I have a couple of projects where the long term debt doesn't seem to run down, even though work is available.

The best example is SIMAP where work is generally only available for a week or so each month.

I've given SIMAP a small resource share on the assumption that it will build up a debt over the month and then run it down when work is available, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, BOINC only seems to request (and schedule) work consistent with the current resource share rather than the long term debt.

Is this the way that things are supposed to work, or does BOINC have a problem with projects like this that only have work sporadically?

Hi Sekerob!

No to both questions.

Thanks

I have a couple of projects where the long term debt doesn't seem to run down, even though work is available.

The best example is SIMAP where work is generally only available for a week or so each month.

I've given SIMAP a small resource share on the assumption that it will build up a debt over the month

drghughes, sou seem to be attached to (at least) 6 projects. Could you please list them along with their LTD values? (At best once shortly before the 'a week or so' and once just after last SIMAP task was crunched? :-D)

and then run it down when work is available, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, BOINC only seems to request (and schedule) work consistent with the current resource share rather than the long term debt.

Is this the way that things are supposed to work, or does BOINC have a problem with projects like this that only have work sporadically?

I think it behaves just as expected (I agree it is not as supposed by the users ;-)

Maybe this helps (I'm not necessarily right on all points, some of them change over time of BOINC development and some might be skewed in my mind, but you will get the idea):

• if you assigh just a small resource share to a project, it's LTD will be lowered/raised just slowly, accordingly to the share,
  
• if the project server is out of work for say 3 weeks a month, it's LTD on your host will not go down at all during that period - this is possibly your main issue?,
  
• if SIMAP work is available for download, your machine will ask for just a bit of work - not according to the LTD (LTD only tells whether the client is allowed to ask for SIMAP tasks), but according to the resource share, because the resource share also tells, how fast the downloaded task should be processed - SIMAP tasks will be crunched interleaved with other tasks, again according to the resource share.
  
• New SIMAP work will be downloaded if available SIMAP tasks are processed and BOINC cache gets partially emptied. Except that all other projects' LTDs will be that low, that SIMAP tasks would be the only ones in your cache. Just in such case the SIMAP tasks will be crunched full-time and regardless of the resource share, not interleaved with other projects' tasks.
  

Peter

I have a couple of projects where the long term debt doesn't seem to run down, even though work is available.

The best example is SIMAP where work is generally only available for a week or so each month.

I've given SIMAP a small resource share on the assumption that it will build up a debt over the month

drghughes, sou seem to be attached to (at least) 6 projects. Could you please list them along with their LTD values? (At best once shortly before the 'a week or so' and once just after last SIMAP task was crunched? :-D)

and then run it down when work is available, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, BOINC only seems to request (and schedule) work consistent with the current resource share rather than the long term debt.

Is this the way that things are supposed to work, or does BOINC have a problem with projects like this that only have work sporadically?

I think it behaves just as expected (I agree it is not as supposed by the users ;-)

Maybe this helps (I'm not necessarily right on all points, some of them change over time of BOINC development and some might be skewed in my mind, but you will get the idea):

• if you assigh just a small resource share to a project, it's LTD will be lowered/raised just slowly, accordingly to the share,
  
• if the project server is out of work for say 3 weeks a month, it's LTD on your host will not go down at all during that period - this is possibly your main issue?,
  
• if SIMAP work is available for download, your machine will ask for just a bit of work - not according to the LTD (LTD only tells whether the client is allowed to ask for SIMAP tasks), but according to the resource share, because the resource share also tells, how fast the downloaded task should be processed - SIMAP tasks will be crunched interleaved with other tasks, again according to the resource share.
  
• New SIMAP work will be downloaded if available SIMAP tasks are processed and BOINC cache gets partially emptied. Except that all other projects' LTDs will be that low, that SIMAP tasks would be the only ones in your cache. Just in such case the SIMAP tasks will be crunched full-time and regardless of the resource share, not interleaved with other projects' tasks.
  

Peter

Close.

The lower the resource share compared to other projects, the faster the LTD drops when the project is actually crunching.

The amount of work requested is based ont the projects that are eligable to get work requests or already have work on the system.

Projects have a minimum LTD below which they normally do not get work requests. The exception is insufficient work on the computer and no candidates above the threshold that are allowed to havork requests.

If SIMAP is the only project allowed to request work, and the only project with work on the system, it will fill the queue.

The obvious question: What are your queue settings? If they are too large, the projects that have large negative LTD values will still be getting work requests because the ones with higher LTDs can't keep the queue full enough.

---

BOINC WIKI

(I'm not necessarily right on all points, some of them change over time of BOINC development and some might be skewed in my mind, but you will get the idea)

Close.

:-)

I was suspecting being not extraordinarily correct...

Hi Peter!

* if the project server is out of work for say 3 weeks a month, it's LTD on your host will not go down at all during that period - this is possibly your main issue?,

No, that's what I'd expect.

* New SIMAP work will be downloaded if available SIMAP tasks are processed and BOINC cache gets partially emptied. Except that all other projects' LTDs will be that low, that SIMAP tasks would be the only ones in your cache. Just in such case the SIMAP tasks will be crunched full-time and regardless of the resource share, not interleaved with other projects' tasks.

This is what I'm not seeing, i.e. I never see the situation where the other projects' LTD go so negative that BOINC will only download SIMAP work. As a result, the SIMAP LTD seems to become a bigger and bigger positive. Maybe I'm just not being patient enough.

Anyhow, the LTD seems to be very unsophisticated. I just detached a project that had a large negative LTD (it had been running in panic mode for a while) and the negative LTD was divided equally among all the remaining projects, rather than according to their resource shares. So SIMAP, with a small resource share, had its LTD reduced by as much as the project with the largest resource share, which hardly seems fair.