1) Message boards : ATLAS application : queue is empty (Message 51940)
Posted 7 days ago by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
The Atlas queue has been empty for a while now. There are still some resend tasks sent out every now and then. If you get one, the server seems to give you 24 hours to finish the task before it gets cancelled even if the deadline is still 7 days away. So keep your cache low and push the possible Atlas tasks to get them crunched asap.
2) Message boards : ATLAS application : Failed to execute payload:/bin/bash: Sim_tf.py: command not found (Message 51855)
Posted 21 Apr 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
Over 500 validate errors during the past couple of days.
3) Message boards : Sixtrack Application : Missing "sixtrack test" column on the leaderboards (Message 51819)
Posted 7 Apr 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
Well the credit was followed by me and no doubt some others. Total lack of respect for users contributions. So ATLAS, CMS and Theory results will also be removed when they have no more work then?

I hope not, but only project people can answer that.
4) Message boards : Sixtrack Application : Missing "sixtrack test" column on the leaderboards (Message 51814)
Posted 6 Apr 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
Have been away from the project a few months only to return and find the leaderboard no longer shows sixtrack test credits and also ATLAS long for that matter.

Seems the credit earned has vanished as it has not been added to the sixtrack results either.

The credit for those subprojects are not followed anymore as there are no more applications for them. But the credit for them should be included in your personal credit.
5) Message boards : ATLAS application : Win11 got a feature update and now all Atlas tasks fail after 21 seconds (Message 51796)
Posted 1 Apr 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
...What I might do then is to upgrade from 7.1.4 to 7.1.6, maybe it helps. I'll tell you
I upgraded, and now is seems to work :-) So, my Win11 is able to crunch also Atlas (besides CMS and Theory which have not been a problem before anyway).

Good!
6) Message boards : CMS Application : no new WUs available (Message 51789)
Posted 31 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
the VM will keep crunching them until minimum 12 hours has passed
Explains why my recent ones have finished very early. Sporadic job availability?

That's most likely, or some communication failure when it was requesting new jobs.
7) Message boards : ATLAS application : Win11 got a feature update and now all Atlas tasks fail after 21 seconds (Message 51788)
Posted 31 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
Harry, which version is the "new VBox version" you're mentioning above. Your recent ATLAS tasks show 5.2.44 which is a pretty old one,

The reason why I am asking is that I bought a new Windows11 host recently and never got ATLAS to run on it. My VB version is 7.1.4 (which was the newest one at the date of installation).

The 5.2.44 is on my WIndows 10 machine and it is working fine. The Win11 machine now has version 7.1.6
8) Message boards : CMS Application : no new WUs available (Message 51782)
Posted 31 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
Sorry, I don't know enough of the inner workings of LHC tasks to comment that. Anyway, that's the way at least CMS is configured right now.
9) Message boards : CMS Application : no new WUs available (Message 51779)
Posted 30 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
after CMS ran out of jobs, the automatic stop of tasks download took place.
I don't follow. There's no tasks so it automatically stops you downloading the tasks which aren't there?

The CMS jobs and Boinc tasks are two different things. Boinc handles the download of tasks which launch the VM machines. The VM machines then contact Cern and download the jobs that are then crunched. One Boinc task will handle several sets of jobs (depending on the speed of host). If there are jobs available when VM requests them, the VM will keep crunching them until minimum 12 hours has passed. If 12 hours has passed and the current set of jobs is finished, the task ends normally. The crunching has a maximum time limit of 18 hours when Boinc task is finished anyway.
[edit] If there aren't any jobs available when the VM requests them, the task ends there. This could happen right at the start of the VM and the task would end in about 20 minutes. Boinc server should notice this and stop generating new tasks.
10) Message boards : Theory Application : New Version v300.80 (Message 51717)
Posted 18 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
[edit] The 10 day estimate is dropping quite fast. Let's hope it reaches realistic values before task finishes.


Most of the newest version tasks all seem to be completing in 2 hours or less, though I do have one right now that's been running for 5-1/2 hours.

The runtime estimate stopped dropping quite soon and stabilized at run time + time left = 240 hours.
11) Message boards : Theory Application : New Version v300.80 (Message 51712)
Posted 17 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
When first downloaded, these tasks show 7 min 3 sec runtime to completion.
After running for 7 min 3 sec, the estimated time to completion jumps to just over 9 days 23 hours.

This is normal behavior for Theory tasks. The first estimate is the average of previous Theory tasks (for new app it probably is based on cpu metrics). After the first estimate has been reached Boinc switches to task maximum runtime. This unfortunately screws up the task fetching as Boinc thinks that it already has work for 10 days.
[edit] The 10 day estimate is dropping quite fast. Let's hope it reaches realistic values before task finishes.
12) Message boards : Theory Application : New Version v300.70 (Message 51701)
Posted 17 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
All new tasks are failing. Maybe vdi-file has wrong name? I have downloaded Theory_2025_03_17_prod.vdi
stderr:
Command:
VBoxManage -q showhdinfo "C:\ProgramData\BOINC/projects/lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome/Theory_2025_03_17_dev.vdi" 
Output:
VBoxManage.exe: error: Could not find file for the medium 'C:\ProgramData\BOINC\projects\lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome\Theory_2025_03_17_dev.vdi' (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)
VBoxManage.exe: error: Details: code VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80bb0004), component MediumWrap, interface IMedium, callee IUnknown
VBoxManage.exe: error: Context: "OpenMedium(Bstr(pszFilenameOrUuid).raw(), enmDevType, enmAccessMode, fForceNewUuidOnOpen, pMedium.asOutParam())" at line 179 of file VBoxManageDisk.cpp
13) Questions and Answers : Preferences : Max # jobs and Max # CPUs is max 8 in settings. Would it be possible to add so you have 16, 32 and 64 as options in both settings? (Message 51696)
Posted 16 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:

Now you are asking for something that BOINC cannot do. Furthermore, what I posted has nothing to do with the total number of running tasks; it only controls the number of threads used by multi-thread capable tasks.
If you are running tasks from several different projects, then the best you can do to try to get what you want is to avoid using <max_concurrent> for the most part, and just let BOINC decide which projects to run.

I am running only 1 CPU project, LHC. I think that my request to set limit for concurrent threads instead of concurrent tasks would probably work better on project level i.e. project_max_concurrent. I know that Boinc cannot do it at the moment.
14) Questions and Answers : Preferences : Max # jobs and Max # CPUs is max 8 in settings. Would it be possible to add so you have 16, 32 and 64 as options in both settings? (Message 51685)
Posted 13 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
I've done all that. The problem comes when some of the subprojects run out of tasks and the total number of tasks running need to change to get optimal load for the host. And the very large range of Theory task run times doesn't help either.
15) Questions and Answers : Preferences : Max # jobs and Max # CPUs is max 8 in settings. Would it be possible to add so you have 16, 32 and 64 as options in both settings? (Message 51679)
Posted 13 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
It would be nice if the max_concurrent setting would handle cores (threads) instead of tasks. Especially for LHC with multithread applications.
16) Message boards : Number crunching : event log says "server can't open log file" when pushing the update button (Message 51671)
Posted 11 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
Yes, it seems to be almost random when you get the error and when some new tasks.
17) Message boards : Number crunching : event log says "server can't open log file" when pushing the update button (Message 51669)
Posted 11 Mar 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
In addition to the message you see I get this:
63975	LHC@home	11-03-2025 20:36	[sched_op] Deferring communication for 00:02:22	
63976	LHC@home	11-03-2025 20:36	[sched_op] Reason: project is down
18) Message boards : Number crunching : All subprojects Theory, Atlas, CMS and sixtrack are currently out of work (Message 51612)
Posted 28 Feb 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
As the title says, we are out of all work. Nothing to download and weekend coming ...
19) Message boards : ATLAS application : Win11 got a feature update and now all Atlas tasks fail after 21 seconds (Message 51590)
Posted 21 Feb 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
OK, thank you.
20) Message boards : ATLAS application : Win11 got a feature update and now all Atlas tasks fail after 21 seconds (Message 51588)
Posted 21 Feb 2025 by Harri Liljeroos
Post:
bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks on
after installing the required drivers
bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks off

This is from KI Copilot from Microsoft.

The problem seems solved when I installed the latest version of VirtualBox. But I am just curious, how should this advice have helped?


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