And you still have touched on the idea that all servers in/at Oxford are now required to be installed in VMs for added security.
Or that the BOINC set up is being moved from highly customised to plain vanilla. Or at least as close as possible.

VM's don't make much of difference from a configuration stand point*. A little information pm'd to me like distribution, version, Mysql version would allow me to narrow my suggestions.

Not trying to look like a know-it-all, just trying to help.

Ed: * Unless there's an MS Active Directory in the mix. I doubt there would be in this situation, but if there is then I KNOW NOTHING (well, I do know that it's better to stay away.)

This may or may not be helpful, but besides the credit problem, there are two others that are not mentioned in this thread but that may be other symptoms of a common root cause: (1) CPDN has not been cleaning up after itself. By early August when I suspended most CPDN tasks, I had about 30 GB of CPDN data accumulated, according to the Disk usage tab in BOINC Manager. I think the vast majority of those GB have accumulated since the problems started this summer. None of it has gone away since the servers began communicating and issuing new WUs. (2) In the CPDN slots directories, there are numerous cpdnoutN.zip files (N=integer), all only 1 KB in size, and when double-clicked all pop up a Windows error box to the effect that the zipped folder is invalid.

Good luck, guys. I know you've been hammering at it as best you can.

---

By early August when I suspended most CPDN tasks, I had about 30 GB of CPDN data

That much data is from tasks which have crashed. It is normal for these tasks not to clean up after themselves. You have to go into the BOINC data directory, then into projects, then climateprediction.net and manually delete the folders belonging to models that have crashed.

It seems to me that the issue is pretty clearly something at the project and that no efforts by individuals will have any effect. I don't know that anyone has seen credit increments in many weeks.

Personally, it isn't that big of a deal for me, when the project migrated to 'broken' condition last month, after a few days, I simply suspended all Climate processing -- there are other projects.

I am sure that when (and I'm assuming when rather than if) the project folks resolve this there will be an updated news blast and we can move forward.

I note that is actually a set of assumptions.

1) That the key people back at the project are aware of the credit freeze.

2) They are working toward resolving the issue.

3) They will be successful in resolving the issue.

4) Once successful project folks will pass on the update so it gets reported by the good folks who as volunteers share messages here with the general public.

Barry A Z wrote

I note that is actually a set of assumptions.

1) That the key people back at the project are aware of the credit freeze.

2) They are working toward resolving the issue.

3) They will be successful in resolving the issue.

If you look at this thread you will see that the project people are aware of the problem.

http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=7653
[/url]

I started crunching again not knowing of the current problem. Actually haven't been back here for years. If there is no credit I don't crunch..so maybe I'll check back in 2016 or so..but as someone who started with SETI back in 1999 and have watched a lot of projects come and go since then it seems like this project is on its last leg..

Dave, I was pretty sure that some folks connected to the project were aware of the problems -- and I suspect they are trying to correct them within their available resource constraint. (I realize that funding here has been 'slim pickings' for a long time).

I am hoping they are able to resolve the problems and then communicate the resolution to those folks who represent them online on the message boards.

That being said, it seems the nature of this project, with very large data elements and multiple servers which are not co-located, along with parsed out resources with other priorities (none of which has any fault or blame attached) makes a resolution here 'less than trivial'.

I have seen the project work with those constraints for a LONG time (I joined this project over eight years ago). These days it does seem that the problems are increasingly in the lead over the resources -- I hope that isn't the case, but, as they say, it is what it is.



[quote

If you look at this thread you will see that the project people are aware of the problem.

http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=7653
[/url][/quote]

Mike asked a day back

Hi Andy, Jonathan,

Any news on getting the credit system up & running again?

And the reply was:

This is still being investigated, presently we don't know the source of this issue.

Andy

So, no, we're not there yet.

The problems do seem to be overwhelming the project lately. As Capitan Kirk once said �we better start solving our problems faster than we pick up new ones.�

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ok, thanks

Les, thanks for the reply on this. Not encouraging but honest -- and that is a good thing.

Mike asked a day back

Hi Andy, Jonathan,

Any news on getting the credit system up & running again?

And the reply was:

This is still being investigated, presently we don't know the source of this issue.

Andy

So, no, we're not there yet.

Not encouraging but honest

I don't know, we have been told that when resolved the credits will be added. To me that is encouraging! I suspect there is only a small percentage of people addicted to checking their credits daily.

The credits WON'T be "added" - they'll be re-calculated for ALL existing non archived models.
It normally happens EVERY DAY, during the night, UK time.

This has been explained ad nauseum for years. And over and over as well.

Sorry Les,

I knew that and was a bit sloppy with my language.

Les, thanks for the reclarification of what has been noted over and over again reiteratively, repeatedly, and now with a certain amount of heat (perhaps reflecting a bit of the frustration with current ongoing *non*calculation of credits which has persisted for several weeks and which at this juncture has no resolution in sight.

The credits WON'T be "added" - they'll be re-calculated for ALL existing non archived models.
It normally happens EVERY DAY, during the night, UK time.

This has been explained ad nauseum for years. And over and over as well.

Okay, thanks to all the contributors to this thread. I've read the whole thing, and I think I understand it all, but I just have one question: I don't seem to be getting "tickle" credit like I used to. Would it help to set my computer clock to UK time? Or should I delete my OS and reinstall?

Cheers, y'all,

Ardis

Patience is a virtue

You will get the trickle credit when the problem is solved. Changing to UK time will not make any difference.

To see the credits increase is in a way the "fun" part of running the models and the visualization of work done which is a good feeling :)
But the credits are not the most important thing in this project, it is to contribute to increase the base of knowledge in this important field of research.
I think a better way to look at credits is to think that every trickle has genereted the credits, they are just not visible yet.

Patience is a virtuous personality trait ;)

With the credit stall now on four weeks. perhaps it is time to provide a bit of an assessment of what has gone on.

System changes were made to correct an additional system breakdown four weeks ago.

Since then, no credit updates have occurred.

The project admins/developers have been aware of this for several weeks.

So far, the answer is that they simply don't know the cause of the problem.

Frankly this extended unresolved issue suggests to me that the people who need to research and resolve the issue either are not available to do this, or have other higher priority tasks which they are focused on.

I've long since suspended processing on Climate and sent my cpu cycles to programs who have avoided this problem which appears unique to Climate. Thus the inability to resolve this long running problem is pretty much one of 'academic interest'.

I can surely understand the frustration for those who have focused on the Climate project for many years (I started with it over 8 years ago myself) AND for who this is a primary project. For me it is mostly a case of another BOINC project seeming to fade to fizzle.