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[PST]Howard
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Message 9642 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 8:44:54 UTC

I have a number of results pending where 3 or 4 other computers have been granted credit.

Mine show as pending with Validate State - Initial.

eg: Work Unit nos: 1817001, 1803443, 1862214, 1866442.

Any Ideas.
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Antjest

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Message 9650 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 13:18:07 UTC - in response to Message 9642.  

<blockquote>I have a number of results pending where 3 or 4 other computers have been granted credit.

Mine show as pending with Validate State - Initial.

eg: Work Unit nos: 1817001, 1803443, 1862214, 1866442.

Any Ideas.</blockquote>


You probably have too long queue and in time you process your results the quorum has been long reached and file deleter cleared them from database. It has been known that file deleter does this.
So you never gonna see credit for those results.

I suggest you reduce your queue to have no more results for LHC that you can process in a day or two with your puter.

Tony
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[PST]Howard
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Message 9654 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 13:44:19 UTC

Thanx Tony

But these were returned within 2-3 days of downloading and well inside the report deadline. I keep my cache at around 3-4 days.
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Gaspode the UnDressed

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Message 9656 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 15:00:00 UTC - in response to Message 9654.  

<blockquote>Thanx Tony

But these were returned within 2-3 days of downloading and well inside the report deadline. I keep my cache at around 3-4 days.</blockquote>

The file deleter has been a bit over eager, and has deleted files from the system when the quorum has been reached - sometimes long before the deadline. Returning WUs in 2-3 days may have been long enough to fall foul of this particular quirk.

As per Colt's post, you'll be lucky to see credits for these WUs.

I hope the recent file_deleter update has fixed this particular problem.
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[PST]Howard
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Message 9657 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 16:06:00 UTC

Thanx Mike

How can the file deleter be over eager, whats the report deadline for then.

If thats the case it's unacceptable. I'm not going to use up CPU time in the hope the work units that I run, may or may not contribute to the project.

And before you say it's only beta, they should have got everything running properly before opening up to 4k+ new crunchers.
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Message 9658 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 17:22:39 UTC - in response to Message 9657.  

<blockquote>

How can the file deleter be over eager, whats the report deadline for then.


</blockquote>

The report deadline is the time after which it is assumed that an issued unit won't be returned and can be reissued.

The quorum indicates the number of valid results that must be returned - this might be reached long before the deadline.

The file_deleter can legitimately delete files when a quorum has been reached and all issued results have either been returned or passed the deadline. The bug in the file_deleter was sometimes deleting files once a quorum had been reached, ignoring results that hadn't been returned or passed the deadline.

>>they should have got everything running properly before opening up to 4k+ new crunchers.

Maybe, but BOINC and Sixtrack are large and complex systems. Perhaps a certain software company shouldn't release its products until all the problems are resolved?

>>I'm not going to use up CPU time in the hope the work units that I run, may or may not contribute to the project.

All BOINC projects use the quorum method. You will always be subject to this 'may or may not contribute' question. You would have contributed nothing more (or less) to the project if the files hadn't been deleted before your credit was granted. As far as the project is concerned the quorum has been reached - all you are missing is an amount of 'credit'.

If you want to be sure of 'contributing' then cut your cache to 0.1 day and return every unit within hours of receiving it. Even then, a unit issued to several faster machines might reach quorum before you return your result.


I agree that it's not perfect, but it's far better than SETI classic, where a unit could be crunched 10, 20 or 30 times just to keep the supply of work up.


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[PST]Howard
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Message 9659 - Posted: 25 Aug 2005, 17:48:09 UTC
Last modified: 25 Aug 2005, 18:32:07 UTC

>>The bug in the file_deleter was sometimes deleting files once a quorum had been reached

So why has the bug not been removed when there was no work. Seems this is a long standing problem.

http://lhcathome.cern.ch/forum_thread.php?id=1360

>>All BOINC projects use the quorum method. You will always be subject to this 'may or may not contribute' question

Haven't come across this anywhere else

>>If you want to be sure of 'contributing' then cut your cache to 0.1 day and return every unit within hours of receiving it.

So whats the point of BOINC manager, maybe its become too "complex". Why not just download 1 wu from each project in turn instead of setting it to 0.1 days and running the risk of having boxes sitting there doing nothing, especially if you're on dialup not always on internet
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Profile Paul D. Buck

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Message 9669 - Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 16:37:37 UTC

You are also confusing the BOINC Manager complexity with the BOINC System complexity. The file deleter has nothing to do with, at least not directly, the BOINC Manager. So, complex or not, the BOINC Manager or BOINC Daemon, the two client side applications have nothing to do with the server side component File Deleter.

BOINC is a complex system. The good news is that with 5 active and production projects "banging" on the system these types of problems are being found. If we had "one off" projects, then we would be seeing this type of problem repeated 5 times. Most importantly, as the issues are found they are fixed for 5 production projects and all the test projects in the pipeline.

I know it is frustrating to see your contribution "wasted", but in the big scheme of things it is not a waste really, it is just an annoyance.

I know many people seem to find it hard to be enthused when it seems we are stumbling from one problem to another. But, the reall point of this is to be a part of science. I can't do much for society through normal routes, but, with BOINC I am helping to advance the cause of science for 5 different projects. And, as some of the new ones come on-line, I will add some of those. Though, in the not too distant future, I can easily see that there will be so many projects that I am going to have a hard time choosing which ones will get my time.
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Message 9922 - Posted: 4 Sep 2005, 17:29:10 UTC

I to have a pending credit, quorum was reached a couple of hours before mine was sent in. So according to the previous statements I have lost credit even though it was uploaded on the same day. What is far about that? They should wait until nearer the deadline date and then see if there is a quorum not do it when a quorum is formed post the credits and no=one after can get them. Well they say Life Sucks, well so does this method of granting credits.

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AnRM

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Message 9923 - Posted: 4 Sep 2005, 20:49:48 UTC

PP@H also deletes very quickly after a quorum has been reached i.e. no credit for later returns. I have not seen the same with E@H though.....maybe they recognized the problem and adjusted their code to at least wait until all the deadlines were met. It's annoying and is another subtle way of increasing the throughput of the project, I guess. I can see that dial-up hosts would have a problem with this if they have a large cache.....cheers, Rog.
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Message 10072 - Posted: 11 Sep 2005, 19:34:14 UTC

I have a work unit that was returned before the deadline that's still pending.

http://lhcathome.cern.ch/workunit.php?wuid=345962

My connect to is 3 days. The result was received 24 Jul 2005 16:29:48 UTC and returned 26 Jul 2005 15:16:52 UTC. Unfortunately it seems a quorum was reached prior to the return of my copy of the work unit. It looks like my result page will have have a permanent reference to a unit I'll never get credit for.
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
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itenginerd
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Message 10099 - Posted: 12 Sep 2005, 16:59:09 UTC - in response to Message 10072.  

<blockquote>It looks like my result page will have have a permanent reference to a unit I'll never get credit for.</blockquote>

Hrm... Shades of Seti@Home's antique file problem?

One hopes the LHC file deleters will get those antiques, or this project will end up the same way Seti has for the last bit (only quicker, I think).

(j)
James
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[PST]Howard
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Message 10353 - Posted: 21 Sep 2005, 17:35:00 UTC

Would be nice if the Admins would look into this and grant us the credit.

Whilst the credits aren't important compared to the science, they are our payback for the time and money that WE spend supporting the various BOINC projects.

I'm sure Markku and co wouldn't go into a shop, pay at the till and leave with nothing. So it should be for us.
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Message 10355 - Posted: 21 Sep 2005, 18:13:03 UTC

I ave two WU pending credit, one I know I will not credit for. For some reason it did not upload so I have zero vredits for that and it will stay on my account pending credit for further references on theis see Contact on the message boarf. The other one pending credit is that they only sent one WU mine did it and the cutoff date is the 24th. So unless they send out the other WU I do not know if I will get credit.

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Message 10357 - Posted: 21 Sep 2005, 18:38:04 UTC - in response to Message 10353.  
Last modified: 21 Sep 2005, 18:46:15 UTC

<blockquote>Would be nice if the Admins would look into this and grant us the credit.</blockquote>Don't overestimate what the admins are capable of.. They don't have the manpower (and IIRC this topic has come up before and the Admins have commented about this) or the sheer desire to go through and do all that manually. IIRC, Either Markku or Chrulle have said they are looking into an automated way of taking care of that problem. By going in and doing it manually they risk doing something to the database that BOINC will not like. (Guys, correct me on that note if i'm wrong!)

Besides, your analogy is flawed. :) We get no "value" that's tangible or tradable from credit earned.. Like you say, credit is not the end-all or be-all of donating resources - but you also said it's analogous to paying for something and walking off without it. If we were talking about a major problem where thousands of credits per user were not being granted, your argument would have a whole lot of merit and many people would be upset by it. But a few old WUs at ~32 credits a piece.. it's not worth their effort. If i'm statistically granted 99% of work returned, then all's good. Looking at your results.. out of the last 195 completed WUs, counting the ones you have issues with, you're talking not being granted 0.02051% of your total WU contribution and the % is probably very much smaller than above, as LHC doesn't keep track of *all* completed results..

PS: The math was 4 units with issues divided by total workunits returned that are not in pending status including the 4 with issues = percent of workunits not and probably never will be granted credit.

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Message 10359 - Posted: 21 Sep 2005, 20:10:18 UTC

My SQL does not yet have a fully transaction orientation. So, most things are committed as they occur. Which means in the case of an error ...oops ...

With Oracle, one can "practice" a change to make sure it does not damage the data ... if it does, "rollback time!". This restores the database to the condition it was before the start of the transaction. So, a non-destructive behavior.
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[PST]Howard
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Message 10360 - Posted: 21 Sep 2005, 20:21:29 UTC
Last modified: 21 Sep 2005, 20:50:24 UTC

In that case whats the point of the report deadline, especially if your'e on Dialup and can't stay connected all the time.

Yes the credits have no monetary value, but they were introduced as a fairer system than counting work units because of the variation in computer setups in use.

For many people, credits give a sense of belonging, encourage them to continue, join other projects and join teams, fostering a sense of community.

And yes I know LHC's resources are stretched, but didn't SETI go on and on without fixing problems and ended being down longer than if they had sorted out their problems in the first place. And now Predictor is having a problem with zero credit myself included.

Looking through the boards many crunchers see credits as a reward and an aknowledgement of the work they have done and say they will leave the project in question if the errors continue and worse still, they could leave BOINC altogether.

If I were to check back my results, for ungranted credit on valid results,on all the projects I have completed work for, your 0.02051% will grow.
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Message 10363 - Posted: 21 Sep 2005, 22:05:23 UTC - in response to Message 10360.  

I do agree about the sense of belonging and affinity for a given project. :)

The point is "pending credit that will never be issued" is not a mission-critical problem at LHC; if it were, more people would be complaining and it's overall a minor nuisance problem at best, only a few people presently (out of 13,716 registered users according to <a>boincstats[/url] this afternoon) experiencing it. It's unfair to aggregate all BOINC enabled projects into one lump sum with regard to the "same" problem because it's not known yet wether or not it's a BOINC problem, project-specific, database, configuration, or even the server host OS. Granted there are probably many people who don't bother with the forums or checking what's going on, it's not a big deal.
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Message 10364 - Posted: 22 Sep 2005, 1:50:59 UTC

I have 5 or 6 WU's pending credit, and my only thought is "are they usable to the project?".

Personally, I would prefer a simpler credit system ~ 1 point for usable WU results, 0 points for anything else. I can live with the fact that I dont own a farm of the fastest number-crunchers in existence; so long as I am contributing in a positive way to the project, I'm happy.

I understand the Boinc method of levelling granted credit on the basis of machine configuration, and time utilised on the project, to encourage participants. But the scientific value MUST override all concerns, after all, why else were these projects started.

regards
Robert Laughlin
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Message 10366 - Posted: 22 Sep 2005, 5:13:30 UTC

My 2 cent...
I do agree, science is the goal - but you have to motivate people. I don't think I would be crunching the way I do for "null" - even if the credits are no valuable currency ;-)
Imho the way the file deleter works is strange - why is there a deadline if this deadline isn't obligatory for all - including server side!

So yes, that´s a point to work on for the programmers. Is it mission critical? No. But it is a "customer relationship" subject - so the responsible people may think about which value this has and put it somewhere on their to-do-list.
As I said - just my 2 cents...
best regards
5th.rider


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