Possible Answers to some of your Questions

BarryAZ
BarryAZ
Joined: 8 May 05
Posts: 190
Credit: 320773870
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Correct, the database has

Message 60777 in response to message 60775

Correct, the database has been in 'dribble validation mode' for the past week or so (in addition to other problems that have occurred and been dealt with or remain ongoing).

Regarding other projects that run pretty smoothly, the two I added in the past year or so are World Grid (which has a bit different interface but is part of the BOINC group) and Rosetta -- I pushed computer cycles over to Rosetta with the beginning of Einstein's severe problems in December. Those two projects now are getting about 60% of my cycles over the past two months. SETI has also been a benefactor of the shift from Einstein -- back in November (when Einstein was still running reliably), SETI was getting less than 15% of my CPU time, now it gets 25%. SETI runs reasonably reliably (they have a weekly 3 to 4 hour outage on Tuesdays which is planned), and further, the much larger and proactive user community there means that when there are problems, the word gets out big time.

Quote:


It appears I have been getting credit for some of the pending jobs as my overall point total is slowly rising. However the results pending number is rising much faster. As long as the thing still seems to be working I'm going to stay put. I am running Rosetta on a couple of machines, but being on dialup I'm spending more time downloading than anything else.:-( If you know of a worthwhile program that's up and running smoothly let me know. :-)

F. Prefect


kami4ligo
kami4ligo
Joined: 15 Mar 05
Posts: 48
Credit: 16105651
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RE: I would like to thank

Message 60778 in response to message 60773

Quote:

I would like to thank all those who have expressed appreciation for the information that I have tried provide in this thread. It is frustrating for all of us to experience the difficulties in getting regular work and reporting the results. My reason for posting is to try to ease the level of frustration and not to try to pretend that the problems don't exist or to suggest that they should simply be ignored.

.....

The problems will ultimately be solved. Indications are there that this may well be sooner rather than later now that those over at Seti seem to have worked out a possible strategy. I'm sure the project staff will let us know more details as soon as they are able to. In the meantime, I would like to thank you for your continuing support and patience.

Thanks for your efforts and the valuable information, Gary.

I'll keep cooking for E@H, with a duty cycle of 12.5% down from 100%. And have elected climateprediction.net as my 'other' project - no worries with this one, the expected execution time is over 2000 hours per WU, you download one WU and forget about it ... Once I have chewed about 10 of those, I'll have learnt to be patient and will reconsider E@H ;)

It's a pity that no official information has been forthcoming from the project. Someone wrote in a post that E@H never promised a problem-free ride. Granted. But if the broad user support E@H have gained just evaporates, nothing will be gained.

Kind regards, and thanks again.

-rg-

qdemn7
qdemn7
Joined: 20 Feb 05
Posts: 12
Credit: 3414228
RAC: 0

I could understand if this

I could understand if this problem had only been happening for a few day, but IIRC it's been ongoing for almost two weeks. That, and the fact their is no "official" response on the main E@H page, shows a real lack of respect toward contributors.

I quite E@H once before, looks like it's time to do so again. Sad really.

F. Prefect
F. Prefect
Joined: 7 Nov 05
Posts: 135
Credit: 1016868
RAC: 0

RE: I would like to thank

Message 60780 in response to message 60773

Quote:

I would like to thank all those who have expressed appreciation for the information that I have tried provide in this thread. It is frustrating for all of us to experience the difficulties in getting regular work and reporting the results. My reason for posting is to try to ease the level of frustration and not to try to pretend that the problems don't exist or to suggest that they should simply be ignored.

As I read through the responses, there are a couple of comments that need to be addressed. One of those is that I should sticky this post. OK, that has now been done. Another is that I should post a summary on the front page. Unfortunately that is something I can't do as I'm not a staff member of the project. I'm simply a user like everyone else, with the ability to do some basic housekeeping, like deleting posts or threads or making a thread sticky.

Many people wonder why the project staff seem to be insensitive to the user frustration. Believe me, I'm sure they are not. I'm sure it's just a matter of too many fires to fight and too few firefighters to do it. Take a look at the contributors page and see if you can find any IT specialists who might be responsible for the management of the server farm and the ongoing development of the software system that runs that farm. How many database specialists are there who know all the tricks to really improve database performance? Unfortunately it is the physicists themselves that have to do this. Any programmers you see there are working on the science apps and not the server back end or database code.

The problems are certainly with the server and database code as this thread over at Seti seems to indicate. In a later message, Matt Lebofsky indicates that both Seti and Einstein are being affected. I'm sure people like Bruce Allen and David Hammer are doing their best to resolve these problems as quickly as possible.

The problems will ultimately be solved. Indications are there that this may well be sooner rather than later now that those over at Seti seem to have worked out a possible strategy. I'm sure the project staff will let us know more details as soon as they are able to. In the meantime, I would like to thank you for your continuing support and patience.

Excellent post. Personally I believe that if there are still plans for the project to remain in existance over a significant period of time, they are making a very big mistake by not informing the current contributors regarding the current as well as future status of the project.

The only possible reason I can imagine for their lack of action is the fear of losing particpants, which of course, in most cases will never return after setting up shop elsewhere. I hope I'm wrong, and am continuing to run Einstein@home on all machine and will continue to do so as long as the results are being shown to have been received and the my total credit number continues to increase albeit at a very slow rate, and all sent jobs are showing up on the results page and my pending credit continues to increase.

However after reading several of the posts in this forum and others, I would tend to believe they are losing more participants than if they simply post a short message giving the current and future status of the project and at least many who have been with the program for a lengthy period of time as well as others considering joining or have only been with the program for a short period of time, can now make an informed decision as to what they intend to do.

Their apparent position that "the truth will kill", are very likely to discover that the total lack of action will get the job done just as quickly while at the same time showing total disrespect to those who have several years invested in the project.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6534
Credit: 284730859
RAC: 105773

Well spoken Gary! Some of my

Well spoken Gary!
Some of my thoughts after more than a year of E@H involvement:

- E@H is a victim of it's own success. For a number of reasons, and ironically reliability is prominent amongst them, it has steadily grown ie.

for those of you cognisant with IT stuff and database design in particular, it is often the case that some things just don't scale well. This came to light for E@H late last year with increasing activity of the project declared a number of hardware issues patent.

- we are all actually getting feedback, but many do not realise it, as part of the design of the project: it's called the BOINC error messages. While not absolutely personalised enough for some, they do accurately reflect their computer's situation. If some people are meaning "lack of feedback" == "the project's internal decision loop is not visible to me", then you are absolutely right. By definition really. I would respectfully suggest that it is correct for it to be that way - I won't repeat the many reasons already mentioned for this. Sadly some will take personal offence at this scenario, or at least appear to.. :-)

- it is always worth mentioning, again, the multi-project aspect of BOINC. This is not to say "go away if you're not happy" ( although you may ), but simply reflects that the design of BOINC explicity caters for this. Again no personal impugnment ought be deduced from this.

- there is a fascinating social aspect to this distributed processing paradigm. It certainly confirms the old adage "you can't please everybody". Fundamentally there is a frequent contributor expectation that the provision of volunteered resources necessarily implies a quid pro quo of some sort. I guess it does, however some look to beyond a mere "thanks for your time", aka credits. I really don't know where to go from there along that line of thinking, except to point out that credits don't actually mean anything outside the confines of this "castle in the air" that is the E@H project. It really is a pretty pure knowledge project/experiment and about as cutting edge as it gets ( that is: no-one has yet detected a gravity wave, and boy will it make a splash when it does! ) My view is that if one doesn't get a tingle up the spine simply by being involved in this historic enterprise then I probably am actually on another intellectual plane! I mean that sincerely and kindly without malice or being condescending !! :-)

- as for the project staff, they are superb in my view. They no doubt they wince when reading some posts ( mine included ) but they have remained professional and hardworking. Please don't be too harsh if you conclude their apparent absence as some variey of snub. Also please don't assume that there is some open ended resource bucket yet to be dipped into either. Instead consider it a blessing if the ship's engineer spends his time in the engine-room rather than chatting with the passengers on deck, and more so if the seas are rough!

Having vented the bilge on that ( metaphors are not my strong point ), let's all ease up a bit and be patient. :-)

Cheers, Mike.

NB. I wonder how many know that Bruce Allen was a graduate student of Stephen Hawking? To grossly understate - that is not a position casually obtained! That does not make him some god that strides upon the Earth, but likewise he is no flunky functionary that some contributors have implied. There really is no known reason to concoct personal attacks - you know who you are - and I will vigourously delete such board activity at any such time it arises, then as now. :-)

( edit ) '...open ended resource bucket...' - groan! What was I thinking! :-)

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

kami4ligo
kami4ligo
Joined: 15 Mar 05
Posts: 48
Credit: 16105651
RAC: 0

RE: Well spoken Gary! Some

Message 60782 in response to message 60781

Quote:

Well spoken Gary!
Some of my thoughts after more than a year of E@H involvement:

- E@H is a victim of it's own success. For a number of reasons, and ironically reliability is prominent amongst them, it has steadily grown ie.

((image : see previous post))

for those of you cognisant with IT stuff and database design in particular, it is often the case that some things just don't scale well. This came to light for E@H late last year with increasing activity of the project declared a number of hardware issues patent.

- we are all actually getting feedback, but many do not realise it, as part of the design of the project: it's called the BOINC error messages. While not absolutely personalised enough for some, they do accurately reflect their computer's situation. If some people are meaning "lack of feedback" == "the project's internal decision loop is not visible to me", then you are absolutely right. By definition really. I would respectfully suggest that it is correct for it to be that way - I won't repeat the many reasons already mentioned for this. Sadly some will take personal offence at this scenario, or at least appear to.. :-)

- it is always worth mentioning, again, the multi-project aspect of BOINC. This is not to say "go away if you're not happy" ( although you may ), but simply reflects that the design of BOINC explicity caters for this. Again no personal impugnment ought be deduced from this.

- there is a fascinating social aspect to this distributed processing paradigm. It certainly confirms the old adage "you can't please everybody". Fundamentally there is a frequent contributor expectation that the provision of volunteered resources necessarily implies a quid pro quo of some sort. I guess it does, however some look to beyond a mere "thanks for your time", aka credits. I really don't know where to go from there along that line of thinking, except to point out that credits don't actually mean anything outside the confines of this "castle in the air" that is the E@H project. It really is a pretty pure knowledge project/experiment and about as cutting edge as it gets ( that is: no-one has yet detected a gravity wave, and boy will it make a splash when it does! ) My view is that if one doesn't get a tingle up the spine simply by being involved in this historic enterprise then I probably am actually on another intellectual plane! I mean that sincerely and kindly without malice or being condescending !! :-)

- as for the project staff, they are superb in my view. They no doubt they wince when reading some posts ( mine included ) but they have remained professional and hardworking. Please don't be too harsh if you conclude their apparent absence as some variey of snub. Also please don't assume that there is some open ended resource bucket yet to be dipped into either. Instead consider it a blessing if the ship's engineer spends his time in the engine-room rather than chatting with the passengers on deck, and more so if the seas are rough!

Having vented the bilge on that ( metaphors are not my strong point ), let's all ease up a bit and be patient. :-)

Cheers, Mike.

NB. I wonder how many know that Bruce Allen was a graduate student of Stephen Hawking? To grossly understate - that is not a position casually obtained! That does not make him some god that strides upon the Earth, but likewise he is no flunky functionary that some contributors have implied. There really is no known reason to concoct personal attacks - you know who you are - and I will vigourously delete such board activity at any such time it arises, then as now. :-)

( edit ) '...open ended resource bucket...' - groan! What was I thinking! :-)

Thanks Mike !

There is indeed a social aspect to this argument. It's all about partnership and expected fairness, as I understand it.

The contributors community controls a valuable resource, which it allocates to various degrees to E@H's computing needs. The community does so for the love of a good science project, or to garner credits, or for whatever particular reasons a member may have. By the mere fact that the project needs and accepts to use this freely contributed resource, it enters a partnership with the community.

We all rely for our social interactions on some sense of fairness, as do some of our relatives on the path of evolution. This sense of fairness has helped resolve or prevent frustrations on several occasions :
1.
the credit allocation scheme was revised after long-standing protests of the Linux contributors base claiming that the allocation based on the BOINC benchmarks was arbitrary and unfair.
2.
feedback and valuable technical information on the project's progress was eventually posted on the Science board.
3.
within hours of the hardware outages hitting the E@H's file server, the IT staff had an HTTP server up with a short and informative message on display. Which the community greatly appreciated.

Now, if there is growing dissatisfaction within the contributors community with the PR or problem management aspects of the project, I guess they can a) educate the community to proper attitudes and expectations, or b) adjust their model of said community to fit the experimental data. As you say, a fascinating and unexpected aspect of this project.

What I see so far is the community helping itself - many thanks again to the moderators. The silence on the project's side sounds like

Quote:
we don't have a problem, regrettably we don't even know how to fix it, and it's none of your business anyway.


Now, I was just trolling - but a few lines would have prevented a lot a grief.

Regards.

-rg-

kami4ligo
kami4ligo
Joined: 15 Mar 05
Posts: 48
Credit: 16105651
RAC: 0

Great ! After all these

Message 60783 in response to message 60782

Great !

After all these days of anguish in the community, Bernd Maschenschalk has posted a short message about the current problems.

So, the project did not fall inside the event horizont yet ! We keep hoping ;)

-rg-

Sherwood
Sherwood
Joined: 3 Jan 06
Posts: 2
Credit: 6458588
RAC: 0

Hello All, I spend 40

Hello All,

I spend 40 minutes reading all the threads about the past two weeks issues.

In these days of trouble, I am having a hard time to keep all my machines buzy crunching for EAH (being in the top 30 RAC I do have a few machines to take care of...) and it would really help if somebody could confirm that it is 100% sure that no credit will be lost in the recovery process. May be I overlooked some threads but frankly this information deserves a well placed message.

One remark.

I am not a usual participant to these forums. I believe a lot of people like me would not have needed to spend 40 minutes trying to find out what is going wrong if at least a small message would be posted on the home page of EAH. We all know systems admins are buzy trying to fix the problem but the variety of participants (IT savvys and the other) deserve various commmunications channels I believe.

Sherwood

Odysseus
Odysseus
Joined: 17 Dec 05
Posts: 372
Credit: 19556274
RAC: 3250

RE: In these days of

Message 60785 in response to message 60784

Quote:
In these days of trouble, I am having a hard time to keep all my machines buzy crunching for EAH (being in the top 30 RAC I do have a few machines to take care of...) and it would really help if somebody could confirm that it is 100% sure that no credit will be lost in the recovery process.


I doubt anything can be stated with 100% certainty in this business … but AFAICT it would take a new and unforeseen (and probably quite spectacular, or at least multiple) failure of some kind for results that are already ‘safely pending’ in the database to get lost.

F. Prefect
F. Prefect
Joined: 7 Nov 05
Posts: 135
Credit: 1016868
RAC: 0

RE: Hello All, I spend 40

Message 60786 in response to message 60784

Quote:

Hello All,

I spend 40 minutes reading all the threads about the past two weeks issues.

In these days of trouble, I am having a hard time to keep all my machines buzy crunching for EAH (being in the top 30 RAC I do have a few machines to take care of...) and it would really help if somebody could confirm that it is 100% sure that no credit will be lost in the recovery process. May be I overlooked some threads but frankly this information deserves a well placed message.

One remark.

I am not a usual participant to these forums. I believe a lot of people like me would not have needed to spend 40 minutes trying to find out what is going wrong if at least a small message would be posted on the home page of EAH. We all know systems admins are buzy trying to fix the problem but the variety of participants (IT savvys and the other) deserve various commmunications channels I believe.

Sherwood


Sounds logical to me. I even suggested 3 weeks ago that might be the best course of action and was flamed. However, the fact that it seems so simple I believe may hold a hidden meaning. Of what, I have no idea, but there must be something happening that a brief explaination may not, at least at this point in time, be possible. I have been with this project for approx 1.5 years and in the past when ANYthing was out of the ordinary, there would be a post from the director or one of his assistants informing all of the nature of the problem and when it was forecast to be rectified.

Now. Silence. Interesting.

F. Prefect

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams

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