Posts by Ray Murray

1) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Delayed 'Patch Tuesday' updates (Message 55730) Posted 17 Feb 2017 by Ray Murray Post: A little trick I found (after a lot of searching) after getting fed up with inconvenient restarts killing LHC Virtual Machines. In the Win Update settings, set to not download over a metered connection, then in your network settings, again set as metered. It doesn't matter if your connection IS metered or not but this will trick MS Update into seeing it as such, so it won't Auto Update. You will still need to occasionally manually let it download updates but you will be able to do that at YOUR convenience rather than Microsoft's.
2) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Scotland team (Message 55507) Posted 17 Jan 2017 by Ray Murray Post: Well, it's been nearly 2 years since my (or anyone else's) last post here 😴 and I must confess I've only done 1 job in the last year, in July/August as I'm still busy with the various LHC projects. Perhaps people have drifted away due to the lack of work but I've just noticed that the 10 active users here have pushed us over 100 MegaBoincs 👏 Well done, guys. I'm hoping that anyone that gets a subscribed message notification due to my posting this might look back in and see what's available or even take a look at the plenty of other projects available that would be grateful for your spare cycles. I don't want to be accused of poaching users but from what used to be a lively Team, we've dropped to only having 30 active contributors across all projects 😞 so this might nudge some back. I've even got a Tesco Hudl running Einstein and Universe tasks 😊
3) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Scotland team (Message 51354) Posted 2 Feb 2015 by Ray Murray Post: Two milestones to report while there's not much other team chat; In Boinc Combined credits across all projects the team will pass 3 GigaBoincs overnight and I have just passed 3 MegaBoincs overall and up to 20th place in the combined Team stats. I'm "owed" a few thousand credits from the Beta side here and from a Cern project that isn't open yet. Still doing most work for the 3 open Cern projects, LHCclassic, VirtualLHC (formerly test4theory), and Atlas, and I did some pre-release testing for their non-Boinc December Challenge. I even managed to pick up a bunch of Pirates tasks, but not quite enough to catch Talister.
4) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Scotland team (Message 49722) Posted 6 Aug 2014 by Ray Murray Post: Hi Space Weather, You beat me here by 2 days, the first day of CPDN, so many belated happy returns to you and the Project too. I'm surprised there hasn't been acknowledgement or celebration of this anniversary but there can't be many left from those days other than project staff and even some of them will have moved on so maybe nobody has noticed. A quick random sample of low ID numbers shows nearly all zero recent credit, not even Boincing at all. I somehow found the BBC CPDN project before it opened up to the public and had an ID there of 26. I've been concentrating on LHC work recently and the new(ish) Climate@home project using Virtual Machines so didn't notice the new applications over on the Beta site. I do remember being fascinated by the original Carl Sagan series and I've just found the new series is to air in the UK on the National Geographic channel. Unfortunately I only get Freeview so I'll not get to see it unless it maybe gets to BBC4 sometime. I'll be following news on the Rosetta comet mission and the Planetary Society's Light Sail.
5) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Scotland team (Message 49720) Posted 6 Aug 2014 by Ray Murray Post: Just noticed that it's 10 years ago tomorrow that I joined CPDN in the pre-Boinc days with my "Classic" cobblestones still listed on my account page. That was on a self-built 250MHz, single core machine with 128MB and a 10GB disk. Whole thing cost about �300 to build with various upgrades along the way until it was finally retired when I couldn't upgrade it further. Not built a system for a long time having moved onto laptops but you could probably do a reasonable system with 3 more cores at 10 times the speed, 30 times the memory and a disk 50 or more times bigger for the same money today.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Trickles not updating credits (Message 49316) Posted 9 Jun 2014 by Ray Murray Post: Last Trickle recorded for my task was no.9, recorded on 6 June. Task now complete and trickles 10 - 13 reported as uploaded through Boinc but they don't appear on the task page. stderr is there so all the data has probably got home, just not reported on the site as such yet. I'm used to credits taking a while to update but not used to trickles being missing.
7) Message boards : Number crunching : HADAM3P not getting credits (Message 49140) Posted 17 May 2014 by Ray Murray Post: Hi Nigel, The ANZ tasks are a bit slower than others, presumably because they are more complex. The model I started a couple of days ago on a 2.5 GHz machine took 22hours to get to the first trickle, 6.8 sec/Ts where other tasks have been around 2 secs/Ts. They also only have 12 trickles and it needs to get to a trickle point to have credits awarded. If the model looks like it running fine then it probably is, but after 9 hours, it isn't far enough along to have trickled yet, therefore no credits yet, Patience is the key.
8) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Scotland team (Message 49122) Posted 15 May 2014 by Ray Murray Post: I've had a few UOTDs recently; POGS and Constellation in Feb, T4T in March and Pirates and Climate@Home so far in May. I was Climate UOTD for about 3 months as, being a new project, there aren't many profiles to choose from and the Admin there is a one-man-band and many things get done manually. My 5 UOTDs before joining the team (7 years ago !) don't count toward the Team total of 150. You can leave most of a profile blank or fill in as much as you want then just copy/paste to any other projects you participate in. You don't even have to be active on a project to be chosen; it's totally random. I've been picked on projects I haven't contributed to for ages. I've not done much here for a while but I did catch a few of the Flooding models. I've been concentrating on Climate and have been promoted to Moderator/Tester there for no obvious reason other than replying to some posts from others and providing feedback on whether their models work properly, or not. I'm no.1 in the UK there 8�) Most of the time my 2 machines, with a couple of Virtual Machines running Linux within the laptop, are concentrating on T4T, and LHC when work is available.
9) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Climate@Home (Message 47885) Posted 29 Dec 2013 by Ray Murray Post: It appears that NASA has other priorities and withdrew funding of the original project but Kai Liu has resurrected it and is using it as the basis for his Doctorate at George Mason University. He seems to be a one-man-band and has other commitments. A small batch of short WUs was available on 23/24 Dec and I wouldn't expect any more until after the holidays. The model runs in a Virtual Machine so you need the have Oracle's VirtualBox installed before attaching.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Transient HTTP Error (Message 46598) Posted 8 Jul 2013 by Ray Murray Post: This one is similarly stuck. Everything uploaded fine except for the _13.zip. It's listed in Boinc as uploading and here as in progress. At each upload retry it appears to upload the 32MB file each time then reports with the same ......_13.zip: No such file or directory so it's costing bandwidth on each retry. I would set network access off but this upsets my T4T.
11) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Team credits (Message 46211) Posted 13 May 2013 by Ray Murray Post: yes all the credits follow wherever you go in this project.... Not sure that's true, unless CPDN is different from other projects, which wouldn't surprise me; they've always done things slightly differently from everyone else. The credits may indeed follow the user here. In other projects the team gets a "copy" of the user's credits earned while the user is with the team so previous credits are not transferred in, the team earns a copy of credits earned while the user is with the team, which then stay with the team after that user leaves. Off Topic but for team Scotland info: I've just picked up a pair of Coupled timed-out resends. They lost contact around the quarter- and half-distance mark and one's got 3 errors against it already so we'l see how they go next week. Keeps the RAC ticking along. [2nd edit in reply to Les's post above (below)] Thanks for that clarification, Les. So Ian is right. Why would I have doubted him? 8�)
12) Message boards : Number crunching : WORTH THE TROUBLE???? (Message 46035) Posted 23 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: Hi JIM, Your hadcm3n_3d4i_1980_40_008349735_2 model failed with a new error that has been discussed in this thread and failed for your wingmen at the same 1st trickle point. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about this until they find the cause. Your hadcm3n_u5d6_2020_40_008336020_0 model got past the 40th trickle so will have done its useful work. Time beyond this trickle has been described elsewhere as being like an athlete running past the finish line rather than stopping at the finish line itself so I'm pretty sure that the error it has reported is not relevent to the actual science of the result. The model effectively finishes on 1st Dec with final uploads being generated shortly thereafter and around 4th Dec (I think) and finally finishes at midnight 6th-7th, as mo.V has said below(above).
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45981) Posted 19 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: Thanks Iain, I thought that was the case. I've just deleted the leftover files from the dead WUs as some PNWs have sneeked in while I wasn't looking. I was thinking more about those who don't visit the boards or even don't realise they have had a problem until they find they have used up more disk space than they were expecting.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45976) Posted 19 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: Both the resends from my message yesterday, that have been under observation, failed at the first trickle point (as expected) and again didn't tidy up. Those that have had a few of these will be building up a large amount of garbage with each failed wu leaving its c.470MB folder behind. Is there a server side cleanup option (maybe a forced reset?) or will people have to throw out this junk manually? Maybe a global message through Boinc? Speaking of junk; could you delete my double post from yesterday, please Les, just to tidy up the thread.
15) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45964) Posted 18 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: After some more digging; my failed wu didn't tidy up after itself so there is its 470MB folder (not modified since yesterday so probably nothing interesting in there), the sterr log still in the slot, but also an xml file showing a last update at timestep 25921, exactly where it would make the first trickle. Significant? From Boinc logs: [task] Process for hadcm3n_4f6k_1980_40_008350244_0 exited, exit code 3765269347, task state 1 before the [task] exit code -529697949 (0xe06d7363) and output files absent PS Another resend with the same error which I'm just going to Abort so I only have to concentrate on the 1 definately dodgy and 1 possibly ok. Final edit before editing timesout: Is there another flag I could set other than [task_debug] that would give more detailed info on the error?
16) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45961) Posted 18 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: Hi JugNut, Your running one trickled just over an hour ago so seems to be OK. Fingers crossed. I had the same error overnight. Out Of Memory (C++ Exception). Loads of memory here so shouldn't be able to run out. Checking your wingmen shows the same error on a couple of those failed WUs and the others have yet to show but as your ones all have the same error, I suspect they will fail as well. Someone will be along soon to tell us what's happening. [Edit] Just got a resend of another one of these so I'll try to pay attention to what happens to it. The other new resend I got didn't start for the wingman but has got past a few checkpoints so could be ok, unless it's one of the same batch.
17) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45898) Posted 11 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: Just missed the edit deadline so here's the update; Trickle went up fine and registered. Further digging shows that it re-downloaded some files, atmos,ocean, etc. on restart of the machine and also alot of task] Process for hadcm3n_3jqp_1940_40_008265630_1 exited, exit code 0, task state 1 11-Apr-2013 19:42:22 [climateprediction.net] [task] task called temporary_exit(600.000000, ) 11-Apr-2013 19:42:22 [climateprediction.net] [task] task_state=UNINITIALIZED for hadcm3n_3jqp_1940_40_008265630_1 from handle_temporary_exit 11-Apr-2013 19:42:22 [climateprediction.net] Task hadcm3n_3jqp_1940_40_008265630_1 exited with zero status but no 'finished' file 11-Apr-2013 19:42:22 [climateprediction.net] If this happens repeatedly you may need to reset the project. 11-Apr-2013 19:42:22 [climateprediction.net] [task] task_state=UNINITIALIZED for hadcm3n_3jqp_1940_40_008265630_1 from handle_premature_exit Not just for CPDN but other projects as well and it has even generated new computer ids on a couple of projects. I therefore suspected that it was a Boinc problem and have reinstalled it. Checkpoints now showing in Boinc, progress up to level with graphics so I'm just going to pretend it is like having deployed a backup similar to what we often had to do with the BBC models all those years ago, althoughI won't really know if it's worked until it gets to the final uploads (5 days away) And finally the smoking gun: From wading through stdoutdae and stdoutdae.old, there are no CPDN checkpoints after a machine restart after a Windows update. BEWARE WINDOWS UPDATE Strange that other projects weren't effected until after the restart to try to fix CPDN but all's well since the reinstall of Boinc, even if it did cost me a nearly finished T4T wu. Off to bed happy I've sorted it and found the cause.
18) Message boards : Number crunching : Reporting - Errors while computing - (Message 45895) Posted 11 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: Strange -226 error I've not had before with this WU. Seems it can't access the lock file saying something else is using it but it's the only CPDN wu on this machine since my EU finished yesterday. <message> too many boinc_temporary_exit()s </message> and a whole stack of: 04:30:07 (2840): Can't acquire lockfile (32) - waiting 35s 04:30:42 (2840): Can't acquire lockfile (32) - exiting 04:30:42 (2840): Error: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (0x20) before it gave up and phoned home the error. Thing is, it's still running [scrathes head] It's not reporting checkpoints to Boinc (I've got task_debug set in cc_config) and progress is stuck although still working in the graphics. It's writing stuff in the data out folder as exiting Boinc and even restarting the machine restarts without losing any time. [Further head scratching] It's due to trickle within the hour, so we'll see what happens then. At least it got far enough to send the 75% decadal trickle and these have been know to be twitchy about this point. I suspect I'll have to euthanase it.
19) Message boards : Number crunching : Server is full (Message 45870) Posted 9 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: I was just thinking they might be going to different servers as astro posted. Looking through client_state shows: hadam3p_eu models go to http://cpdn-upload2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/file_upload_handler while hadcm3n models go to http://rapid-watch.badc.rl.ac.uk/cpdn_cgi/file_upload_handler. I would also guess that these may be location-specific to the user.
20) Message boards : Number crunching : Server is full (Message 45867) Posted 9 Apr 2013 by Ray Murray Post: My euro model sent up a trickle just 25 mins ago so maybe the blockage is fixed now. Server status page shows all green

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