LHC@home

Harri Liljeroos wrote:

As far as I know, there are two 10 day limits for a Theory task. One is the deadline for the task and going over this is not a problem. The 1 day longer deadline seen on server side is a one day grace period that the server allows task to be returned 1 day over deadline. The more problematic 10 day limit is the maximum run time project has set for these tasks. Boinc will abort the task at the 10 day mark because it has run too long.

So you have two options: If you are sure it won't finish in 10 days, abort it and get a new task or let it run and see what happens. I would abort it. I have had tasks that could not be finished in 10 days and I have aborted them. A bit annoying but not a big deal.

unfortunately, I did not read Harri's recent comment earlier, although I kind of was remembering the 10 days's limit from a posting some time ago.
So within the past few days it happened here that 2 Theory tasks were aborted after exactly 10 days, although far away from getting finished within this timespan:

https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/result.php?resultid=414360907
https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/result.php?resultid=414250277

too bad, but no much one can do; except watching every Theory task and trying to predict whether it will or will not finish within 10 days.

For the babysitting crunchers among us, there is a method to avoid a Theory-task to be killed after 10 days.

You have to adjust some files and restart BOINC. Possibly it only works for new received Theory tasks.

The files to change: cc_config.xml in BOINC data directory and Theory_2024_04_30_prod.xml in lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome project-directory.

In the options part of cc_config.xml add or change <dont_check_file_sizes>1</dont_check_file_sizes>
In Theory_2024_04_30_prod.xml: Remove the line <job_duration>864000</job_duration>

For the babysitting crunchers among us, there is a method to avoid a Theory-task to be killed after 10 days.

The task will continue to run on my computer, but the Theory project will not accept the result because it will be too late to provide it. What's the point of completing tasks longer than 10 days?

For the babysitting crunchers among us, there is a method to avoid a Theory-task to be killed after 10 days.

The task will continue to run on my computer, but the Theory project will not accept the result because it will be too late to provide it. What's the point of completing tasks longer than 10 days?

Too late is not synonym with invalid.
The deadline on Theory is to kill tasks that do not make progress, maybe idle, processing in a loop or booted from a corrupted virtual disk.
When you are a well-trained babysitter you know that the task will survive, but need more than 10 days.
Probably a resend is sent to another volunteer, but because of the duration your task will return late, but before the resend is returned and validated OK.
When the resend was not started before your return it will be aborted, else it will be valid too when returned on time with deadline not extended.

Have had many herwig7 tasks that took longer than the 10days deadline(running native on linux not sure how virtualbox behaves). Sometimes you have luck the task got not send to other users yet. They are accepted. Even if the task got send to an other user already it takes your result and gives you points for the valid results and cancels the task of the other user once you sent your result(just hope that the person has not yet started to do the task yet.)


I even gamble for longer acceptance for tasks that failed on 2 other computers and is with the 3. try no longer resend to new computers.

Have had many herwig7 tasks that took longer than the 10days deadline(running native on linux not sure how virtualbox behaves).

For the native tasks their is no build-in mechanism to kill the task after 10 days wall-time like the VM-shutdown by the vbowrapper.
The 10 days deadline is for BOINC-client side. The server gives you 1 day grace period, before a resend is triggered.

For the babysitting crunchers among us, there is a method to avoid a Theory-task to be killed after 10 days.

In the options part of cc_config.xml add or change <dont_check_file_sizes>1</dont_check_file_sizes>
In Theory_2024_04_30_prod.xml: Remove the line <job_duration>864000</job_duration>

The line <job_duration>864000</job_duration> comes back atfer some time. Can we do anything?

For the babysitting crunchers among us, there is a method to avoid a Theory-task to be killed after 10 days.

In the options part of cc_config.xml add or change <dont_check_file_sizes>1</dont_check_file_sizes>
In Theory_2024_04_30_prod.xml: Remove the line <job_duration>864000</job_duration>

The line <job_duration>864000</job_duration> comes back atfer some time. Can we do anything?

Yes: update to the latest BOINC version. This will help :-)

Yes: update to the latest BOINC version. This will help :-)

Most unexcpected advise, but it works! Thank you.