Topics

Fred...

I am seeing some odd visuals in the Computers and Projects tabs.
These do not seem to be affecting the functioning of the program.

I set up a VirtualBox Ubuntu so I could run Asteroids (they only have a Linux build).
I did all the remote connection configurations, and after a couple of attempts, it is working just fine.
And I have been able to control the VB Boinc Client from the primary system to suspend, resume, etc.

On the Computers tab:
  Under the STATUS column, both the localhost and the the VirtualBox show a 'Connected, Not Connected' phrase.
  When connecting, it first shows only the 'Connected' word,  then on the next update, the 'Not Connected' is added.

On the Projects tab:
  There are two lines for the Asteroids project from the VirtualBox, one denoted by its name, and the other by the URL.
  It looks like these did not resolve to the same object as typically happens when adding a project.

I can send screenshots...just tell me where to send or how to attach so you will be expecting them.

Thanks,
TLSI2000.

Some observations (these may have been there before current version 0.69 )

1) I had pulled 4 days of SETI to cover me for the coming outage, and then I tried to do some parsing out of the different tasks received.  I ran into a limitation of only being allowed to highlight 200 tasks at a time. -- This may be one of those arbitrary 'should-never-have-been-hit' values.

2) The loss of he right-click context menu on the new Projects tab (already mentioned elsewhere)

3) On the Projects tab, if one has multi-cores, if there is quantity of tasks less than the the number of cores, the this estimated value is shown lower than the task's estimated values -- this is not 'precisely' accurate, as a single task of 1 hour / 4 cores does need more than 15 minutes to complete.  I leave this up to you to determine the best way to handle this.   (this actually has been out there for a while, but while you are in that code...)

Otherwise --

The addition of the new Task columns and the ability to do the column changing is great.

Good job on the recent versions in expanding the appearance and user-friendliness of the program !

Thanks.

Large Numbers Display

For those of us who are having trouble reading all of those numbers that run together...

Could we [please] add commas (or locale-based version) for those that are over 1000 ?

I know this occurs in the credits and averages.  There may be other places.

Thanks.

Wish List Items

Item - *Wanted WU* Constraint for Per Project
Would it be possible to extend the *Wanted WU* concept that is currently *per computer* to have a constraint *per project* ?

Reason -  The Hydrogen@Home project generally allows only 9+ hours for a 4+ hours run.  But this means that I can only really have at most two at a time (per processor), and since it does a check *very* often, sometimes it over provides more than can possible be performed in the allowed timeframe.  Having a maximum count would help with this problem.

----

Item - Set Task to be *Waiting To Run*
Would it be possible to add the ability to set a task into the *Waiting To Run* state (without actually starting it) ?

Reason -  Sometimes is is nice to clear out odd tasks that need to be processed before the others currently in the *Ready To Start* status.  I like to do this to clear out short-processes, or ones that are 'older' (SETI-dated).  Currently, I do this my suspending all the others, then suspending a running task (hence, starting the one that I want to start), and them resetting all of them back to un-suspended, then doing fix-ups on those that should be running, etc.  It is a painful process that could be eliminated by being able to set a task higher up in the queue by setting it to the *Waiting To Run* state.

---

OCD lives.

Rule Condition Suggestion
'Same Task' Condition

I have set up a rule that allows me to suspend tasks that do not complete an initialization phase (these are SETI tasks).  The init phase is (should be) 30sec to 1min long, and drops the GPU temp (on my system) to less than 37C.  Thus when the init gets 'stuck', the temp stays low, and the rule fires.

The rule is set to be based upon the temp (GPU temp) being less than 45C, with the rule timer set to 10 minutes to take into account any false positives.   I have the rule set to suspend the task on this condition.

What seems to be happening is when the tasks are short (10-20 min), the rule condition often becomes true because the each task drops the temp below the set point, and the rule timer happens to fire during the init phase of a *different* following task, resulting in suspending every 3/4/5th task.

I see and agree with the basis of the rule being system (non-task) specific, and there is a condition to test for a project or a specific application.

But...

Would there be a way to in indicate that the rule be same-task-specific or rather, keep the 'same task' as a condition ?   Maybe a checkbox condition that the rule also include the last task's identifier (id/name/whatever) as part of the next-check condition.

Of course one would need to determine if this is applicable to just my situation or is possibly applicable to a larger group of general cases before going to a lot of coding.

Thanks.

Some things that may make sense to enhance the project:
(meant ONLY as constructive suggestions)

Rule Suggestions

    (1) an option to trap items from the message log, probably as a simple text match or as complicated as a REGEX -- as I do get errors that show up in the message log and nowhere else (like 'Re-setting  task...') and this would let me see them when they occur instead of just happening to find them when something seems odd
    (2) an option that un-sets the 'rule' color when the condition becomes 'normal' (when the rule trigger condition no longer applies); -- this may be really out of line as a suggestion
    (3) Rule Edit -- a double-click to do an edit of an existing rule

Some things that may make sense to enhance the project:
(meant ONLY as constructive suggestions)

a review/rethink of the menu items -- as a project grows, some items get misplaced or are not in keeping with the original intent of the menu classifications, such as

    (1) Show Log and Show Rule Log may be better placed under the SHOW list instead of the HELP
    (2) Report Completed Projects may be better placed under the PROJECTS lists to group project-related items
    (3) EXTRA may be better renamed CONFIG or SETTINGS or OPTIONS -- as that is what all the other items really do

Temperature Rule

This is currently one value.
And I suspect that it checks the CPU.
Is there a way to check the CPU and the GPU temperatures separately ?

This is because some recent SETI tasks are having difficulty jumping into GPU mode after initialization, and stay with a high CPU (==> CPU temp), when it should be released and the GPU take over.

Having this breakout will allow me to trap for this occurrence.

Thanks.

Running Hydrogen@Home with its tight schedules required me to look at the Deadline Warning settings.

As I understand it (I am guessing), the deadline warning is set as:

Current Time  + Estimated Duration >=  Deadline time

This seems to be fine when the deadline time is less than midnight.

But it seems to be failing (that is, just giving the wrong coloration, nothing else),
when the deadline is over the midnight boundary.

Example:

Current Time + Estimated Duration     Warning Time                   Deadline  
4pm                 6 hrs                               3 hrs                            1 am                     OK
4pm                 6 hrs                               4 hrs                            1 am                     Warning Color Shown

I have sent images to the same email given before.
The clock-time is not shown on the images, but they are about 4pm

Thanks.

Display of timers in Suspend Mode

I have noticed this only a few times before in earlier version, starting in the early .5x , but it is certainly not a regular occurrence.

When I do notice it, I am completely unable to track down any reasonable criteria that makes it happen.

When I suspend an item, *sometimes* the timer of the elapsed time shows some value (typically without hours) that does not correspond to the elapsed time.

I have screen shots of the original time on the item, the changed (incorrect) time shown when suspended, and the recovery of the original time after restarting the item.

Please let me know where to send or upload the images (600K zip file, multiple formats for image clarity)
The affected item is line #2 in the list

Thanks.

On updating to the latest (.44) version of BT with the latest Boinc 6.10.36 I am seeing a symptom of performing some BT operations.

I will sometimes suspend a couple of tasks to get a few more running, or to prioritize some in the queue.

What I see happening now that was not happening before is that the Boinc will hit the configured Boinc Preference: "While processor usage is less than ____"
I have had this at 25%, and previously have had no occurrence of the symptom.

What happens is that all of the tasks will go into an 'automatic suspended' mode with a status of 'waiting to start; suspended' (or the like) and the message window will record a "Suspending Computation - CPU usage is too high".  This will clear up and go back to normal withing 10-20 seconds (I use slow refresh rate).

Setting the Boinc Preference higher (like 50% seems to affect the symptom little, as it easily goes into this mode.
Setting it to 0 ('no restriction') fixes the symptom, but then this completely removes the automatic suspension that I do want to have when I am performing other processing on the computer.

What seems to be happening is since BT is not considered an official 'Boinc Process', and is being considered a foreign (ie: normal user computer process) and thus Boinc is automatically suspending all of its processing when BT does some things that take a moment of two to complete.

Maybe Boinc can be either be told that BT is a friendly process and not to be considered foreign, or BT can temporarily set the preference to the max while it is doing some processing that may take a bit of time and reset it back when done.

Just a thought.
Thanks.

A Wish List item...

Addition of a quick(er) way to set and unset the Combined Filters that is based upon the status;
maybe something like a "control-double-click"  that would examime the current status of the item under the cursor, and then set (combine) or unset (expand) those of the same status.

Where this would be helpful is that for some of us who do have hundreds of tasks, and we beleive that it is convenient to leave the task list viewable (with all except actual 'running' tasks being combined), then this would eliminate several clicks and menu selections in order to do a series of expansions-combinations for a quick view of what is pending and back again.

Thanks.