SETI Problems

[areese]

Since the huge outage last week all of my optimized apps cannot get new work.  Any machines I have running the standard app work just fine.  I even tried a full reinstall on one machine with the optimized app and still nothing.  Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

[Simon]

Please see http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=39531&nowrap=true#570201 for a workaround.

HTH,
Simon.

[msattler]

Simon....I did the disable app info bit and my hosts were then able to download all the work they wanted.  'Til either they reached their daily quota, or got a short WU and went into EDF and stopped looking for more work.  Put the app info file back so I can keep crunching at full speed, but I suspect this will muck up comms with Seti again.  May have to go through this once a day or so until they get things fixed again.
Have you any insight as to how running the optimized app could be hindering comms with the server?  Did they do some code mods coinciding with the crash and new server migration that are taking exceptiion to the requests the optimized apps make vs what the stock app makes?
'Tis a puzzlement.

[Crunch3r]

...  Did they do some code mods coinciding with the crash and new server migration that are taking exceptiion to the requests the optimized apps make vs what the stock app makes?

If i read the whole tech news and blogs at the s@h board correctly, then i assume it's due to the fact that they updated their boinc server software....

If you ask me ...  a "very" good idea while having major issues from clients connecting...

If you need answers on who to blame for this one and some other major issues like "ghost WUs" ( not the ones atm but the previous ones) ... send a pm if it's not allready clear who to blame.

[Fivestar Crashtest]

I can't do that disable app info thing on my Pentium D because I'm using the 64 bit BOINC.  It won't get work units without it.   Guess I'll have to switch it back to 32 bit.

I got my Xeon X3220 going with openSuse 10.2 and am using the 32 bit BOINC and it got work right away.   Switched right to the 32 bit 2.2B, so I'm starting to get back on track.

[Fivestar Crashtest]

  Did they do some code mods coinciding with the crash and new server migration that are taking exceptiion to the requests the optimized apps make vs what the stock app makes?
'Tis a puzzlement.

They wouldn't do that on purpose, would they?  This would hurt anybody using anonymous platform, who needs it for 64 bit  or any platform not supported, not just optimizers.

[Simon]

Hi Pam,

I'd think it wasn't on purpose, no. However, it came at a very inopportune time; from what I read, Matt made some changes to the code, then there were compilation problems, and Matt had to leave before they got fully fixed.

So in any case, it's never a good idea to do any sort of code changes during an outage, which is what Crunch3r wanted to express, I believe. Usually leads to what we have now, total havoc.

Regards,
Simon.

[msattler]

Simon....There is some discussion going on in the Seti NC Ghost WU thread about rmoving the app info xml file and finding that the host is still running optimized apps.  At what point would the host revert back to the stock app?
If you restart Boinc with the xml file in place, and then remove it to allow comms with the server, will all the WUs in the cache then continue to run optimized?

[Josef W. Segur]

Simon....There is some discussion going on in the Seti NC Ghost WU thread about rmoving the app info xml file and finding that the host is still running optimized apps.  At what point would the host revert back to the stock app?

That's certainly unclear. If the core client deletes the optimized app because it's no longer linked to anything, then it has to download the stock app. But as little as having one finished and uploaded WU left to report means the optimized app is still linked.

When I did the workaround changes on SETI Beta, the stock app was not downloaded and my personal build continued to run. There were still unreported results for those cases. But when I did the workaround for Main the stock app was downloaded and put to use immediately, I hadn't done any work on Main recently so there was nothing to report.

It seems likely that a queue of work might prevent ever switching to the stock app, every request to the Scheduler would have some linkage to work on the host. Whether that departure from the design goals is totally in the BOINC core client or part of recent changes server side, I don't know.

If you restart Boinc with the xml file in place, and then remove it to allow comms with the server, will all the WUs in the cache then continue to run optimized?

Yes, because the BOINC core client only looks for app_info.xml files at startup. But that's not what you want.

After any change of app_info.xml you have to restart BOINC for the change to take effect. For minimum crunch time loss, making the change while BOINC is running, then doing an exit followed immediately by restart is a good plan.
                                                                                   Joe

[msattler]

Joe.....
This may help explain why, when I followed your advice in Seti Beta, and removed the app info file, it was posted that my rigs were still reporting all the work as being crunched with optimized apps.  A few days ago, I set all my rigs to no new work for Beta, and will crunch all as is and delete the optimized app file totally.  This may take a while, seems that my quad rig has latched onto crunching Astropules WUs for 60-70 hours at a time.  Ouch.

[hiamps]

Pam, on my 64bit I just renamed App_info to Appp_info and was able to download fine, like 300 units. When I renamed it back the speed came back.

[Simon]

Folks,

I'd like to direct your attention to this thread by Carsten. He outlines a method similar to the Richard's workaround, but his does not require any manual intervention after installation (until a new stock application version comes along).

His post is titled "using optimized apps without an app_info.xml" and seems like it should work for anyone who is not attached to SETI Main and SETI Beta at the same time.

Reason being, to run both on the same host needs a "faked" higher version number to work for Main, which makes Carsten's method unworkable. Of course, that's an assumption, but I'll be able to prove or disprove it in a bit (will try Carsten's method on a number of different hosts to see what happens).

Regards,
Simon.

[msattler]

Simon, so far the simple work-around that has been working for me is to simply rename the app info file and restart Boinc. Period.
It clears up the comms problem with Seti Main (still get http server errors trying to report Beta, but I think that's been seen as a separate problem) and all the WUs continue to crunch using the optimized app.  It has continued to work even after some of the rigs have rebooted.  It seems that unless the host runs totally out of WUs or Boinc decides to update the stock app, the link to the optimized app is maintained even though the app info file is not present and Boinc does not on start the 'anonymous platform' when starting up.
This has worked on all of my rigs since yesterday, all 32 bit, 2 xp, the rest win2k.
I also changed my cache preferenc from 10 days to 4 days and this did not cause any problems.

[msattler]

Simon, I made the last post before reading the Carsten posts and had another thought...
Could the reason this is working for me have something due to the fact that the app info files I am using contain references to 512, 513, 514, 515, and 517?

[nutsalot]

Simon

I was waiting for the Server side issue to be resolved so I removed the app_info.xml on all my devices and all my devices are running 515 workunits. I am not part of the beta SETI so to run the chicken apps DO I remove all the references like below that refer to the following version numbers 512,513,514 and 517 then put the edited file into place till server side issue is resolved ? An example of some of the lines to be removed would be as follows

<app_version>
        <app_name>setiathome_enhanced</app_name>
        <version_num>512</version_num>
        <file_ref>
            <file_name>KWSN_2.2B_SSE3-C2_Ben-Joe.exe</file_name>
            <main_program/>
        </file_ref>

This will be diffrent dependent on which Chicken App you use.

Please clarify

Nutsalot

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

- Murphy's Law