can do more, but let us know when.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Out of Work (Message 1781)
Posted 28 Aug 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Tasks ready to send 0

This is unusual for this project. I will be out of work in about an hour.
3) Message boards : Cafe : Where the water once flowed: Rivers and lakes dry up as droughts take toll (Message 1780)
Posted 28 Aug 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Loireauxence is right next to Angers.
https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/where-the-water-once-flowed-rivers-and-l-idUSRTSAOO64
4) Message boards : Number crunching : High failure rate (Message 1771)
Posted 2 Aug 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
If you are on Windows, it is best to run VirtualBox 5.2.44.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_5_2
It has to do with the com interface. Not all projects are up to date on 6.x yet.
5) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : BOINC 7.18.1 causes invalids (Message 1766)
Posted 24 Jul 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
any news?

for now only QuChemPedIA have issues, all other projects doing good

The Rosetta/Pythons also don't work. They won't even start up.
I tried upgrading to BOINC 7.20.2 and get the same result. That is because it isn't a bug in BOINC, just a new security requirement.
I think all writes have to go to the slots folder, not a tmp folder. Not all projects are up to speed on it yet.

I don't recall if I tried it on Cosmology, but it is a VirtualBox project, and has not been updated for some time. I doubt that the new BOINC works there either.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : High failure rate (Message 1759)
Posted 8 Jul 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
If you want to see high failure rates, you don't have to look far.

Just check you "valids" and look at the people who produce invalids in a few seconds.
https://quchempedia.univ-angers.fr/athome/results.php?hostid=13821
https://quchempedia.univ-angers.fr/athome/results.php?hostid=10191
https://quchempedia.univ-angers.fr/athome/results.php?hostid=10140

And these are just the first three I checked. The list goes on and on.
You wonder how they manage to turn their computer on.
7) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : Not respecting BOINC compute limits (Message 1751)
Posted 29 May 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
I set it to 30% to prevent the fan noise from getting too loud, but this project still runs at 100%.

BOINC always respects the "% of the processors" for me. So just set it to 50% or so and see what happens.
8) Message boards : News : Presensation of our work (Message 1749)
Posted 15 May 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Yes, for me too. While the details of the quantum chemistry and AI are beyond me, it gives me a much better understanding of the type of molecules you are working on and how they are derived. And it gives a good explanation of how our contributions fit into the overall project.

I think it is a nice blend of basic scientific development and practical applications. Thanks.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Stuck tasks (Message 1747)
Posted 12 May 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
no, Jim, I am talking about those tasks for which CPU activity suddenly stops right a few seconds after start, or after any other time later.

OK, I had not seen that one the short time I was on Windows.

It sounds like the same problem with the Pythons on Rosetta. They would just get stuck with 0% resource usage and had to be aborted.
It happened on both Windows and Linux there though. I do not see it here on Ubuntu.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Stuck tasks (Message 1742)
Posted 8 May 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
What's wrong with my computers ???

If you mean the "Vm job unmanageable" ones, it is just that you are on Windows.
I had them too on Win10, but don't on Ubuntu.

It could be something else though.
11) Message boards : Number crunching : Stuck tasks (Message 1714)
Posted 24 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
With several tasks running concurrently on 7 computers, it is of course difficult to monitor everything permanently in order to detect such faulty tasks early.

Have you tried BoincTasks?
https://efmer.com/boinctasks/download-boinctasks/

It is easy to install, and runs along with BOINC Manager. In fact, you can use it to control the BOINC tasks instead of BM if you want to, but that is not necessary.
It gives you an easy indication of the % of the CPU that any given task is using. So if it is not using much (i.e., will take forever to finish), then that will be easy to see.
And you can then easily abort the task.

I use it on my Win10 machine to monitor not only the work units on it, but also all my Ubuntu machines on the LAN. It makes them all readily available.
12) Message boards : Number crunching : Inconclusive validation (Message 1711)
Posted 13 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
My inconclusives are coming from people somehow completing tasks in 3 seconds.

One of them is running BOINC 7.18.1, which I know does not work (I have posted on it).
And the other is running BOINC 7.16.17, which probably has the same problem.
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Inconclusive validation (Message 1707)
Posted 10 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
is this coincidence only, or could it be the case that the better the CPU the more inconclusives come out? Would be crazy, wouldn't it?

It isn't how fast the CPU's are, just how many work units they have processed. When you first attach a machine, all the processed work units will initially be "inconclusive". Some will show "valid" early, as soon as they are validated by a wingman. Others will take longer, as with any validation scheme, until a wingman processes them. But some will never be validated, and will show up as "invalid". But that can take a long time, because it takes something like ten invalids before the work unit is marked as "invalid".

Most (maybe 80%) of the work units end up being validated, but the others never make it. The problem for the crunchers is that they allow so many tries (about 10) before they give up, so it takes a long time. It gives a distorted impression of what is happening.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Inconclusive validation (Message 1705)
Posted 10 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
I now looked up other members' contributions and noticed that in some cases there were only a few "inconclusives", in other cases quite a lot, more than half of the tasks.
So the success of a task seems to depend on the individual computer.

Question: will the "inconclusive" status of a task ever change, or will it stay like this forever?

I have a lot. I have used different machines and different OS, but always end up with a lot eventually. It really just depends on how long you have been doing them.
https://quchempedia.univ-angers.fr/athome/results.php?userid=31&offset=0&show_names=0&state=3&appid=

See the post by Luigi R. They should change to either "valid" or "invalid" at some point.
To get some idea, just click on each work unit to see how many crunchers are in that state also. The older they are, the more there will be.
(If they validate early, then there won't be so many machines still working on them.)
15) Message boards : Science : NWChemEx (Message 1700)
Posted 6 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
This unit has 21+ hours on it.

If the CPU usage is near zero (that is, the CPU time is much less than the total time), it will go on forever.

It is easy to check that with BoincTasks. It shows the CPU % directly, and gives a red marker when it is low.
16) Message boards : Science : NWChemEx (Message 1698)
Posted 6 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Most of the work units finish reasonably quickly, but I have one on here at the moment, which is showing 99.999% complete. Sounds like a faulty unit to me, are there any LONG work units at the moment?

I don't think there are any longs. It is a bad work unit. I see them on Windows, but not Linux, which does not use VirtualBox here.
17) Message boards : Number crunching : Virtualbox and memory error (Message 1696)
Posted 5 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
I was on the wrong track. It is disk space it is complaining about.

I increased the VM disk size to 17 gig but still get the same message.

BOINC has a known bug (or feature, if you prefer).
You need to set the "Use at most ... GB disk space" to a large value, such as the total of your drive.
And set "Use at most ... % of total disk space" to 100%.
18) Message boards : Science : What are we working on? (Message 1686)
Posted 2 Mar 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Can you tell us what types of materials we are working on?
I am happy to contribute to basic materials science, but do they have a practical application such a solar cells, bio-fuels or pharmaceuticals?

This project requires somewhat more computing resources than most, and it would be good to know that it is worth the investment.

Thanks.
19) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : BOINC 7.18.1 causes invalids (Message 1684)
Posted 28 Feb 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
I do not know. I am a Debian 11 user. I am afraid future linux distributions will use the strict mode and will expect that the several projects will update their apps for using only authorized paths.

I installed Ubuntu 20.04.4, and it still downloads BOINC 7.16.6 from the Ubuntu Software center. They are probably giving the projects more time to make their stuff compatible.
But it looks like it is coming.
20) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : BOINC 7.18.1 causes invalids (Message 1682)
Posted 24 Feb 2022 by Jim1348
Post:
Thank you YAG. That looks like the secure way to do it.
I am back to BOINC 7.16.6. Maybe the new Ubuntu 20.04.4 will incorporate the fix?


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