There are lots of ways to make a backup, which has a section in the READMEs.

Basically, Exit from BOINC, copy the BOINC folder, and then paste it to somewhere outside of the BOINC folder.

If you have another HD, or another partition on your HD, then that would be a good place.
Also, CDs, DVDs, or a USB memory stick are other possibilities.

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Backups: Here

I\'m not sure what CCEbu.bat is, but it sounds like a program that backs everything up regularly, including the BOINC folder. These background backup methods if used when BOINC and the climate model are running will sometimes probably produce usable (ie restorable) backups, but not always. They\'re not reliable.

To make a reliable backup of the contents of the BOINC folder, one must exit from BOINC first, as Les says.

I\'m not sure whether an auto backup program could crash a running climate model. Maybe it could, just as an AV scan carried out without exiting from BOINC first can crash models.

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CCE = Climate Change Experiment.
bu = backup
.bat = batch file


In other words, one of the simplified methods developed for the BBC project.

Which may not work here if paths/BOINC version is different. Best to start again from scratch, with an understanding of what is needed. Hence the blue_highlighted words in my previous post.

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Backups: Here

Oops, my mistake there - I\'d forgotten what it was called. I agree that the simple manual backup method is very useful as one sees exactly what one is doing.

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Oops, my mistake there - I\'d forgotten what it was called. I agree that the simple manual backup method is very useful as one sees exactly what one is doing.

For the record, all that CCEbu.bat does is this (configured for my system):
XCOPY \"d:\\Program Files\\Climate Change Experiment\\*.*\" \"F:\\CCE-bu\\CCE-backup\" /C /M /E /Y. It is not automatic, it has to be started manually.

It is possible that I didn\'t exit from BOINC before running it - I guess that\'s the only explanation. I did try restoring the 14 March backup, but that didn\'t restart the crashed model.

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I expect you know that when you restore a BOINC folder backup, you have to paste it into an empty BOINC folder? You can\'t add the backup to stuff already in the BOINC folder.

I think that if I had that backup of a 160-year model which had already completed more than 20 model years, I\'d save the backup and at some point I\'d try to restore it again. Maybe even in 2009 after the current tasks have completed. But I\'d first check the workunit that the backed-up task belongs to to see whether anybody else\'s computer had run it to completion. If yes, I wouldn\'t spend time replicating another computer\'s efforts. If no, I\'d have a final shot at restoring it.

When I use Les\'s manual backup method, I find that if I\'ve ever forgotten to exit from BOINC first, some of the files in the BOINC folder won\'t copy to the backup folder and I have to start again.

Basically though, as I don\'t think you\'re letting the computer process models 24/7, you\'d be better off only running shorter HADSM slab models when you need new work. You can select what models you get in future in the CPDN preferences of your account.

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I expect you know that when you restore a BOINC folder backup, you have to paste it into an empty BOINC folder? You can\'t add the backup to stuff already in the BOINC folder.

I think that if I had that backup of a 160-year model which had already completed more than 20 model years, I\'d save the backup and at some point I\'d try to restore it again. Maybe even in 2009 after the current tasks have completed. But I\'d first check the workunit that the backed-up task belongs to to see whether anybody else\'s computer had run it to completion. If yes, I wouldn\'t spend time replicating another computer\'s efforts. If no, I\'d have a final shot at restoring it.

When I use Les\'s manual backup method, I find that if I\'ve ever forgotten to exit from BOINC first, some of the files in the BOINC folder won\'t copy to the backup folder and I have to start again.

Basically though, as I don\'t think you\'re letting the computer process models 24/7, you\'d be better off only running shorter HADSM slab models when you need new work. You can select what models you get in future in the CPDN preferences of your account.

OK, I have deselected HADCM3 projects. Also, I think running two projects simultaneously did make my (not very new) processor work overtime, judging from the noise it made.

Yes I did create a new folder when I tried to restore. I might try once more when my current project completes.

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Yes I did create a new folder when I tried to restore.

Normally you wouldn\'t need to create a new BOINC folder when you restore a backup. Before restoring the backup you\'d double-click on the BOINC folder to display its contents, then select all the contents, then delete everything. Going back a page, the BOINC folder would still be there, but empty and ready to receive the contents of the backup folder.

But if you do for any reason delete the BOINC folder itself, making a new one shouldn\'t be a problem as long as you make it in the same location as before.

But if you created a new BOINC folder without deleting the contents of the old one, I don\'t think the restore would work. A computer should never have more than one instance of BOINC on it.

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It was probably the \"save while BOINC was running\" that caused the problem.
Xcopy takes a long time to copy everthing, by which time some more files would have been written, making the \"set\" incompatable, and useless.

It was probably the \"save while BOINC was running\" that caused the problem.
Xcopy takes a long time to copy everthing, by which time some more files would have been written, making the \"set\" incompatable, and useless.

My slab project (hadsm3fub_e095_005911418) should complete early next week. I am uncertain what to do next. I could try to restore hadcm3inct_ckmt_1920_160_75866945 (but it didn\'t work when I tried before). No one else on the work unit seems to be working on it.

Or I could abort that and resume hadcm3istd_0c3p_1920_160_15936539 - but several other computers seem to be working on that.

Or I could start 2 new slab models.

Any suggestions as to my best course of action?

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Yes I did create a new folder when I tried to restore.

Normally you wouldn\'t need to create a new BOINC folder when you restore a backup. Before restoring the backup you\'d double-click on the BOINC folder to display its contents, then select all the contents, then delete everything. Going back a page, the BOINC folder would still be there, but empty and ready to receive the contents of the backup folder.

But if you do for any reason delete the BOINC folder itself, making a new one shouldn\'t be a problem as long as you make it in the same location as before.

But if you created a new BOINC folder without deleting the contents of the old one, I don\'t think the restore would work. A computer should never have more than one instance of BOINC on it.

I renamed the old folder with a 0 at the end, as advised somewhere on the message boards.

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Hi Jeremy

If I were you, before your slab completes I\'d set CPDN to no new tasks in the BOINC manager tasks tab. After the slab has completed and reported ie completely disappeared from BOINC manager, you could try to get the old coupled HADCM model going again.

* After exiting from BOINC (right-click on the icon and select Exit) make 2 separate backups of the complete contents of the BOINC folder. Two for safety. Use Les\'s manual method.

* Delete the entire contents of the BOINC folder.

* Paste your old backup into the empty BOINC folder. Use Les\'s restore method.

* If it runs, let it run. You could select slab in your CPDN preferences and have a second HADSM model running alongside if you want.

* If it doesn\'t run, forget the idea of resurrecting this older model. Exit from BOINC again, delete the contents of the BOINC folder. Restore one of the two new backups you\'ve made.

* Once your newer coupled model is running again, you might want a slab to run alongside it. You\'d have to select slab in your CPDN preferences before allowing new work again. You could then empty your recycle bin and delete the backup of the old coupled model that can\'t be restored.


Anyway, that\'s what I\'d do. But if you don\'t want to run any more coupled HADCMs, you could delete the old backup of the old HADCM, set your CPDN preferences to HADSM slab only, abort the new HADCM and get one or two new slabs. If you only want to run one model at a time you\'d also have to set the number of cores to 1 in your preferences.

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Let us know what you eventually decide and how you get on.

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Let us know what you eventually decide and how you get on.

The slab model has now finished (result ID 6977062) but although the zipped result was transferred last night and progress shows as 100%, the project is still in BOINC Manager as \'in progress\' and \'Ready to Report\'. Why doesn\'t it appear as successfully completed??

Sorry, when I pressed update it reported and disappeared!

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Let us know what you eventually decide and how you get on.

The crashed project wouldn\'t restart. I decided to abort the coupled project and run two slab models. When BOINC fetched them, I got this message (on both occasions):
Your computer has 1024MB of memory, and a job requires 1464.84MB, although in my preferences I only checked slab models. Presumably an error from the server?

Anyway, the two models are now running.

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The code which checks to see which types of model you allow on your PC is *after* the code which checks to see whether the next available model on the queue is suitable for your machine. As a result you can get inappropriate messages about memory requirements which aren\'t actually relevant to your choices.

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I'm a volunteer and my views are my own.
News and Announcements and FAQ

Jeremy, you were surprised that your completed slab model disappeared from the Tasks window of your BOINC manager. This disappearance is normal when a task is reported. But it\'s still on your CPDN web pages. Here it is, with lovely graphs:

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/result.php?resultid=6977062

If you select the type of model you want in future in your CPDN project preferences in your account, you won\'t be offered any more unsuitable models.

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Jeremy, you were surprised that your completed slab model disappeared from the Tasks window of your BOINC manager. This disappearance is normal when a task is reported. But it\'s still on your CPDN web pages. Here it is, with lovely graphs:

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/result.php?resultid=6977062

If you select the type of model you want in future in your CPDN project preferences in your account, you won\'t be offered any more unsuitable models.

Thanks for your help. As my computer usually runs for only 10-14 hours a day, I\'m going to concentrate on slab models and make sure that they complete successfully. One last question: when I back up, is it good practice always to keep the last two backups in case the last one doesn\'t work as happened to me?

Yes, it\'s a good idea to keep the last two or even three backups if you have enough storage space. After getting that in place, each time you make a new backup you just delete the oldest. This assumes that you back up frequently enough for the second-last backup still to be usable.

I\'ve never had a backup that wouldn\'t restore when I\'ve used Les\'s manual method. A couple of times I did forget to exit from BOINC before starting to make the backup, but the copying process stalled part way through and I got a popup message saying that the copying job couldn\'t be completed because a file was in use. So I had to delete the part of the backup that had copied, then start again. I\'m not sure that all operating systems would warn the user that they\'d made this mistake, and the backup copy could in consequence be incomplete. You\'d be able to restore it, but it wouldn\'t run.

If I\'m preparing to make a particularly important change, like moving the entire BOINC folder from one computer to the other, I make two separate backups before I start the job just in case I really mess things up.

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I too have been looking at my results and I seem to be having nearly every one of my results saying client error. Could you please help me figure out what the problem is?
Thanks

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