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Now only one task issued per machine not up to 25.

Started by kashi, May 27, 2010, 04:12:13 PM

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kashi

There are some changes to how FreeHAL works. Recently I kept getting only 1 task so kept aborting it, hoping to get a full load of 25 or at least 10. :)

However I just discovered FreeHAL is now only sending 1 task at a time. It is not mentioned on the website under News but you will see the following message under your FreeHAL@home Preferences:

"You can't select the workunit limit any more. Now everyone gets a 1 non-cpu-intensive WU with the work of 25 traditional workunits. In June or July you will be able to select between CPU-intensive and non-CPU-intennsive workunits here."

Also "Should FreeHAL@home show your computers on its web site?" is now set to NO by default.

Just a heads up for those that were wondering why they were only getting one task at a time now. I assume the single task is giving the same credit as the 25 that were previously issued but I haven't been able to check that yet.

Edit: I've done 4 of the new ones now and none of them have given any credit at all. They stayed pending for a short time then disappeared and credit total did not increase. Possibly all completed tasks are being credited to just a few contributors like previously.

I will let the 2 currently processing complete and if they also give no credit detach from the project until it is fixed. It's a shame but these repeated long periods of no work and/or no credit and the long time it takes to fix major problems leads me to believe the administrator of this project frequently doesn't know what he is doing. If only he had left it alone when it was working and declined the offer of being chosen as a BOINC Pentathlon project.

Edit 2: I finally got credit of 15 for the 5th task I completed. So much for my optimistic assumption of 375. These new tasks are meant to be the equivalent of 25 of the old tasks, so unless it is an error it means the effective credit rate has been lowered from 15 per task to 0.6 per task. Haha after 75% of contributors voted to leave it at 15 credits per task or above.

I'm not going to bother running any project for 180 credits per day. I have detached and will have a look at the forum every few days for developments. It's a relief actually, I'm getting sick of projects that have tasks without checkpoints.

Furlozza

detaching when last wus finish until he/they figure out just what they are gunna do.... taking crs from me for just being attached to a project just ain't cricket!

:sg1:

kashi

I still couldn't believe it so I reattached and did another 2 tasks. I've done 8 new tasks now and only received credit for 2. Hmm, 16 hours processing for 30 credits, even Saenger would be well pleased with that rate. :) How satisfying it must be for him, a bit of Kredit Kop whinging spiced with some personal insults and he has effectively torpedoed another project.

From reading the forum it looks like the new single issue tasks are only worth 15 credits. The explanation is that this is in readiness for the release of CPU intensive tasks.

The server has proved to be easily overloaded in the past, I don't know how Tobias thinks it is going to deal with tasks that take a minute or two to complete. He's German isn't he, surely he can't be that silly? This must be an attempt to reduce the number of project contributors, there is no other reasonable explanation. It will certainly be effective if that is the aim.

Cosmicvandal

I just wonder if there is another project that utilizes the same resources as Freehal? if there is i will crunch that one and ditch the freehal thing, im not happy about the fact that i am wasting time and resources on a project that pays nothing,

i mean hell we dont get paid for this as it is, and all we get is bragging rights for what we do, so big deal if we get a little extra for our time and effort,if this Saenger character thinks we do nothing but sit back and collect credits for free, he needs be given the job of maintaining a web site and keeping a few systems going.

i myself may not crunch a lot, but of the 6 systems i have going here it does take a lot of effort to find/test/repair/service/build/upgrade them and not to mention the cost involved, there's the phone bill, power, parts, net connection,(and fuel to go and GET the bits) it all adds up, and its the same for ALL of us that crunch,

its a HOBBY, not a national security issue, this guy needs to get a life, and maybe a better system, for all his noise and whinging, his daily output leaves a bit to be desired, i mean mine only output about 1500 per day average, but they are only rubbish bin specials for god sake, and i am happy with what they do, i first started crunching SETI with a pentium 133, a number of years ago,

and i was happy with that mainly cos i built the thing myself, (the first ever) and then i put it to good use,


Two reasons i do this, 1:I gain a personal sense of achievement when i make something work that was considered junk,

                                2:In some small way i am helping my fellow mankind as well as being part of a community.

Sorry for the rant but i feel this guy needs to get another hobby and i have held my comments for a while now, and i am just a little peeved.

P.s. If the moderators feel that these comments are not appropriate or out of place, then please delete, no offence will be taken.

kashi

Well it may not all have been Saenger, there were a few others too who chimed in and there could also have been pressure brought to bear from other quarters that we will never know about. It has happened before.

I think the inexperience of the project administrator has compounded this. If he was more confident he could have just reduced the credit a bit and copped the complaint from the contributors. Even if he had halved it people would have whinged loudly but still have stayed, after all the way it was configured it used little resources so it was almost like "free" credit. But to reduce the credit by 96% was really over the top.

The greater loss is to people who have older machines because they used to be able to have it running in the background for a nice little earner. As a CPU intensive application it will definitely need a very powerful server unless the credit per task is reduced a lot more.

Yes there is another project like FreeHAL that uses little resources. Much less than FreeHAL. It is called WUProp@Home. It runs two tasks per day and gives 25 credits for each one. It collects workunits properties of BOINC projects such as computation time, memory requirements, checkpointing interval or report limit.

Mysteron347

Seems to make a complete farce of the earlier vote. If there are cheats, then chase the cheats, don't penalise the entire community - that's what a politician would do ("for your convenience and benefit.")

The entire situation is a mess. Taking back credits is changing the rules after the game is played.

And I see no reason why there should be any processing limits. So long as the tasks are processed correctly, then the more, the faster, the better. Trying to make points allocation "fair" is pure political correctness - "fair" is a reward in line with the amount of work performed. And points, after all, are worth nothing in the real word - the ideal situation for endless academic arguments meaning nothing about nothing from the theoretical accountants.

250,000 points from a 1.8G Dual-core is far more of an achievement in my book than 400,000 FreeBOINC points - or 400,000 Zimbabwean dollars, for that matter.

I vote NNT until the matter is resolved. :sg1:

Mike Mitchell

Quote from: Mysteron347 on May 28, 2010, 01:28:32 AMTaking back credits is changing the rules after the game is played.

Does that mean they are going to reduce the credits already given?
AA's > 1-Malaria 2-Tanpaku 3-Riesl Siev 4-Seti 5-ABC 6-Einstein 7-WCG 8-Seti 9-QMC 10-WCG 11-Cosmo 12-ABC 13-MilkyWay 14-3x+1 15-Rosetta 16-ABC 17-MilkyWay 18-Einstein 19-WCG 20-WCG 21-Poem 22-Rosetta 23-Docking 24-Spinhenge 25-Alternate 26-Simap 27-Alternate 28-Constellation 29-WCG 30-Edges 31-Alternate 32-Pogs 33-WCG 34-Seti 35-Pogs 36-Poem 37-Pogs 38-Asteroids 39-Pogs 40-Simap 41-Pogs 42-Seti


kashi

Not for individual tasks already credited, no.  However from last night onwards you now receive 15 credits for the same amount of work that previously granted 375 credits. It is in the form of one task that is 25 times larger than the previous tasks but without any increase in the credit of 15 granted.

But what they did do was roll back to an earlier date a few times. This removed all credit from those days in between.

The reason this was done was because due to a database glitch a small number of people were getting the credits of all the other contributors. From my own experience last night of not being credited for completed tasks I suspect this may still be happening. This meant that some were getting massive amounts of daily credit for work they had not performed even on hosts that were not active. It was not possible to accurately calculate who had actually done the work and by how much some had been over credited. It should have been fixed quickly before the problem escalated but I don't think the administrator has the experience or resources necessary. It is a alpha project and these things happen sometimes, it's how professionally they are dealt with that makes the difference between alpha/beta projects. It's not nice to lose credit for work you have done, but then again most people except a few troublemakers have no problems enjoying the more generous credit rate sometimes provided by alpha/beta projects.

dyeman

I understand the intent is for the new WUs to get 375 credits.  Yesterday I seem to have got about the right amount - certainly more than I would have got at 15 credits per WU.  But I see that a lot of people are getting negative amounts (which I also got a few days ago).

There are also new rules/limits:


  • No more than 5000 credits per PC per day (no big deal - that's about the max you can get anyway at 375 per "new" WU)
  • No more than 50,000 credits per user per day total.  Not sure how they are going to police this - maybe a script to deduct any credits in excess of this from the stats.  In any case I got just over 50K yesterday so will see what happens.  I've shut down a few VMs since I was able to do more than 50K if work was available
  • Any VMs must run on the same PC as a "native" FreeHAL, and no more than 1 VM on any PC.  Not sure how they will police this either

On the plus side, the new WUs don't use any more memory than each of the old ones, so overall memory use is greatly reduced, and lack of work through server load problems should be a thing of the past.

I guess just have to keep an eye on it and see how it turns out.

Folding Stats

kashi

Well I must have got some old tasks or he hasn't adjusted the credit yet because the single issue tasks I completed last night only granted 15 credits when they granted any credit at all.  I thought he implied that new tasks would get 15 credits in preparation for introducing a CPU intensive application. Perhaps I have misunderstood, he does not always notify his intentions clearly and the language difference doesn't help. Someone should develop a program that helps to translate between different languages. Oh, hang on a sec....  biggrin

I didn't look how much memory the new single issue tasks are using, if they are using the same amount as the old 25 issue tasks perhaps he has not changed to the new tasks yet and has just reduced the number of tasks issued to one to reduce the server load first. If so, "What we have here, is a failure to communicate."

veebee

#10
ARE the new ones still "non-CPU-intensive ??? when one is running, it doesn't say "using 0.01 CPU" or anything anymore....

EDIT: I have just done a few - only getting the ne per machione, and only getting 15 credits... thats crappy, so I'll wait a while til theres better pay.

on a side note, that "wuprop" project - only uses 0.01 cpu, so I have IT running on each machine (including my virtual machines)....

dyeman

Assuming what we are getting are "new", they seem to be the same as the old ones - the one I have now: peak memory 60 odd MB, CPU used after 22 mins is 7 seconds.

Folding Stats

daveandton

Does anybody know what's going on on this project?. It's been one of my favourites  but it seems to be constantly shut down
Dave