If I understand correctly what your are trying to say.

What you described is a bug and you shouldn't write a wish but a proper bug report.

That bug report should include logs, screenshots if you think they are necessary, links to those other reports, basically what's in the When requesting help thread, and tell us the bleeping BOINC version(!).

never said it was a bug.

No but I'm saying it's a bug. At least I think it's a bug...

just something I have seen and others are bring it up now. shows up really well with yafu, but any project task that goes to a remaining time of --- will cause it...

BOINC version: every version for the last 3 years.. and still there....

link to one, it was in spanish so goggle tranlstion
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=8986

Crap. I'd actually seen that earlier and left the tab open to read it later with thought :/

Other links?

(possibly related, task over deadline but BOINC doesn't panic: http://yafu.dyndns.org/yafu/forum_thread.php?id=128)

Some random questions.

How reproducible is this? Every time, once a day, week, month?
What's the estimated runtime of the task before it starts?
Does the remaining time show "---" right from the start or only after some time has passed? If after some time, how long time?
Does these apps report to BOINC they have checkpointed? (Manager->task properties->last checkpoint time)
Does the cache setting need to be 0+0 or does it just make this easier to see?
Does the app need to be new to the host (less than ~10 validated) or does this happen also to hosts that have been crunching with this app for longer time?
There was a bug that caused BOINC to fetch work non-stop. This isn't non-stop work fetch?
The negative time is elapsed time? And it shows in the Manager as well, not only screensaver?
Does yafu use <dont_use_dfc> (in client_state.xml or in Manager->project properties->no dcf listed or dcf=1.0)?
Do you know of any other app besides yafu that does this?

Sorry for the delay.

Both yafu and bitcoin-utopia are wrapper apps, right? Does this bug happen for all wrapper apps? Only wrapper apps? What's the version of the wrapper for both apps? (Version number is in the name of the wrapper.)

The screenshot shows 77% done for yafu and the bitcoin props shows 79% done. But yafu doesn't report % done (according to a post in their forums) and I'd imagine same is for bitcoin. ??? Does these apps report % done or is that some kind of error? Does the percentage change?

How smart the wrapper is with the % done? Does it steadily go to 100% and then sit there if the task happens to be a long running one?