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1) Message boards : Theory Application : Task at 100% and still running
Message 53047
Posted 16 Feb 2026 by [TA]Assimilator1
In reply to Crystal Pellet's message of 14 Feb 2026:
In reply to [TA]Assimilator1's message of 14 Feb 2026:
Yea I've had loads that have appeared to be stuck at 100% and I aborted quite a few too!
Would've been useful if the LHC guys had sent us a BOINC message warning about the long runtimes and the inaccuracy of the BOINC % for VM tasks, would've saved wasted crunching time :(.

My 'show graphics' button is greyed out, any idea why?
Read here: https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/forum_thread.php?id=6448&postid=53018


Thanks :), I see this for one task I have running :-

PYTHIA Warning in StringFragmentation::fragmentToJunction: bad convergence junction rest frame
PYTHIA Warning in JunctionSplitting::SplitJunPairs: parallel junction state not allowed.
PYTHIA Warning in JunctionSplitting::CheckColours: Not possible to split junctions; making new colours
PYTHIA Warning in JunctionSplitting::CheckColours: Made a gluon colour singlet; redoing colours
PYTHIA Error in StringFragmentation::fragment: stuck in joining
PYTHIA Error in Pythia::next: hadronLevel failed; try again
PYTHIA Error in MiniStringFragmentation::fragment: no 1- or 2-body state found above mass threshold
PYTHIA Warning in SimpleSpaceShower::pT2nextQCD: weight above unity
100 events processed
PYTHIA Error in SimpleSpaceShower::pT2nearThreshold: stuck in loop
PYTHIA Warning in SimpleSpaceShower::pT2nextQCD: small daughter PDF
200 events processed
PYTHIA Error in StringFragmentation::fragmentToJunction: caught in junction flavour loop
300 events processed
400 events processed
500 events processed
PYTHIA Warning in StringFragmentation::finalRegion: random axis needed to break tie
600 events processed
700 events processed
PYTHIA Warning in MiniStringFragmentation::ministring2two: random axis needed to break tie
800 events processed
900 events processed


ends :-


Pythia::next(): 19000 events have been generated
19000 events processed
19100 events processed
19200 events processed
19300 events processed
19400 events processed
19500 events processed
19600 events processed


I assume it's still running then? Is there anywhere in that file that shows progress point?
Are the warnings anything to worry about?
2) Message boards : Theory Application : Task at 100% and still running
Message 53031
Posted 14 Feb 2026 by [TA]Assimilator1
Yea I've had loads that have appeared to be stuck at 100% and I aborted quite a few too!
Would've been useful if the LHC guys had sent us a BOINC message warning about the long runtimes and the inaccuracy of the BOINC % for VM tasks, would've saved wasted crunching time :(.

My 'show graphics' button is greyed out, any idea why?
3) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 50852
Posted 19 Oct 2024 by [TA]Assimilator1
about a dozen WUs are showing "Postponed: VM Environment needed to be cleaned up", now firstly that message is talking past tense, so is it sorted now or is that just bad English and it should say ..."needs to be cleaned up".

Indeed, this appears to be a major BOINC error being there for nearly 5 years now.
You may quickly prepare a PR here, otherwise I will do and get the fame.


another 6 WUs are showing the message "Postponed: b" ,and no I haven't typo'd that's all they say ...

They simply crashed and didn't have enough time to correctly print an error message.
Just to mention it since you insist on correct language: it should be ", and" instead of " ,and".


So why am I getting those messages even though I'm only running Theory sim exclusively?
Also, LHC is causing bad system lag ...

You run (or just start) too many of them concurrently.


Even if the advice is written in past tense you should follow it's core message:
- Stop BOINC
- Use VirtualBox Manager and VirtualBox Medium Manager to remove orphaned "disks" and VM definitions.
- Restart BOINC



Additionally, some WUs are showing ETAs of 10 days! What's that about?

Can be ignored.
BOINC just shows "something" instead of "nothing" since it can't see what's going on in a VM.



this r...... VM app

You may read this and follow the rules given there - especially the 1st part of the 1st rule.


Apologies for a very late reply (I forgot about this and gave up on LHC VM apps) & and thank you for your reply.
I've no idea what a PR is, but I take it you've long since taken the fame! :D
Well spotted on my typo, I make many, but usually spot them just after I've posted, so BOINC forums extremely limited edit time occasionally thwarts that ;)

Re concurrent tasks, I would've just let BOINC do it's thing, if only 1 task could (can?) be run at a time, I wouldn't know how to limit BOINC like that.
Nor would I have known (or know) how to do this "- Use VirtualBox Manager and VirtualBox Medium Manager to remove orphaned "disks" and VM definitions."

I don't recall BOINC giving me those 3 instructions from a core message, beyond its "Postponed: VM Environment needed to be cleaned up"

Re the forum's 1st rule :-
Our message boards are moderated. Posts are subject to the following rules:

Posts must be 'kid friendly': they may not contain content that is obscene, hate-related, sexually explicit or suggestive.


I've no idea what you are talking about here, my post was kid friendly, not in the slightest obscene nor did it have any of the last 3 misdemeanours.
The most you can say is that I was slightly rude by calling the app 'rubbish', perhaps you could say I breached the last point in rule 5, but that was my opinion and I said it in a very mild way.

Anyway, it's been ~2.5 yrs since these posts, Have these issues been resolved now? Or does VM LHC still require micro-managing/setting up?
4) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 46284
Posted 19 Feb 2022 by [TA]Assimilator1
LHC@Home is not a plug and play project like other BOINC-Projects are.

You can easily run LHC@Home like a plug and play project: if you run Sixtrack only
You can easily run LHC@Home like a plug and play project: if you run one of Atlas / Theory / CMS exclusively and if you keep this setting: "Use at most 100 % of CPU time" (VMs don't like this kind of throttling)

If you want to run all kind of applications LHC@Home offers, you will have to make micro-managing with your client; BOINC will not be able to always give you what you want for your client.


After forgetting why I stopped running LHC last year, I ran it again and quickly ran into problems, not wanting to go through that mammoth post (and spend hours following the dozens of steps!) about how to get VM working properly I tried the 2nd option as above, choosing Theory sim (as it seems to have the most WUs).
But even sticking with that, and when I had 100% cpu time set, I still ran into problems :(, about a dozen WUs are showing "Postponed: VM Environment needed to be cleaned up", now firstly that message is talking past tense, so is it sorted now or is that just bad English and it should say ..."needs to be cleaned up". I thinking perhaps the later because multiple WUs are showing that message, also another 6 WUs are showing the message "Postponed: b" ,and no I haven't typo'd that's all they say :p.
So why am I getting those messages even though I'm only running Theory sim exclusively?
Also, LHC is causing bad system lag, even though I have loads of spare RAM available. What's that about?
Additionally, some WUs are showing ETAs of 10 days! What's that about? (although I don't think any are actually taking that long).
Main rig specs in sig.

I really like the LHC@home projects ideas and the research it's doing for LHC, one of the projects I'm most interested in, but this rubbish VM app is just making it a nightmare and I'm not going to bother if it's going to take hours to fix. I thought I could just run Sixtrack again, but that project seems to often run out of WUs.

PS, Yeti, your user of the day :)
5) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44898
Posted 6 May 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
I don't recall seeing that on the front page.

Anyway, disabling Atlas seems to have done the trick, no problems caused by LHC running now, but I currently have 14 errored WUs, 13 are for CMS sim, no idea why (exit codes mean nothing to me). Common ones are :-
207 (0x000000CF) EXIT_NO_SUB_TASKS
194 (0x000000C2) EXIT_ABORTED_BY_CLIENT
And a single 1 (0x00000001) Unknown error code

Also the estimated times for some Theory sim WUs are 8-9 days! Lol. But they aren't actually taking that long.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : ATLAS apps unticked, but still getting ATLAS WUs!
Message 44621
Posted 30 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
Ah yea, you got it, now unticked, thanks :)
7) Message boards : Number crunching : ATLAS apps unticked, but still getting ATLAS WUs!
Message 44587
Posted 28 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
As per title I disabled the ATLAS apps, I did this because it was taking more CPU resources than was set by BOINC!

And now, after a few weeks strangely, it's downloading ATLAS WUs again! Wth?? Anyone know what's going on? (and yes I have re-confirmed they are still disabled).
For now, I've shut off new WUs completely.

Hoping someone can help, as I would like to continue to contribute to LHC.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44499
Posted 16 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
Just thought of a better answer, rather than not run LHC altogether (I want to run it!), I've disabled the Atlas app. Let's see how the other apps behave....
9) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44498
Posted 16 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
Well this takes the biscuit, I'd set BOINC to 85% computing time to leave some CPU power for GPU folding.
Last night and this morning I found my system had ground to a crawl and LHC VM was taking 100% CPU time! So I restricted BOINC to 50% and now LHC is 'only' taking ~70%.
What with BOINCs messed up way of trying to balance credit, and now LHC hogging resources I'm done with it :(

But why was it taking 100% when I'd set 85%!? It should of left any spare threads for Rosetta, not try and run another 8 with LHC VM. (that's with Atlas WUs)
10) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44462
Posted 8 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
But I now have a WU stuck at 100% and 1.5 days elapsed time!
11) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44461
Posted 8 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
In the short to medium term I would've just quit running LHC if I needed to go through all that.

Anyway, some team mates managed to help me - https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/weekly-dc-stats-28feb2021.2591268/post-40454305
Turns out AMD-V was disabled in the bios, and it was called SVM mode, hence I didn't spot it in the manual or bios.
Since enabling it, I've had no errors.
12) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44429
Posted 3 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
Thanks for your reply, that's a very large post of yours you linked, is their a particular part I can get away with reading? I don't want to spend hours on this.
13) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44426
Posted 2 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
Thanks for your reply.

Never heard of it, what is it?
I don't recall seeing that in the bios, and I don't see it mentioned in the manual...
14) Message boards : Number crunching : VM Applications Errors
Message 44422
Posted 1 Mar 2021 by [TA]Assimilator1
I'm getting a ton of errors atm, I had a quick look at the task details, but it doesn't mean much to me.
I've got no errors in Rosetta atm, for what it's worth.

Can anyone help?
15) Message boards : News : CERN and COVID-19
Message 42282
Posted 25 Apr 2020 by [TA]Assimilator1
Yep switched my main cruncher over to R@H & F@H some weeks ago, good to hear LHC pitching in too :)
16) Message boards : Number crunching : Host messing up tons of results
Message 27744
Posted 17 Apr 2016 by [TA]Assimilator1
Grrr, DP, slow forum!
17) Message boards : Number crunching : Host messing up tons of results
Message 27743
Posted 17 Apr 2016 by [TA]Assimilator1
Lol, and did you actually mean to say 'without any errors till today'? ;)
18) Message boards : Number crunching : Host messing up tons of results
Message 27657
Posted 16 Dec 2015 by [TA]Assimilator1
What's the latest on this Eric?
(I've not monitored results in a while, & just caught up with this thread)


Ah good to hear 1 of them replied! :)

One of us)

We're all one team. As I see 12k active users and 20k active hosts it is amazing that a vast impact project has.
SO I urge everyone to check their error and invalid and inconclusive tasks on regular basis to see any kind of irregularities so it could be fixed asap.

When I said 1 of them, I was referring to a user with major host problems, as per this thread.
I never said they weren't part of the project, btw most of us are in different teams ;) :P.
19) Message boards : Number crunching : Host messing up tons of results
Message 27388
Posted 16 Apr 2015 by [TA]Assimilator1
Other CPU intensive tasks shouldn't cause any errors.
20) Message boards : Number crunching : Host messing up tons of results
Message 27376
Posted 12 Apr 2015 by [TA]Assimilator1
Setting a weeks worth of work is too long really, as you discovered when you got more 8hr WUs. I usually set a cache of 3-4 days.

The only way I know to see how long a WU is going to take is to look at the time 'remaining' in the tasks list. So no you can't 'cherry pick' the longer WUs.

And yea LHC often runs out of WUs, that's normal ;), which is why I have it running alongside other projects.
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